ENGL 207: Introduction to Creative Writing: Fiction and Poetry Workshop - Mackey, Hannah (Spring 2025) : Find Primary Sources

Primary sources are materials from the time period that report on what is happening.  Examples include books (e.g., personal narratives, memoirs, and autobiographies, collected works, and collections of documents); journal and magazine articles, newspaper articles, government documents, archival sources (.e.g, diaries, interviews, memos, manuscripts, and other papers and records of organizations); and multimedia sources (e.g., photographs, audio recordings, and motion pictures or video recordings). 

 Use the tips below to search the Library Catalog for books that contain primary sources.

• Words in catalog records can identify an item as a primary source. Search for format related words like: advertisements, autobiographies, correspondence, diaries, documents, interviews, journal, letters, manuscripts, personal narratives, sources, speeches, etc. You can combine a primary-source format word with words describing your topic (e.g., letters and Lincoln or diaries and civil war).
• To find diaries, letters, autobiographies, personal papers, etc., by a particular person, search for the person's name as an author.
• For more information about finding primary sources, see the Research Guides on this page.

See the Research Guides below for more information about primary sources. The Research Guides include many more online resources including ones with historical journals, magazines and newspapers and documents.

You can search for historical newspapers that could also be used as primary sources.

This newspaper research guide has an entire page for finding Historical Newspapers.