What makes a source primary?
Primary sources are original documents and objects which were created at the time. Typical examples include letters, diaries, photos, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, autobiographies, government reports, paintings, maps, etc. In actuality, it can be more complicated and can depend on the topic/time period.
Always clarify with your professor.
Cameras in the Archives
Victorian Spy Camera Watch by Brett Jordan. Source: Flickr.
Archival material cannot typically be checked out, interlibrary loaned, photocopied or scanned. But most will allow you to take photos of pages.
Useful Tips for finding printed primary sources in library catalogs
Browse footnotes and bibliographies of books, encyclopedias, and articles for information about primary sources.
Search the Library Catalog for primary sources--both unpublished manuscripts and modern editions in print and online, sometimes in translation, of original primary sources. Use the "advanced search" with the terms for primary sources below as subjects, not keywords.
Library catalog/database terms for primary sources:
- sources
- diaries
- personal narratives
- interviews
- letters
- bibliographies
Sources means primary sources in a library catalog and it is the most powerful term in the list. It can mean a printed, edited, modern edition of an archival source; or it can mean a collection of excerpted, translated sources which might have the words "reader" or "documents" in the title; or it can mean a book about primary and secondary sources. All are invaluable. The footnotes and bibliography of any of them will lead to more sources.
Personal narratives is a newer library catalog subject term encompassing letters, interviews, oral histories, diaries, journals, etc.
Bibliographies are whole books devoted to a topic, usually a broader topic such as "Vietnam War" or "Early Modern Europe." They are a list of sources, often primary and secondary, generally described and annotated. Extremely helpful for getting a handle on sources and the scholarly literature on a topic.
Selected Primary Source Collections Online
- World Newspaper ArchiveA fully searchable collection of historical newspapers from around the globe. Includes more than 40 nineteenth- and twentieth-century African newspapers, South Asia, Latin American newspapers and more.
- HistoryMakers"Focused on American history, oral history and education in general and more specifically on African American history, education, music, law, the arts, science, technology, media, medicine, entertainment, fashion&beauty, business, the military, politics and sports, The History Makers is a combination archive, library, museum, stock footage collection, on-line educator and educational PBS/TV programming. Its topics include but are not limited to African American organizations and associations, slavery, reconstruction, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and black authors."
- eHRAF World CulturesA rich collection of accounts and reports from travelers, anthropologists, missionaries and others about cultures from all over the world mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Freedom on the MoveA database of antebellum newspaper advertisements for fugitives from American slavery. Self-liberating people are described including items of clothing.
- Evans digital edition (American Imprints)Books printed in the US during the 17th and 18th centuries.
- Eighteenth century collections online (ECCO)English-language and foreign-language books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera printed in the UK and the Americas, between 1701 and 1800.
- Early English books online (EEBO)Covers 1450-1661.
- Early encounters in North America: peoples, cultures, and the environment. 1534 to 1850The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women.
- American journeys eyewitness accounts of early American exploration and settlementEyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies.
- Making of AmericaPrimary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
- American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital LibraryPrimary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
- The March of TimeA unique and controversial newsfilm series made 1935-1967, available in a searchable online video collection.
- AccuNet/AP Multimedia ArchiveCurrent and historical images for the last 150 years from the Associated Press.
Primary Source Newspapers
United States
- Proquest Historical NewspapersThe New York Times (1851-2003), the Wall Street Journal (1889-1989), the Washington Post (1877-1990), every page from every issue in PDF files.
- Nexis Uni (formerly, Lexis Nexis Academic)Dates of coverage vary by news source. Back to 1980.
- Chronicling America: Historic American NewspapersIn development. Newspaper pages from 1880-1910
International
- Nexis Uni (formerly, Lexis Nexis Academic)News from around the world. Dates of coverage vary by news source. Back to 1980.
- The Times digital archive, 1785-2006Full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for the years 1785-2006.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Services (FBIS) daily reports, 1974-1996.Official US government English translations of radio and television transcripts and newspaper articles from around the world. Begun in the 1940s. Pre-1974 text on microfiche, see Locating FBIS Microfiche in Olin Library.
Selected Primary Source Periodicals
- Readers' guide retrospective.Comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States 1890 through 1982.
- American Periodical Series/APS online
1740-1900. Indexes special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children’s and women’s magazines. Useful for historical advertising.
Official Sources
United States
- Foreign relations of the United States: electronic facsimile.Some years may not be available. Also available through the Department of State
- U.S. Congressional serial set (Online) 1817-1980Full text of all the reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Still in progress.
- A century of lawmaking for a new nation: U.S. Congressional documents and debates, 1774-1873Presents records and acts of Congress from the Journals of the Continental Congress through The Congressional Globe, which ceased publication with the Forty-second Congress in 1873.
- The making of modern law: legal treatises 1800-1926.The Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century Legal Treatises microfilm collections and 21,000 Anglo-American legal works including casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches as well as material that isn't narrowly legal.
International
- House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (1688-to present)Full text with detailed subject indexing.
- British Records on the Atlantic WorldConsists of 12 collections of manuscript material found in England. Includes materials such as journals, correspondence, official records, personal papers, and printed books from over a two hundred year period, all related to British involvement in the Atlantic region, including both Africa and the Americas. It has a wealth of information about Britain’s colonization, commercial, missionary and even literary relations with Africa and the Americas. Alongside the records of Liverpool merchants involved in the infamous Triangular Trade, there are those of slave plantation owners, of early Anglican missionaries, and of naval and customs officials.
- British History OnlineBritish History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Included are the House of Commons Journal and House of Lords Journal