LibGuides: HIST 3345: Global 1960s: Revolution from the College Campus to the Battle Grounds (Spring 2025): Primary Sources

Definitions

What makes a source primary?

It depends on the topic and the time period; it can be complicated.

Talk specifics with your professor.

Very basic, simplistic definition: What is a primary source?

Alternative

Alt-Press Watch
Alt-PressWatch includes full-text newspapers and magazines from alternative, independent presses, providing an unmatched, multidisciplinary resource for researchers seeking an alternative to mainstream media perspectives.
Coverage: 1970 - current
AltPressIndex [aka Alternative Press Index, 1991- ]
Baltimore: Alternative Press Center. Subscription.
Coverage and format: 1991 to date. API and APIA can be searched together in the EBSCO interface.
Alternative Press Archive
Alternative Press Index Archive (APIA) is a bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from over 700 international alternative, radical, and left periodicals that cover the period of 1969 through 1990. Born of the New Left, the Alternative Press Index, was launched in 1969 to provide access to the emerging theories and practices of radical social change. Coverage is both international and interdisciplinary. With over 474,000 records, the APIA is an invaluable companion to the Alternative Press Index, which is considered the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to alternative sources of information available.
Left Index
Comprehensive guide to the diversity of literature on the left, with a primary emphasis on political, economic, social and culturally engaged scholarship inside and outside academia. A secondary emphasis is on significant but little known sources of news and ideas. Topics covered include the labor movement, ecology & environment, race & ethnicity, social & cultural theory, sociology, art & aesthetics, philosophy, history, education, law, and globalization.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Parts I & II
Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Cengage Learning, 2016- .
Part of Gale Primary Sources and cross-searchable with all the other databases therein.
Full Text
"...a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender.." [Publisher's summary]
LGBT Life with Full Text
Indexes and abstracts the worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, as well as full text for more than 50 journals, magazines and regional newspapers and dozens of books. Also includes a specialized LGBT thesaurus with over 6,400 terms.
Underground Newspaper Collection
Library Annex Microfilm 3055
476 reels of microfilm with lots of publications, including radical student newspapers!
Use the reel guide and ask for help at Olin Walk-in Reference.

Recommended Primary Source Collections

The Sixties: primary documents and personal narratives 1960-1974
Diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Adam Matthew Digital.
"Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. The collection includes pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, underground magazines, visual and video materials and ephemera and memorabilia. Part II contains additional material, such as music, press kits, mail order catalogues, advertising proofs, additional photos from the Mirrorpix archives, and documents on student unrest and the Troubles in Northern Ireland." [home page]
Gale Primary Sources
Cross-search multiple Gale collections including Making of the Modern World, Eighteenth Century and Nineteenth Century collections, Making of Modern Law, and other Archives products.
Cornell's Primary Source Databases

Primary Source Popular Periodicals

Readers' guide retrospective. Comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States 1890 through 1982.

Newspapers

Primary Source Newspapers

English Language International

The [London] Times digital archive, 1785-2006 Full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for the years 1785-2006.

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports
Created by the U.S. intelligence community to benefit policy makers and analysts, FBIS Daily Reports offer foreign views and perspectives on historical events from thousands of monitored broadcasts and publications. Translated into English from more than 50 languages, these comprehensive media reports from around the globe include news, interviews, speeches and editorial commentary. This comprehensive, fully searchable edition of the FBIS Daily Reports covers such topics as political, military and social issues, economics, science and technology for eight world regions from 1941-1996.

More international newspapers...

Selected United States

American Historical Newspapers Online

ProQuest historical newspapers. Major newspapers, mostly American, starting from the end of the 19th century until a few years ago.

More American newspapers..

Government documents

Proquest Congressional
A full-text collection of House & Senate Documents, Reports, Hearings, Bills, Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, and the Congressional Record.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
(HCPP). Includes over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1688. It offers page images and searchable full text for each paper, along with detailed indexing.

Useful Tips

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 medieval sources. Use the guided keyword search with terms like:

sources
diaries
personal narrative
interview
letters

HIST 3345: Global 1960s: Revolution from the College Campus to the Battle Grounds (Spring 2025)