Library Research for History 650: The Practice of History--Primary Sources
It's not always easy to say what is a primary source; be sure to check with your professor and discuss just what might be considered primary source material for the purpose of your research. Generally, primary source materials are considered to be those things--speeches, articles, diaries, news reports--produced at the time of the events you are investigating. The material produced after the fact to explain or explore an event is generally referred to as secondary source material.
Your sources must be fully documented in any written work you produce. It may help to look at the information on style before you start your research, so that you will have all the required documentation at hand when you need it. Then as you write, go back to the resources on style for details on the exact format of your citations.
As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.
Searching for Primary Source Material: Books in LUCIA
After performing a search in LUCIA, you can use the Narrow Search link at the top of the list of titles to limit your results to year(s)of publication. Using the Guided Search you can set date limits at the beginning of your search. In either case you can specify a single year or a range of years.
Another way to locate primary source materials is to use the Guided Search and include any of the following terms using the Subject Keywords option. Try some of these:
- autobiograph*
- correspondence
- diaries
- documents
- letters
- memoirs
- sources
To locate even more, try a Subject Keywords search for any of the terms above and add bibliography to your search, for example, sources and bibliography. This will help you find book-length bibliographies listing primary sources in and beyond our collections.
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Searching for Primary Source Material: Articles
Essay and General Literature Index. 1900 - 1994.
Indexes essays and articles in collections, anthologies, etc.
Reference Indexes
International Index. 1907-1965.
Indexes articles from scholarly journals. Title changed to Social
Sciences and Humanities Index.
Reference Indexes
JSTOR
JSTOR includes full-text of over 320 journals. Although JSTOR does not include the most recent years of any given title, it does have all issues back to the first volume, in many cases going back into the 1800's.
Public Affairs Information Service
Indexes articles, books, conference
proceedings, government documents, book chapters, and statistical directories
about public affairs and international relations.
Reference Indexes 1915-1972
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1907) and
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. 1900-1994.
Indexes articles from popular magazines.
Reference Indexes
Social Sciences and Humanities Index. 1966-1974.
The later title of the International Index. Subscequently divided into
the separate titles Humanities Index and Social Sciences Index.
Reference Indexes
Newspapers:
New York Times. 1851-current.
Considered to be the American paper of record. The New York Times
is on microfilm and on the web. While the electronic New York Times is searchable, the index is often a much better way to find primary material.
New York Times Index--Reference Indexes/Microform Area
New York Times (1851-2004)
Current issues available from many sources: see BESS
Times (London, England). 1941-current.
The leading British paper. The Times itself is held
on microfilm near the Reference offices.
Times index--Reference Indexes
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Primary Source Databases
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Pamphlets, flyers, and more printed between 1760 and 1900.
American Civil War: Letters & Diaries
Includes "2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs" dating from 1861-1865.
Archive of Americana
Provides access to American Broadsides, Early American Newspapers, American State Papers 1789-1838, Early American Imprints, and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980.
Early American Newspapers
Provides full-page images of newspapers dating from 1690 to the early 20th century.
Early English Books Online
Texts relevant to English literature, classical literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, political science, history of science, and the fine arts dating from 1475 to 1700.
Early American Imprints. Documents covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States.
Series I: Evans (1639-1800)
Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online. 150,000 books published during the 18th Century including these areas: history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
Perseus Digital Library
"Perseus is an evolving digital library, engineering interactions through time, space, and language." Originally focused on the classical world, Perseus now includes texts relevant to the history of other places and eras.
North American Women's Letters & Diaries
"Includes the immediate experiences of 442 women, as revealed in approximately 50,000 pages of diaries and letters" dating from the Colonial era to 1950. Searchable by authors, sources, years, personal events, and historical events.
Women Writer's Project
Full text collection of writing by women covering a period from 1400 to 1850.
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Primary Material from Other Sources
Government Documents are excellent sources for primary source material. See the information listed on the web page for History 650: Secondary Sources and go to the section on Government Documents; you should look specifically at the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications.
The History 650: Secondary Sources guide section on Research Guides can also direct you to primary sources. More primary documents may be available on the Web.
Remember to try keyword searches in LUCIA for terms like sources and bibliography. You will find items like the following titles:
American Diaries : An Annotated Bibliography of Published
American Diaries and Journals. 2 vols.
Ref. Z5305.U5 A74 1983
Autobiographies by Americans of Color 1980-1994 : An Annotated
Bibliography.
Z5305.U5 S78 1997
A Bibliography of American Autobiographies.
Ref. Z1224 .K3
Guide to the Manuscripts of the Wisconsin Historical
Society.
Ref. Z6621 .W77
Ref. Z6621 .W77 Suppl. (2 vols.)
Personal Writings by Women to 1900 : a Bibliography of American and British Writers.
Ref. Z1229.W8 D38 1989
Through a Woman's I : An Annotated Bibliography of American
Women's Autobiographical Writings, 1946-1976.
Ref. Z7963.B6 A32 1983
Women's Diaries, Journals, and Letters : An Annotated
Bibliography.
Ref. Z7963.B6 C55 1989
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Web Resources
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History
A substantial list from the University of Kansas.
American Memory
Sources from the Library of Congress.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress
A list with links to some of the major documents held in the collections of the Library of Congress. Sorted by major periods.
American Studies Hypertexts at the University of Virginia
Includes works of fiction as well as non-fiction.
The Avalon Project
Documents in law, history, and government from the Yale Law School.
Doing History: Directories Listing Sites for Professional Historians and Doing History: Sites for Popular History
Selected and presented by the History Department at Lawrence.
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
Primarily documents related to the history of the United States. See the digitized collections. Of particular interest--American historical sheet music.
Online Exhibits from the
National Archives and Records Administration
Features documents and images.
Historic Government Publications from World War II
A collection of PDF
documents from Southern Methodist University featuring just over 200 government documents from World War II.
History
United States government publications from the University of Louisville's Ekstrom Library.
Internet Resources for History
From the librarians of the Seeley G. Mudd Library. This list includes some of the specific sites mentioned here and more.
The Labyrinth
Resources for Medieval studies, sponsored by Georgetown University.
Making of America
A collaborative effort of the University of Michigan and Cornell
University.
U.S. History: Primary and Secondary Sources.
An article for the November 2001 issue of College and Research Libraries News by Paul A. Frisch. Includes materials related to many aspects of American history, including the Civil War, the New Deal, the Cold War, African-American history, women's history, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* history.
Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
From the
Virginia Center for Digital History
World Wide Web Virtual Library
Organized into four broad categories (History by Topics, History by Continents, History by Eras and Epochs, and Research: Methods and Materials).
Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Library of Congress Manuscript Division's First 100 Years
Includes a chronological list of documents.
Finding More
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. Be sure to look at the Internet Resources section of the History 650: Secondary Sources guide.
Digital Librarian
"A librarian's choice of the best of the Web."
INFOMINE for History
From the University of California. You may want to look at the general INFOMINE categories or the
resources for Social Sciences & Humanities.
Librarians' Internet Index
From the California State Libraries.
The Scout Report Archives
Sources selected and organized by the Internet Scout Project. The Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to assist in the advancement of resource discovery on the Internet.
Primary sources on the web may be transcripts or reproductions of original documents. It's as important to evaluate primary sources on the web as secondary ones. You should be sure the documents you find have been made available by a reputable source. There should be some statement about the source of the original document, a description of the process used post it, and the name or names of the person, institution, or organization responsible for making the document available. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources from the Lawrence library, this guide to Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources from UCLA, or this bibliography on Evaluation of Information Sources.
Be aware that you may have to include at least two different types of citations for primary materials: citations to original documents (if you use them) and citations to reprints of original documents. Reprints might include anything that appears as a transcript or a facsimile.
Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.
The Chicago Manual of Style.
A standard source for bibliographic format.
RRef. Z253 .U69 2003
Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to
other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.
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Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready Reference, shelves behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and scores; at end of classes in other collections
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And as always, if you need help, ask a Reference Librarian.