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Finding Primary Sources
What is a primary source?
a primary source is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study.
Many archival institutions put finding aids, or guides to their collections on the web. They also may have some of their collections digitized, and available online.
The Archival Research Catalog (ARC) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) can be used to search a subset of NARA documents that are available online. The tips page offers searching advice by subject area. Select the yellow button to open ARC and click the checkbox to limit to "Descriptions of Archival Materials linked to digital copies."
Primary Source MediaGuides, part of the Gale Group, has constructed a very large library of microfilm sets of primary sources materials covering the humanities and social sciences.
Guides for Finding and Using Primary Sources
Making Sense of Evidence: This site includes strategies for analyzing various types of primary source materials and interviews/case studies with leading scholars. From History Matters.
Finding Primary Newspapers and Magazines
Chronicling America: Chronicling America, a project from the Library of Congress supported by the NEH, provides full-text access to a number of digitized American newspapers from 1836-1922, with an index of newspapers dating back to the 1690s.
British Library - Newspaper Collections: NOTE December 2023: British Library's Digital Collections are not accessible due to a cybersecurity breach. Access to the British Library's digital newspaper collections requires a registration. Make sure to request copies of articles through Interlibrary Loan first--You shouldn't have to pay anything to use these services.
Making of America - Cornell University Library: "The Making of America project is a collaborative effort by the libraries of Cornell University and the University of Michigan to present digital copies of primary source materials published in the United States from before the American Civil War to the 1920s. Journals and other periodicals are the principal publications available, as well as some book titles. The fields of education, American history, religion, sociology, psychology, religion, and science and technology are especially well represented."
Making of America - University of Michigan Library: See entry for Making of America - Cornell University Library, above. The two Web sites hold different collections.
Finding Primary Government and Legal Documents
American Presidency Project: Nearly 40,000 documents related to the study of the American Presidency including the Public Papers of the President, State of the Union and inaugural addresses, presidential debates, national party platforms, and more. From UC Santa Barbara.
Ancestry Library: A genealogy collection that contains more than 4,000 databases and 1.5 billion names. You will need to login via VCSU's off-campus access button if you are off-campus.
Avalon Project at Yale Law School: "The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government." Search, browse by time period, or collection.
GovInfo.Gov: GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch. GovInfo provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
Official Document System of the United Nations: The Official Document System of the United Nations is "the electronic repository for official documents published by the United Nations." It includes full-text documents from the origin of the UN, in 1946, to the present.
Finding Primary Images and Maps
American Memory Project Maps Collection: The "Maps Collection" contains digital images of maps from the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. These images are taken from sources that are not protected by copyright protection, such as maps and atlases, and are organized into a growing number of categories, such as Civil War maps, panoramic maps, railroad maps, and national park maps.
David Rumsey Map Collection: This collection features maps of the Americas from the 18th and 19th centuries, although maps from other areas around world are included. Formats listed for the maps are "atlases, globes, school geographies, books, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps, including pocket, wall, children's and manuscript."
New York Public Library Digital Collections: Thousands of photographs, maps, and other digitized resources.
Images of Early Maps on the Web: A listing of over 1,200 sites with digitized images of early maps.
Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection: This website provides images of hundreds of maps in the public domain of the world's nations, major cities, state outlines, national park maps as well as thematic maps for high-interest topics.
Wikimedia Commons: Millions of online media files are stored in Wikimedia Commons. This database is freely accessible for anyone to use or contribute.
Finding Primary Audiovisual Resources
American Rhetoric - Online Speech Bank: "A Growing database of full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events."
British Library Sounds: NOTE December 2023: British Library's Digital Collections are not accessible due to a cybersecurity breach. Digital access to selected recordings from the British Library Sound Archive. U.S. researchers can search all recordings on the site, listen to recordings where copyright permits (currently over 22,900 items), and view notes and tags added by other users.
History Channel - Speeches: Listen to hundreds of 20th Century speeches. Categories include politics and government, war and diplomacy, science and technology, arts and entertainment. Free downloads.
Internet Archive - Moving Image Archive: The Internet Archive’s Moving Image Library contains hundreds of thousands of items ranging in length, content, and historical value. Many are available for free download in multiple file options.
Amistad Digital Resource - Civil Rights Era: Assembled by Columbia University, "The Amistad Digital Resource Project’s Civil Rights Movement section begins in 1954, with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to federally mandate the desegregation of public schools, and ends with the growing influence of black elected officials in mainstream political channels during the mid 1970s."
Civil Rights Digital Library: "The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale."
FBI Records - Civil Rights: Contains a collection of declassified FBI files on some of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement
Library of Congress - Civil Rights Primary Source Set: Contains two collections of primary documents intended for instructor use: the history of the NAACP and Jim Crow in America.
Amistad Digital Resource - Civil Rights Era: Assembled by Columbia University, "The Amistad Digital Resource Project’s Civil Rights Movement section begins in 1954, with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to federally mandate the desegregation of public schools, and ends with the growing influence of black elected officials in mainstream political channels during the mid 1970s."
Civil Rights Digital Library: "The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale."
FBI Records - Civil Rights: Contains a collection of declassified FBI files on some of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement.
Library of Congress - Civil Rights Primary Source Set: Contains two collections of primary documents intended for instructor use: the history of the NAACP and Jim Crow in America.
Documenting the American South: "Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to Southern history, literature, and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. DocSouth includes a growing suite of thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
UNC-CH Libraries Digital Collections: Explore the rich resources of the UNC Chapel Hill Libraries in digital format, such as Hugh Morton's photographs, North Carolina maps, the Thomas Wolfe Collection, and the crucial North Carolina 1898 election.
Digital Horizons: Digital Horizons was established in 2007 by a consortium including: Concordia College Archives, Moorhead, Minn.; NDSU Institute for Regional Studies & University Archives, Fargo, N.D.; Prairie Public Broadcasting, Fargo, N.D.; and State Historical Society of North Dakota, Bismarck, N.D. Digital Horizons provides, maintains, and preserves a wide range of historical and significant content related to North Dakota and Minnesota.
Germans from Russia Heritage Collection
Online Archive of California: "Open the virtual doors of these institutions from our home page. The key is the OAC's more than 20,000 online collection guides. You can use these to browse, locate resources, or view selected items digitally — the OAC contains more th 220,000 digital images and documents — or learn how you can gain access to the physical objects."
The Native Peoples of Northern Great Plains Digital Images: "The Native Peoples of Northern Great Plains Digital Images Database includes photographs, paintings, ledger drawings, documents, serigraphs, and stereographs from 1874 through the 1940's. In 1998, the images were digitized and drawn from the library collections of three of the Montana State University campuses (Billings, Bozeman and Havre), the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, and Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana."
National Museum of African American History & Culture: The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAACH) is part of the Smithsonian. Explore images of the objects in their collections and check out their digital learning modules!
National Archives News - African American History: This page by the National Archives offers a list of resources for viewing primary sources and learning about Black History.
Women Working, 1800-1930: "Provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features: 7,500 pages of manuscripts, 3,500 books and pamphlets, and 1,200 photographs."
American Journeys: "American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later." Search or browse by expedition, settlement, geographic region, state or province. From the Wisconsin Historical Society.
