Primary Sources
Finding primary sources is a multi-step process. There is no "one-stop-shop" database that will give you everything you need for your paper. Follow these tips:
- Look at the bibliographies and footnotes from articles and books to see what primary sources those scholars are using for evidence
- Think and research multiple institutions, archives, or repositories that could have information and collections about your project
- Use historical language
- Keep it simple. Use broad keywords to find sources
When searching for primary source collections online, include the following additional phrases with your first key words:
- online collections
- digital collections
- digitized collections
- historical collections
Be aware that digital collections only show a small portion of what an institution holds!
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American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals (EBSCO) This link opens in a new windowThe AAS Historical Periodicals Collection contains more than 6,500 historical periodical titles documenting the life of America’s people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the early 20th century. The collection is grouped in 5 series which are chronological in nature. The 5 series can be searched together or separately.
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American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new windowAmerican History, 1493-1945 traces the progress of American History and extensively covers the major themes of the period from colonization and settlement through the revolution, expansion, politics, slavery, the Civil War and reconstruction, to World War II. It contains thousands of primary source documents; the majority is unique manuscript material.
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Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States. The approximately 15,000 articles, documents, correspondence, proceedings, manuscripts, and literary works of almost 300 Black abolitionists show the full range of their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany.
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Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the Present This link opens in a new windowBlack Thought and Culture provides monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to the present. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
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China, America and the Pacific: Trade and Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new windowChina, America and the Pacific explores the history of North American trade and cultural interactions with China. Coverage also includes Pacific trading centers such as Hawai‘i.
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Colonial America This link opens in a new windowColonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. They have been published in five modules.
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Early American Imprints Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new windowThe collection is a foundation set for research involving early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, and more. It is the definitive resource for information about every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and many other topics.
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Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowGale Primary Sources is an integrated platform that combines Gale’s digital archives into a single cross-searchable interface. This broadens and enhances the ability to discover primary source documents from multiple collections. This platform combines dozens of historical archives which include monographs, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, and photographs and covers more than 500 hundred of years of history.
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Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new windowIn the late 1800s, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs Gerritsen began collecting monographs and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women’s rights. By the time her successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women’s history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and fifteen languages.
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Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new windowGlobal Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange explores the history of key commodities that changed the world. These commodities have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They transformed societies, global trading operations and habits of consumption, giving rise to new consumer desires and aspirations.
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North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowNorth American Women’s Letters and Diaries is a collection of American and Canadian women’s diaries and correspondence. Spanning more than 300 years, it will bring the personal experiences of 1,500 women to researchers, students, and general readers. It will include over 1,000 volumes of published and unpublished material.
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Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new windowDesigned for teaching and research, Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world, covering an extensive time period from 1490. Topics covered include the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today. This resource offers in-depth case studies in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba, along with important material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.
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Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new windowSlavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is a thematically organized, four-part historical archive devoted to the scholarly study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective.
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Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowOrganized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history.
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Archives of Latin America and Caribbean History 16th-20th Century This link opens in a new windowWorld Scholar: Latin American & the Caribbean is a multidisciplinary database designed to meet the needs of researchers, postgraduates, and undergraduates with interests in regional studies, history, political science, anthropology, sociology, economics, and international relations. It includes a comprehensive range of content for the region, providing research across the humanities both for current issues and events in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as for historical perspective back to the colonial period.
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America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowAmerica’s Historical Newspapers features cover-to-cover reproductions of historic newspapers. The first series of this collection is based largely on Clarence Brigham’s History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 and offers an unprecedented look back into the extraordinary history of the United States—the story of its people, ideals, commerce, and everyday life.
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Chronicling America This link opens in a new windowA freely available collection of digitized historic American newspapers, 1690-1963.
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Pennsylvania Gazette This link opens in a new windowFull text of the Pennsylvania Gazette, published in Philadelphia, one of the premier newspapers of the colonial, Revolutionary, and early national periods. The Pennsylvania Gazette (12/26/1736-12/27/1775) is also available on America’s Historical Newspapers. The Morris Library has a complete run of the Pennsylvania Gazette on microfilm at Microfilm S 26; a facsimile edition at AN2 .A2 P45; and a CD-ROM edition available in Microforms.
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Gale Primary Sources: Newspapers This link opens in a new window
An integrated platform that combines Gales digital newspaper archives into a single cross-searchable interface to enhance the ability to discover primary source documents from multiple collections. Over 20 collections are available to University of Delaware users on this platform. (Coverage: 17th - 21st centuries)
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Founders Online (NARA)Letters and records from America's early presidents including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
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Internet African History Sourcebook - Fordham UniversityAfrica is both the most clearly defined of continents - in its geography - and the hardest to pin down in historical terms. Human beings originated in Africa and, as a result, there is more diversity of human types and societies than anywhere else. It is not possible, in any non-ideological way, to claim any one of these peoples or societies as more essentially "African" than others; nor is it possible to exclude a given society as "not really African." On this site historical sources on the history of human societies in the continent of Africa are presented, when available, without making prejudgements about what is "African."
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Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French RevolutionDo you need documents for a paper? Or images to illustrate greater understanding of critical decisions? Would you like a general introduction to the exciting events of the French Revolution? Or are you looking for inspiration? You can find any of these and so much more because this site includes 250 images, 350 text documents, 13 songs, 13 maps, a timeline, and a glossary as well as 12 topical essays.
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Library of Congress Digital CollectionsFreely available digitized materials from the Library of Congress, including the collections formerly called American Memory. Change the area that you are searching under to the Prints & Photographs Division.
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Napolean.orgWhether you're a fan or a specialist, a young historian or just landed here by accident, this site offers a detailed account of the history of the two great French Empires. There are timelines, bibliographies and articles, there are "focus on" files and commentaries on Napoleonic imagery, and there are pages bringing you the basic info as well as a wealth of more detailed documentation. It's a Napoleonic one-stop shop!
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New York Public Library Digital CollectionsAlthough NYPL has a New York History focus, it has a rich collection on a variety of topics ranging from a local to an international focus.