History Research Guide
Finding Primary Sources
Primary Sources Online:
Using Primary Sources on the Web - The site helps users to find, evaluate and cite primary sources on the web.
Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) - Full-page-images and article images from the New York Times (1851 to 3 years ago) and Wall Street Journal (1859 to 3 years ago). The collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files.
American Rhetoric - contains full text and audio files for speeches by contemporary and historical American figures.
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History - A collection of full-text documents important to the study of American History ranging from Christopher Columbus' writings to current presidential documents.
EuroDocs: Western European Primary Historical Documents - This Wiki includes Western European (mainly primary) historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. They shed light on key historical happenings within the respective countries.
MasterFILE Select - Includes: Essential Documents in American History, a database with the full text of over 1,000 historical documents.
- Use the Advanced Search option.
- Enter your keywords in the first seach box and "Essential Documents in American History" in the second box.
- Search results will contain documents from the "Essential Documents" collection.
American Memory - distinctive, historical Americana materials from the Library of Congress collections. Materials include photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, recorded sound, and moving pictures.
Finding Primary Sources at the Library
Primary sources are sometimes collected and re-published as books. There are a number of these collections in the Library and you can use the catalog to search for them. Try a keyword search using words to describe your subject in combination with a term to describe the source. For example:
| Martin
Luther King and speeches Holocaust and personal narratives Erie Canal and memoir |
Theodore
Roosevelt and letters Vietnam and documents Slave narratives |
Some terms that might work in combination with your subject are: correspondence;
diary or diaries; interview or interviews; letters; speeches; personal narrative;
memoirs; autobiography; laws; treaties; documents; maps; or papers.