Research & Subject Guides: AAS 401/501: Primary Sources

Finding Primary Sources

To find primary sources at Stony Brook, use the Libraries' "SEARCH" discovery tool.

You can include various words in your search that will help you locate primary source material. A good general word to include would be sources.

For example, if you are looking for primary sources on the Philippines, you can search for Philippines and sources.

Also try these Library of Congress subject headings that are often used for primary sources:

Correspondence
Diaries
Interviews
Personal narratives

Audio and Visual Resources

There are an increasing number of excelent web sites that have audio-visual proimary source material.

Internet Archive - Probably the best overall collection of audio-visual material that could be used for primary sources. The Archive currently contains almost 400,000 moving images and nearly 700,000 audio items, along with software and other material.

YouTube - Great resource for finding speeches and hidtoric news items, as well as musical and cinematic trasures.

Digital Collections at Stony Brook

Digital National Security Archive
1942-present. Fulltext. Over 63,000 of the most important declassified documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. Includes presidential directives, memos, diplomatic dispatches, meeting notes, White House communications, email, confidential letters and other secret material.
Empire Online
Fulltext. Primary source material linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. Includes exploration journals & logs, letters, diaries, government papers, missionary papers, slave papers, travel writing, memoirs, maps, etc.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Colonial-1950. Fulltext primary sources. The experiences of 1,325 women in 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources.
Oral History Online
Fulltext and citations. Indexes more than 2,700 collections of Oral History in English from around the world. Contains almost 281,000 pages of full-text by close to 10,000 individuals from all walks of life. Also has pointers to 4,100 audio and video files.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
1600-2000. Fulltext primary sources. Women's reform activities in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Includes books, pamphlets, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies.

Searching Historical Newspapers: Online

LIBRARY DATABASES

New York Times Archive - 1851-3 years ago. Online access to page images and fulltext articles from the New York Times as far back as the first issue.

For newspaper articles after approx. 1980, you can search the following databases:

LexisNexis Academic - Thousands of newspapers, from major ones to more regional titles. Washington Post goes back to about 1975. Most papers go back to the mid 1980s or 1990.

Ethnic NewsWatch - Newspapers from minority and ethnic presses that often don't get covered in LexisNexis or Factiva. Most go back to early 1990s.

Newsday - 1985-present.

ON THE INTERNET

Chronicling America - The Library of Congress - Newspapers from some states from 1860-1922.

ICON: International Coalition on Newspapers - Best single guide to online newspapers. Lists digitization projects in the U.S. and around the world. Shows which are freely accessible and which cost money.

Google News Archive - Contains a mix of free and pay online newspapers, mostly from the 20th century.

Primary Sources on the Web

Library of Congress Digital Collections
Coverage varies. Free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. A digital record of American history and creativity. From the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions.

Densho Digital Repository
Documents regarding the Japanese American incarceration experience.
Digital Public Library of America
Digitized collections from a variety of libraries covering history, social movements, sports, leisure, and more.
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts. The main sourcebooks have primary documents for Ancient, Medieval, and Modern history. Other subsidiary sourcebooks include: African, East Asian, Global, Indian, Jewish, Islamic, Lesbian/Gay, Science, Women.
South Asian American Digital Archive
Documents on stories of South Asian Americans.
South Asian Oral History Project
Narratives of South Asians in the Pacific Northwest. Project was from the University of Washington Libraries.

Special Collections & University Archives

Special Collections and University Archives select, acquire, preserve and provide access to rare, valuable, and scarce primary and secondary materials in a variety of formats in support of the educational and research endeavors of Stony Brook University's students, faculty, and staff.

The department also extends its services to researchers in the wider geographic region, nationally, and internationally.

The collection includes: books, manuscripts, and maps dating from the 15th century; the University Archives; audio/visual materials; and a digital repository. All are welcome to explore the library's unique collections.

AAS 401/501

Finding Primary Sources

Audio and Visual Resources

Digital Collections at Stony Brook

Searching Historical Newspapers: Online

Primary Sources on the Web

Special Collections & University Archives

Library

Resources

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