Research & Subject Guides: History: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied.

In historiography, a primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording, artifact, or other source of information that was created at the time under study, usually by a source with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic.

Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources, though the distinction is not a sharp one. "Primary" and "secondary" are relative terms, with sources judged primary or secondary according to specific historical contexts and what is being studied. [From Wikipedia]

Tips on searching primary sources:

limit searches to the timeframe of your topic
use keywords from your background research to pinpoint specific people, places, and institutions related to your topic
in most databases you can tighten up your search results by searching phrases in quotes: "Watergate hotel", "Volstead Act"

For a tutorial on primary sources, see the Primary Sources webpages on the SBU Special Collections and University Archives website.

Historical Newspapers and Periodicals

Historical Books, Oral Histories, Multimedia, and Other Resources

60 Minutes: 1997-2014 The 60 MINUTES: 1997-2014 online collection provides 350 hours of high-definition video from television's most preeminent news program, including hundreds of segments not available anywhere else in the world. This resource also includes 175 hours of bonus segments from the popular CBS News program Sunday Morning.
Civil Right and Social Justice HeinOnline’s Civil Rights database brings together a diverse offering of publications covering civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans. Containing hearings and committee prints, legislative histories on the landmark legislations, CRS and GAO reports, briefs from major Supreme Court cases, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, this database allows users to educate themselves on the ways our civil rights have been strengthened and expanded over time, as well as how these legal protections can go further still.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) 1473-1700. Fulltext. Virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Contains more than 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions. Subject areas include English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.
Early Modern Books Early Modern Books covers material from the British Isles and Europe for the period 1450-1700. An integrated search across both Early English Books Online and Early European Books allows scholars to view materials from over 225 source libraries worldwide.
Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound 15th Century to early 20th Century. Fulltext primary sources. A comprehensive online collection offering a wide range of writings on the subject of witchcraft from the 15th century to the early 20th century, including many rare and fragile manuscripts of eyewitness accounts, court records of the trials of witches, and depositions taken from the victims. The collection also includes: Anti-persecution writings; Legal and church documents and Philosophical writings, as well as numerous dissertations and printed works examining theological, legal, and social implications of witchcraft.
Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 1700-1799. Fulltext. Major digital collection consisting of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Includes over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes) - books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue.
Gale Primary Sources: Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana – A Dictionary of Books Relating to America From its Discovery to the Present Time, Sabin Americana, 1500–1926 is an online collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana, 1500–1926 is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more. Covering a span of 400 years in North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, this fully searchable digital archive is an essential tool for the study of the western hemisphere. It provides primary source material critical to the understanding of the society, politics, religious beliefs, literature, customs and momentous events of the times. (Description from vendor)
Gale Primary Sources: The Making of the Modern World 1450-1914. Full-text. Includes Part I: The Goldsmiths’-Kress Collection, 1450-1850 and Part II: 1851-1914. An online library of over 66,000 titles, including books, reports, surveys, government publications, correspondence, political pamphlets, speeches, and 466 pre-1906 serials. Combining collections at University of London and Harvard University, The Making of the Modern World is a critical resource for international coverage of social, economic, and business history, as well as political science, technology, industrialization and the birth of the modern corporation. The global scope and wide subject range make it a key resource for History, Economics, Asian Studies, International Affairs, Africana Studies, Political Science, Women/Gender, Anthropology, Law and Philosophy.
HistoryMakers Digital Archive The HistoryMakers was founded to address the lack of documentation and preservation of the African American historical record. It captures – one person at a time – the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans, and by creating a priceless video collection giving those involved their special place in history. The testimonies captured in The HistoryMakers Collection – conducted in homes and offices across the United States and abroad – reveal the broad scope of narratives of African American men and women who have made significant contributions to American life, history, and culture during the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Medici Archive Project Documentary Sources for the Arts and Humanities in the Medici Granducal Archive, 1537-1743, is a fully searchable database describing hundreds of volumes of documents in the Medici Granducal Archive (Archivio Mediceo del Principato).
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.
ProQuest Congressional 1789-present. Some fulltext from early 1990s-present.Subjects covered include U.S. bills, committee prints, Congressional Record, Code of Federal Regulations, documents, Federal Register, hearings, laws, legislative histories, members, and regulations.
ProQuest History Vault Including documents from the collections: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle, Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War, American Indians and the American West, American Politics and Society, International Relations and Military Conflicts, Revolutionary War and Early America, Women's Studies, Workers, Labor Unions, and Radical Politics
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Women and Social Movements, International: 1840 to Present Women and Social Movements, International is a landmark collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
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.

Selected Primary Sources on the Web

Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: A Selection of Primary Sourcess This website contains approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom: Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860) The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877) Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932) The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945) The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975) The Contemporary Era (1976-2000) The documents presented here represent a selection of primary sources available in several ProQuest databases.

Darwin's Manuscripts The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) offers online access to Charles Darwin's surviving 46,032 pages of scientific manuscripts—his original notes, notebooks, and drafts—that contain the crucial documentary evidence for the birth and maturation of his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. The site contains all Darwin’s botany and zoology manuscripts and embraces all those on human evolution.

David Rumsey Historical Maps
The Doris Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History Links to sites with primary historical documents for European countries and regions. Includes prehistoric and ancient Europe.
The European Library
Google Books
Internet Archive
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.

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.

Making of America

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) NARA has preserved and provided access to the records of the United States of America for more than seven decades. Records help us claim our rights and entitlements, hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, & document our history as a nation. In short, NARA ensures continuing access to the essential documentation of the rights of American citizens and the actions of their Government. NARA is the keeper of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

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History

Primary Sources

Historical Newspapers and Periodicals

Historical Books, Oral Histories, Multimedia, and Other Resources

Selected Primary Sources on the Web

Library

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