Primary Sources
What are primary sources?
Primary sources are original materials or data created by an individual or organization
- Autobiography
- Court cases
- Films
- Letters
- Newspaper accounts of an event
- First hand observations
- Novels
- Official memoranda
- Original research articles
- Paintings
- Performances and plays
- Photographs
- Poems
- Posters
- Sculptures
- Short stories
- Speeches
- Television shows
- Statistics
What is a secondary source?
Secondary sources analyze, interpret or comment on the primary source materials. These include books, encyclopedia articles, critical essays, articles, reviews, dissertations and more.
Locating Primary Sources in Snoopy
By keyword:
Other keywords to try:
- Archives
- Autobiography
- Correspondence
- Court records
- Description and travel
- Diaries
- Imprints
- Interviews
- Manuscripts
- Oratory
- Passenger lists
- Personal narratives
- Speeches
- Transcripts
Tips:
Carefully examining the references cited or bibliography in secondary sources can often be valuable in locating primary sources.
Databases with primary sources:
- American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
- America's Historical Newspapers (1690-1876)
- American State Papers, 1789-1838
- APS Online (American Periodical Series) - Search a selection of periodicals ranging from 1740 to the early 1900s.
- Black Thought & Culture
- British & Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries
- Congressional Quarterly Historic Documents
- Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970. California
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans Collection
- Early Encounters in North America
- Early English Books Online
- Historical New York Times
- Historical LA Times
- JSTOR (full text journals back to 1888)
- Lexis/Nexis (newspapers, wire services, legal cases, statutes and regulations, public opinion surveys)
- Los Angeles Times - Historical 1881-1985
- New York Times - Historical 1851-2001
- North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries
- Oral History Online
- RAND California (statistics)
- Women and Social Movements 1600-2000
- WorldCat
- U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980
Primary sources on the Web:
- American Memory Library of Congress
- Calisphere - A World of Digital Resources
- Repositories of Primary Sources Describes holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, photographs, etc.
- Digital Book Index Indexes more than 25,000 titles from public archives
- The Federalist Papers
- In the First Person An index to letters, diaries, oral histories and personal narratives.
- Making of America Primary sources documenting American social history from antebellum through reconstruction
- UC Berkeley: Oral History Links
- UNESCO Archives Portal
- UNESCO/IFLA Directory of Digitized Collections
- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
