duPont Library: American Studies 420: Senior Research Seminar: Primary Resources

What Are Primary Resources

Original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. May include letters, diaries, manuscripts, journals, speeches, newspapers, interviews, memoirs, government documents, photographs, audio recordings, film or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, and tools.

Example:

Letter written by George Mason to John Mason

Credit: George Mason Primary Resources Guide

Types of Primary Resources

This is a list of the most common types of primary resources in history. When searching for sources, you might watch for these terms to help you figures out if you have found a primary resource. You might also use these terms in your searches to help focus on a particular type of source or narrow down a large list of results.

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autobiography/autobiographies
correspondence
description and travel
diary/diaries
documents
early works to 1800
interview/interviews
journal
letters
pamphlets
personal narratives
trials
sources
speeches

Primary Resources

Accessible Archives
Full text of important American newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Collection of primary source material from 18th & 19th century sources. Contains the full text of important American newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
This release contains 1,920 authors and approximately 97,000 pages of information. When complete, the collection will include more than 100,000 pages of primary materials.

Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1700s-present
Location: North America
Primary sources and archival materials relating to American culture and history, mostly from the collections of the Library of Congress. Includes written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
Organized into more than 100 collections, each accompanied by a set of explanatory features designed to make the materials easy to find, use, and understand. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or searched across multiple collections. Comprises more than 9 million items including written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music. Freely accessible.

American State Papers
Collection of legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes five series of Early American Newspapers: "From Colonies to Nation," "The New Republic," "From Farm to City," "The Rise of Industry," and "An Emerging World Power."

Archive of Americana
Collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries.
Center for Research Libraries

Discovering American Women’s History Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to Katrina Thomas's photographs of ethnic weddings from the late 20th century.
Documenting the American South This link opens in a new window
Time Period: 1600s-1940
Location: North America
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Includes: A Digitized Library of Southern Literature, Beginnings to 1920; First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920; North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920; The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; The Church in the Southern Black Community, Beginnings to 1920; The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940.
America's Historical Imprints - Evans This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1639-1800
Location: North America
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides covering American life from the 17th and 18th centuries. Part of the Archive of Americana.
Based on the American Bibliography by Charles Evans and published by Readex in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society. Includes thousands of books, pamphlets, and broadsides.
America's Historical Imprints - Shaw-Shoemaker This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1801-1819
Location: North America
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides covering American life from the early 19th century. Part of the Archive of Americana.
Based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph B. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and supplemented by thousands of new items. Offers fully searchable text and a browse feature with topical indexes.
History Matters: Many Pasts This link opens in a new window
Time Period: 1527-~2010
Location: North America
This free resources from George Mason University provides a collection of primary resources in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. History. Includes selected and curated brief excerpts from primary texts like letters and personal narratives.

Making of America
Collection of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
North American Women's Letters and Diaries (NWLD) includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Our Documents
Collection of 100 milestone documents of American history from the National Archives. Includes the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris, Bill of Rights, Gettysburg Address, Plessy v. Ferguson, Tennessee Valley Authority Act, Manhattan Project Notebook, Brown v. Board of Education, Aerial Photograph of Missiles in Cuba, and more.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set This link opens in a new window
Time Period: 1817-1980
Location: North America
Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank. A collection of reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes. Content covers 1817-1980. The maps published as part of the U. S. Congressional Serial Set publications are also searchable. This is a rich source of primary source material on all aspects of American history.
Search interface: Readex.
World History Sources This link opens in a new window
Guide to 200 of the best online primary source archives in world history with reviews.
WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch Interface) This link opens in a new window
A catalog of millions of items held by libraries worldwide.
Search interface: OCLC FirstSearch.

Jessie Ball duPont Library

American Studies 420: Senior Research Seminar

Subject Guide

What Are Primary Resources

Types of Primary Resources

Primary Resources