There is a great deal of historical information in government documents and you often need them as primary sources for your research.
Start with the following resources:
ProQuest Congressionnal Publications
Congressional Publications; bills, laws and reglations; legislative histories; hearings and more
Library of Congress American Memory: Government Collection
For more information about finding government documents, use our Government Information Libguide.
Primary sources on specific topic are often collected and published as a monograph (collection of letters or speeches for example). A book can also include primary sources in appendices. To locate primary sources on your topic, an easy way is to search OSCAR, the library catalog, and to add to your search some keywords describing primary sources such as : letters or diaries, or documents, or sources. For example a search on Presidents and Speeches would retrieve the following book: "Speeches of the American Presidents".
Examples of Primary Sources
The Democratic Party: Documents Decoded
"Let the word go forth" : the speeches, statements, and writings of John F. Kennedy
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams : comprising portions of his diary from 1795 to 1848
Magazine and Newspaper Articles
Magazine articles from the popular press and newspaper articles are often used as primary sources in history research. Try the following databases and archives to find articles published during the time period you are interested in.
Opinions Archives
Provides access to the complete archives of 17 leading journals of opinion, including Dissent, Commentary, Harper's, National Review, The New Yorker, and The New Republic.
Readers' Guide Full-Text : This database provides indexing and abstracting of over 300 popular magazines from 1983 to date, with full text from over 150 publications back to 1994.
Readers' Guide Retrospective, 1890-1982 : Indexes more than 3 million articles from about 370 general interest, popular, news, and even a few scholarly, English language magazines and journals published between 1890 and 1982
Academic Search Premier : Provides access to magazine articles as well as scholarly journals in all disciplines, 1985-present.
American Periodical Series : A collection of full-text periodicals and primary source materials related to the American experience from the colonial days to 1900.
19th Century U.S. Newspapers
With digital facsimile images of both full pages and clipped articles for hundreds of 19th century U.S. newspapers and advanced searching capabilities, researchers will be able to research history in ways previously unavailable. For each issue, the newspaper is captured from cover-to-cover, providing access to every article, advertisement and illustration.
New York Times Archives : Full text of The New York Times newspaper from 1851–2003. The full-text of more current articles is available via LexisNexis Academic.
Chicago Defender: Full text of the Chicago Defender newspaper from 1910 to 1975
Washington Post Archives: Full Text of the Washington Post newspaper from 1877 to 1993
Hispanic American Newspapers
A database of hundreds of Hispanic American newspapers published between 1808-1980 from 22 states, many of which are from California, Texas, New Mexico, and New York. Many newspapers are bilingual.