Research Guides: HIST 72/172: The Civil War Era (Gudgeirsson): Primary Sources

Definition

"Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research."

(American Library Association, Reference and User Services, History Section)

Databases collecting primary sources

Here are links to databases we subscribe to that have collections of primary sources

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1
This database provides books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts materials printed through 1816 in what is now the United States. Resource also includes manuscripts and a collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, and digital resources and reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
This database provides primary sources including historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence, among other documents related to Black Freedom from 1790 to 2000s. The resource highlights documents from the following time periods: 1. Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860); 2. The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877); 3. Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932); 4. The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945); 5. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975); 6. The Contemporary Era (1976-2000).
Black Studies Center
This database provides scholarly essays, journal articles, historic newspapers, fiction, poetry, archival records, and literary reviews in Black Studies. Includes the Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, the Black Studies Periodicals Database (formerly International Index to Black Periodicals), the Black Literature Index, and historical black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender (1910 - 1975) and and the Daily Defender (1956-1975).
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
This database provides the full text of hundreds of Hispanic American newspapers (many of them bilingual) published between 1808 - 1980. Included are newspapers from California, Texas, New Mexico, New York, and many other states. This is the largest online collection of Spanish-English newspapers printed in the United States.
Making of America
Contains full text scans of primary sources on American history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, roughly 1820 to 1870.
Oxford African American Studies Center
This database provides biographies, articles, maps, documents, images, timelines and charts and tables of African-American life, history and culture including the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; the Encyclopedia of African-American History, 1896 to the Present.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery
This database provides primary source documents from archives all over the world covering the history of the slave trade from 1492-1888.

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HIST 72/172: The Civil War Era (Gudgeirsson)

Definition

Databases collecting primary sources