Scholars: Primary Sources

Unlike secondary sources, which comment on their topics, primary sources are actual documents from the time period, people, and events of the time under consideration. Primary sources can be any number of the following types of materials:

• diaries and correspondence
• photographs and illustrations
• newspaper articles from the time period
• manuscripts
• pamphlets, broadsides, and other ephemera

To search for primary sources, develop a keyword search such as the following--please note that "sources" is a good general search term for primary sources:

• japanese americans and internment and sources
• abolition and pamphlets
• gold rush and diaries
• civil rights and correspondence

For more information on primary sources and how to search for them, please see our Primary Sources Research Guide

Image Search:

The following sources are being searched:American Memory Images, AP Images, ArtStor, OCLC CAMIO, David Rumsey historical map collection, HarpWeek, Illustrata: Natural Sciences, Index of Christian Art, USC Digital Library

19th Century Masterfile The largest resource for pre-1920 studies, with over 6 million citations online. Search relevant printed index to material from 1800-1899.

History Resource Center U.S. Provides integrated access to over 4,000 historical (primary) documents, articles from more than 30 reference titles, and over 110 full-text journal covering themes, events, individuals and periods in U.S. history from pre-Colonial times to the present. The material also includes citations from the Institute for Scientific Information's Arts and Humanities Citation Index, as well as the entire "American Journey Online" series.

Our Documents:

To help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy, we invite you to explore 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to "form a more perfect union."

Avalon Project:

The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.The Avalon Project will no doubt contain controversial documents. Their inclusion does not indicate endorsement of their contents nor sympathy with the ideology, doctrines, or means employed by their authors. They are included for the sake of completeness and balance and because in many cases they are by our definition a supporting document.