Finding Primary Sources

II. Strategies for finding primary sources

Where to find?
Familiarizing yourself with background information
Type of materials
Finding primary sources in library using catalog
Using periodical and newspaper indexes covering the time period
Identifying popular fiction, movies, and plays from the time period
Using indexes to government documents
Searching primary sources on the web


I. WHAT ARE PRIMARY SOURCES?

Primary sources are the evidence left behind by participants or observers. 

"Primary sources originate in the time period that historians are studying.  They vary a great deal. They may include personal memoirs, government documents, transcripts of legal proceedings, oral histories and traditions, archaeological and biological evidence, and visual sources like paintings and photographs. " ( Storey, William Kelleher.  Writing History: A guide for Students. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999, p.18).

The categories below are neither rigorously exclusive nor hierarchical. A single primary source may overlap one or more of these categories. Some material may have appeared in print before, edited or unedited.  For instance,  a manuscript may have been printed and published at some point as a book. "Nonetheless, these categories have proven to be practical concepts for organizing and describing the kinds of sources that document history, and secondary sources, such as bibliographies, often focus on materials in one of these formats or categories."
( Yale University Library Primary Sources Research, http://www.library.yale.edu/ref/err/primsrcs.htm).


Format

 Description
1. Printed or published text
  • Books and monographs

 

A monograph is "a systematic and complete treatise on a particular subject" (ALA glossary of library and information science, Chicago: ALA, 1983, p.48), in one or many volumes, complete at the time of publication or published with the intention of being completed at some future date.
  • Serials
    • Magazines and newspapers are periodicals of interest to general readers
    • Scholarly journals are publications that report the research of scholars and often quite discipline specific.
 A serial is a publication that is usually published at regular, established intervals, with the intention of continuing publication indefinitely. Magazines and newspapers -- often offer the most immediate published accounts of and reactions to historical events. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis.
  • Government documents
 Government documents are publications issued by federal, state, municipal and international governments. 
  • Records of organizations and agencies
 The minutes, reports, correspondence, etc. of an organization or agency serve as an ongoing record of the activity and thinking of that organization or agency.  There are many kinds of records, such as: births, deaths, marriages certificates; permits and licenses issued; census data; etc. 
2. Manuscripts Documents created by individuals, not as employees or representatives of an organization, are called manuscripts or personal papers. These documents can be either hand-written or typed, varying in length from a single note or letter to a full-length book. Include among other things: personal papers, memoirs, autobiographies, correspondence, diaries, letters, artificial collections, etc.
3. Archives Archival documents may be either personal papers or institutional archives. They could include bulletins, case files, contracts, correspondence, diaries, journals, ledgers, memoirs, memorandums, minutes, photographs, reports, rosters, and videorecordings. 
4. Visual Materials / Artifacts
  • Original art
 single paintings, drawings, watercolors, sculpture, architectural drawings, and plans, monoprints
  •  Films
  
  •  Prints
 graphic art, etchings, engravings, lithographs, woodcuts, mezzotints, posters, trade cards, artists' prints, and computer-generated graphics
  • Photographs
  
  • Physical objects
 buildings, furniture, tools, appliances, household items, clothing, etc. 
5. Digital collections Digital collections may have been transferred from their original format to a machine-readable form or, may exist only as electronic resources. Data may be stored on disk, computer tape, CD-ROM or from Internet sites.


II. STRATEGIES FOR FINDING PRIMARY SOURCES

1. Where to Find?
Locating primary source materials to use in a research paper can be a daunting task. Professional historians travel widely to find all relevant sources for a given historical topic and may spend years in repositories accumulating data for their research. Students rarely have the time or resources to go wherever the primary sources are. What can a student do?

The Library Collection Use the library online catalog, you can find: addresses, correspondence, diaries, documents, interviews, periodicals, personal narratives, sources, speeches, etc...      
Online Databases Curriculum Resource Center (CRC)/Facts on File, Lexis/Nexis
The World Wide Web American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/;
The Valley of the Shadow http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
Archival Institutions Governmental archives
  • National Archives-Pacific Southwest Region
  • National Archives and Records Administration
  • California State Archives, etc...
Institutional archives
  • Episcopal Diocese of California Archives
  • Hewlett-Packard Company, Archives, etc...
Historical societies
  • Santa Barbara Historical Society
  • Society of Hispanic Historical and Ancestral Research
  • Pasadena Historical Society, etc...
Special collections in libraries
  • California State University, Northridge, Urban Archives Center,
  • UCLA Department of Special Collections
  • UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Manuscripts Division, etc...

2. Familiarizing Yourself with Background Information

  • Reference Source
    A first step you need to do to find primary materials is to familiarize yourself with the background information on your topic. Library reference collection is a great place to get started. These reference materials will give you a good overview of the topic, will outline the basic historical context, and will help you identify key issues, events, participants, dates, and even keywords needed for you to plan a more informed and efficient search.

    Examples of Reference Sources:
    • Specialized encyclopedias
      • Encyclopedia of Civil War
      • Latin America, history and culture : an encyclopedia for students
      • Encyclopedia of Asian History
    • Chronolgies
      • Chronology of World Hisotry: a Calendar of Principal Events from 3000 BC to AD 1976
      • The Timetables of History: a Horizontal Linkage of People and Events
    • Factbooks
      • Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates
    • Biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias
      • Dictionary of World Biography
      • Current Biography (1940-present)
    • Specialized bibliographies and guides to research
      • Bibliographies in American History: Guide to Materials for Research
      • Sources of Information for Historical Research
      • A Reference Guide to Latin American history

  • Textbooks and Journal Articles
    Textbooks and journal articles (especially those with extensive bibliographies) and other secondary sources can provide you background informaiton and clues about the event, participants involved, as well as source of materials useful for your research.

    To search for jouranl articles, use appropriate databases listed in the database page from the Library web (http://www.calstatela.edu/library/databases.htm).

    For general history topics, you can use the following online databases to find articles:
    • America: History & Life
    • Historical Abstracts
    • JSTOR
    • Project Muse
    • Humanities Abstracts
    • Academic Search Premier (EBSCOHOST)
3. Types of Materials

Addresses Events Pictorial works
Autobiographies Eyewitness Personal narratives
Correspondences Interviews Sources
Diaries Letters Speeches
Documents Memoirs Transcript
Evidence Oral history

When you conduct searches in the online library catalog, article databases, or on the web, you can combine the type of material with a keyword(s) of your topic.

Formula: type of material + keyword(s) of your topic

Examples: 

  • Great depression and interviews

  • Civil War and documents

  • Mexican revolution and sources

  • World War and narratives

  • New Deal and documents

  • Dust bowl and pictorial works

  • Scopes trial and transcript

  • Inaugural addresses 

4. Finding Primary Sources in Library Using Catalog
You can access the CSULA Online Library Catalog from the Library Web's main page at http://www.calstatela.edu/library . The Cal State LA Library collection has wealth of resources for primary sources for historical research on a wide variety of topics.  The Catalog allows you to conduct both basic and advanced searches, and also allows you to save or email search results. 

Please note that "sources" is a good keyword to use for primary source search.

  • Searching by Keyword
    Keyword/subject searching tends to be more effective for primary source searching using the CSULA catalog. You should use the keywords listed in the "Types of Materials" to specifically search for primary source materials.

    Examples of Keyword searching:
    United States History 1933-1945 and sources
    Great Depression and documents

  • WorldCat
    Provides catalog access to 38+ million holdings worldwide. Includes catalog records for books, journals, films, sound recordings, videos, etc. It is a good tool for you to find which library owns what. Since many primary source materials are rare books hosted in library's archives or special collections, these items cannot be borrowed through the interlibrary loan service. WorldCat helps you identify which library has a particular item, so you can plan to make a trip to a local library to use the item.

    • WorldCat is useful for locating books in nearby L.A. area libraries. 

    • Search Steps: 

      • Select Doing Research --- Find books, etc. ---WorldCat

      • Conduct your search

        • e.g., New Deal documents

      • Find out libraries own the item you need:

        • Click on a title

        • Click on "Libraries that Own Item"

      • Check the catalog of the library (from Doing Research---Area libraries) that owns the item to find out the book status before you go there. Books can be borrowed from any local public libraries and selected college and university libraries (see Partner libraries at http://www.calstatela.edu/library/guides/partners.htm for detail)

      • Request the item through InterLibrary Loan (http://www.calstatela.edu/library/ill3.htm)

5. Using Periodical and Newspaper Indexes Covering the Time Period

Use periodical and newspaper index covering the time period of the events you're researching to identify contemporary accounts. These indexes are available in either print or on the Web.                
         
Sample Title:

  • Civil War eyewitnesses: an annotated bibliography of books and articles, 1986-1996
  • The New York Times Index (print)
  • Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890-present (print)
  • Readers Guide Abstracts, 1890-1982 (online)

6. Finding Pictorial Works

To find pictorial works on a particular event, you can use the following sources:

  • Library Databases: Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) / Facts on File, Academic Search Premier (EBSCOHost) images search
  • Web Sites: American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/)
  • Search Engines: google image search, altavista image search,

7.  Identifying Popular Fiction, Movies,  Songs, and Plays from the Time Period

To identify works of literature, films or popular fiction dealing with a particular event, you can consult one of the following print indexes or web site:

8. Using Indexes to Government Documents 
Publications generated by a government body, public records, reports and statistics such as census records, laws, Supreme Court decisions and treaties, are excellent sources of primary materials. Go to the reference desk for assistance in locating government documents related to your topic.

You can also search several indexes to government documents available on the Web from the Library Web's Government Info page (http://www.calstatela.edu/library/dbs/~gis.htm).  

    • Government Resources on the Library Web
      http://www.calstatela.edu/library/dbs/db-gov.htm

    • Government Information Services
      http://www.calstatela.edu/library/guides/govpubs.htm

    • Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications
      In print (1885-1976), Ref Z 1223. A18 (1st. Fl. Library North)
      On the Web (1976-present), Marcive http://www.marcive.com
      Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog
      In print (1900-1971), Ref Z 1223. A183 (1st. Fl. Library North)

    • Infomine
      http://infomine.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/search?govpub
      A collection of annotated and indexed links for government information

    • Lexis/Nexis
      From the Library Web's Database page, select Lexis / Nexis. 
      Full text opinions of all Supreme Court cases since 1790. In addition, all dispositions of cases that were appealed to the Supreme Court are included.

    • National Archives
      http://www.archives.gov
      Covers materials such as presidential materials, congressional records, census records, treaties, etc.

9. Searching Primary Sources on the Web
Many Web sites contain excellent primary resources. The scope of coverage varies for country and time period. To find primary sources on the web, you need to use a search engine and utilize similar search terms you used searching the library catalog for library materials.

Examples of search terms:
                                                 Lowell Mills primary sources
                                                 Scopes trial transcript

To find a list of search engines to use, please check the Web Search Engines page at 
http://www.calstatela.edu/library/startwww.htm.

To find a list of selected primary sources web sites for United States history, please check the recommended web sites for history at http://www.calstatela.edu/library/libfac/hist.htm.

Selected Primary Sources Web Sites

1) General Primary Sources 

  • Perseus Digital Library  http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
    Digital library of resources for the study of the ancient world. Originally begun with coverage of the Archaic and Classical Greek world, has now expanded to Latin text and tools, Renaissance materials, and Papyri. Contains hundreds of texts by the major ancient authors and lexica and morphological databases and catalog entries for over 2,800 vases, sculptures, coins, buildings, and sites, including over 13,000 photographs of such objects.
    • American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/
      Consists of collections of primary source and archival material relating to American culture and history. Topics include: African American Civil War, Conservation Movement, Continental Congress, Farm Security Administration, Architectural History, Early Motion Pictures, Variety Stage, Woman Suffrage, the papers of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Today in History, Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present, and more.

    • American Memory Timeline  http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/
      Primary sources for seven time periods of United States history are provided at this site covering 1783-1968. Each period is subdivided into various topics and contains an overview. Included are images, letters, lyrics, interviews, and more.

    • American Treasures of the Library of Congress  http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/
       An unprecedented permanent exhibition of the rarest, most interesting or significant items relating to America's past.

    • A Chronology of US Historical Documents  http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/
      US historical documents arranged from pre-colonial era to present. 

    • Douglass--Archives of American Public Address http://douglassarchives.org/
      Douglass is an electronic archive of American oratory and related documents. It is intended to serve general scholarship and courses in American rhetorical history at Northwestern University.

    • Eighteenth-Century Studies  http://eserver.org/18th/
      Covers archives works of the eighteenth century from the perspectives of literary and cultural studies. Novels, plays, memoirs, treatises and poems of the period are kept here (in some cases, influential texts from before 1700 or after 1800 as well), along with modern criticism.

    • Historical Newspapers Online http://historynews.chadwyck.com/
      Historical Newspapers Online is a website that provides valuable reference material of nineteenth and twentieth century history. It contains some of the best news coverage across two centuries.

    • Making of America http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/
      Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to historical texts.

    • Nineteenth Century Documents Project http://www.furman.edu/~benson/docs/
      When completed this collection will include accurate transcriptions of many important and representative primary texts from nineteenth century American history, with special emphasis on those sources that shed light on sectional conflict and transformations in regional identity. 

    • Primary Source Collections
      http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amtitle.html
      A list of Internet Resources from American Memory web site. 

    • Project Gutenberg http://www.promo.net/pg/
      The Project contains free eBooks or etexts. There are more than 10.000 eBooks in the present collection. Most of these eBooks are older literary works that are in the public domain in the United States. All may be freely downloaded and read, and redistributed for non-commercial use.

    • Repositories of Primary Sources http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html
      This site contains links to "over 3,400 Web sites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar." Access is by region or by an alphabetical index of state, province, or country. "The list focuses on actual repositories; therefore virtual collections are excluded." There is also a list of other's lists of archives and repositories.

    • The Valley of the Shadow http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
      The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown's Raid through the era of Reconstruction. In this digital archive you may explore thousands of original letters and diaries, newspapers and speeches, census and church records, left by men and women in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Giving voice to hundreds of individual people, the Valley Project tells forgotten stories of life during the era ofthe Civil War.

    • Women and Social Movement in the United States, 1600-2000
      http://womhist.binghamton.edu/
      Organized around 52 document projects with over 1250 primary documents, the Women and Social Movements website offers new ways for students, teachers, and scholars to study American History.

2) Visual Materials

  • America from the Great Depression to World War II  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html
    55,000 black and white (more coming) and 1600 color photographs from the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information collection have been digitized. Includes scenes of rural and small-town life, migrant labor, the effects of the Great Depression, and mobilization for World War II.  Part of the American Memory series from Library of Congress.
    • America's First Look into the Camera  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/daghome.html
      Subtitled Daguerreotype Portraits and Views, 1839 - 1864, this site is a searchable and browsable collection of more than 650 photographs taken between 1839 and 1864. The majority are portraits taken by the Mathew Brady studio. There are also photographic views of buildings and monuments in the Washington-Baltimore area and street scenes in Philadelphia. Part of American Memory from the Library of Congress. 

    • American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/aladhome.html
      This searchable or browsable "collection of approximately 2800 lantern slides represents an historical view of American buildings and landscapes built during the period 1850-1920." It includes the work of Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New York's Central Park. It also contains "views of cities, specific buildings, parks, estates and gardens, including a complete history of Boston's Park System." There are images of plans, maps, and models. From the Library of Congress' American Memory Project.

    • By the People, For the People  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html
      Subtitled Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943, this searchable site contains over 900 posters from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Search by keyword or browse by subject or creator. Full descriptive information is provided. Created in silk-screen, lithograph, and woodcut mediums, they were "designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia."  From the Library of Congress' American Memory Project.

    • Internet Movie Database  http://us.imdb.com/
      The       most comprehensive movie database on or off the Internet. It covers over 250,000 movies,  video, TV movies and TV shows, 500,000 actors, and 50,000 directors. Information includes filmographies for all professions in the industry; plot summaries; character names; movie ratings; running times; trivia; quotes etc..

    You can find a list of historical movies by using Browse--Facts & Trivia--Titles by year

3)  Oral History

    • Douglass--Archives of American Public Address http://douglassarchives.org/
      Douglass is an electronic archive of American oratory and related documents. It is intended to serve general scholarship and courses in American rhetorical history at Northwestern University.

    • Oral History Online! - http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/ohonline/#collections
      These are the topics and some of the interviewees: Suffragists (Alice Paul), Disabled Persons Independence Movement (Hale Zukas); Health Care, Science, and Technology (Barbara Honeyman Heath Roll); University History Series (Arleigh Williams); University of California Black Alumni Series (Lionel Wilson); and the Earl Warren Oral History Project (Edmund G. Brown, Sr.). The searchable transcriptions are from the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

    • Link Library (of personal experience pages)  http://www.justpublications.org/linklib/index.cgi
      An archive of primary source materials. Includes first-hand information as well as oral history resources and art projects based on people's experiences. 

4) Biographical Resources

  • Lives, the Biography Resource - http://amillionlives.com/
    Extensive, annotated directory of links to sites that focus on the lives of individuals or groups of people, worthwhile collections of links to other biographical resources, primary biographical source material such as images, diaries, memoirs, correspondence, interviews, oral histories, etc., and good biographical dictionaries. There are special pages featuring African Americans, Women, U.S. Civil War, Holocaust Survivors and Rescuers, and Canadians. In addition there are indexes by collections, professions, eras, regions, and criticism, as well as by individual.

5) Public Records / Government Documents 

  • Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States
    http://www.nara.gov/guide/index.html
    This guide is based on a paper version with the same title compiled by Robert B. Matchette et al in 1995. This version incorporates descriptive information about federal records acquired by the National Archives after the 1995 paper edition went to press, and it is regularly updated to reflect new acquisitions of federal records.
    • National Archives and Records Administration http://www.nara.gov/
      Find holdings by federal government organization, media, location, and topics.

    • United States Historical Census Data  http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/
      The data presented here describe the people and the economy of the US for each state and county from 1790 to 1960.

    • Supreme Court Decisions on Lexis/Nexis 
      From the Library Web's Database page, select Lexis / Nexis. 
      Full text opinions of all Supreme Court cases since 1790. In addition, all dispositions of cases that were appealed to the Supreme Court are included.

6) Historical Maps

7) Music

  • Historic American Sheet Music 1850-1920
    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ncdhtml/hasmhome.html
    The Historic American Sheet Music collection presents 3,042 pieces of sheet music drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, which holds an important, representative, and comprehensive collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century American sheet music. This selection presents a significant perspective on American history and culture through a variety of music types including bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, "Tin pan alley" songs, and songs from World War I.

  • Historic American Sheet Music Project  http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/
    Digitized images of over 3000 pieces of American sheet music from 1850 to 1920 are presented, along with their full-color cover art and advertisements, in this searchable index. Search for specific criteria such as subject or date, or browse by cover. From The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.

Created by Holly Yu
Reference Librarian and Liaison to the Department of History
University Library, CSULA
(323)343-4993
hyu3@calstatela.edu