HST 210 (Poly iCourse)

Primary sources are the historical documents used by historians as evidence. Examples of primary sources include diaries, personal journals, government records, court records, property records, newspaper articles, military reports, military rosters, and many other things.

In contrast, a secondary source is the typical history book which may discuss a person, event or other historical topic. A good secondary source uses primary sources as evidence.

The key to determining whether an item may be considered to be a primary source is to ask how soon after the event was the information recorded. This can be a problem with an autobiography, a memoir,  or a reminiscence, to name a few examples.  If the author is working several years with only the memory of what happened, your history professor will disallow most or all of these as primary sources.

Primary Sources on the Web   This guide provides an overview of what primary sources are with examples. Information about finding, using, evaluating and citing them is also included. Site developed by the American Library Association.  

Evaluation Criteria

Use the following criteria to determine the reliability and creditibility of the information found on Websites used in your research.

Who: Who is the author or sponsor of the website? Is that person or organization named? Is any supporting documentation available?

What: What is the mission or purpose of the website? Is it clearly articulated? What kinds of materials are on the website? Are they properly cited and acknowledged? What is the document format on the web?

Where: Where is the site located? Is there a physical address with phone number and email address for a contact person? Does the site have a .edu, .org, or .com address?

Why: Why does the site exist? Does it have a point of view or opinion? Is it pedagogical or polemic? Does it want something from you?

Credit:  American Library Association, Reference and User Services Association, History Section

Additional Evaluation Websites

• Using Primary Sources - LC's, American Memory Project
• Primary Sources: Evaluating - Lafayette College Library

Complete the following exercises to build your information evaluation skills.

19th Century U.S. Newspapers Searchable database containing digital facsimile images of newspapers; presented as full page layout as well as single articles; advertisements and illustrations included. This collection includes numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.; and it encompasses the entire 19th century.

African American Newspapers, 1827 - 1902    This enormous collection of African American Newspapers contains a wealth of information about cultural life and history during the 1800s and is rich with first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day, including the Mexican War, Presidential and Congressional addresses, Congressional abstracts, business and commodity markets, the humanities, world travel and religion.

America's Historical Imprints  

• Books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material
• Centuries of American history, literature, culture and daily life
• Extensive indexing and full bibliographic information

Archive of Americana  The Archive of Americana, Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker series, offers more than 100,000 early American books, pamphlets, broadsides and rare printed materials. The archives feature extensive indexing and full bibliographic information, together illuminating more than 250 years of American history, literature, culture and daily life. Unique and authoritative, these fully searchable products enable researchers to browse and explore America’s past in unprecedented ways.

Caribbean Newspapers, Series I, 1718 - 1876: Caribbean Newspapers, Series 1, 1718-1876: From the American Antiquarian Society Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876—the largest online collection of 18th- and 19th-century newspapers published in this region—will provide a comprehensive primary resource for studying the development of Western society and international relations within this important group of islands. This unique resource will prove essential for researching colonial history, the Atlantic slave trade, international commerce, New World slavery and U.S. relations with the region as far back as the early 18th century.

Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Collection:  The Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press collection documents and showcases historic Mexican and Mexican American publications published in Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sonora, Mexico from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Newspapers (primarily the Twentieth Century) A collection of historically significant African American newspapers which provides primary source material essential to the study of American history and African-American culture, history, politics, and the arts.  Newspapers covered are: Atlanta Daily World; Baltimore Afro American; Chicago Defender; Cleveland Call And Post; Los Angeles Sentinel; New York Amsterdam News; Norfolk Journal And Guide; Philadelphia Tribune; Pittsburg Courier

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online 1841-1902 Brooklyn's main daily paper from 1841 to 1902. The Web site includes an introduction to the paper's history over its long tenure as Brooklyn's main daily paper as well as a timeline of the important changes to the paper's format, layout, and content organization. Chronicles the communities' history while under the reins of a host of well-regarded editors, including Walt Whitman.

 Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers: Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.  States included in this essential and invaluable digital repository are: Alabama; Arizona; California; Colorado; District of Columbia; Florida; Hawaii; Illinois; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Minnesota; Missouri; Montana; Nebraska; New Mexico; New York; Ohio; Oklahoma; Oregon; Pennsylvania; South Carolina; Tennessee; Texas; Utah; Vermont; Virginia; Washington(state).    For Further information concerning the history of American Newspapers, use the Library of Congress' US Newspaper Directory, 1690 - Present

Civil War Collection We have access to Part I-IV of Civil War Collection from ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES.

• Part I: A Newspaper Perspective: Contains the full text of major articles from issues of The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.
• Part II: The Soldiers’ Perspective: Provides an in-depth look at the day-to-day actions of the troops themselves primarily in the form of regimental histories.
• Part III: The Generals’ Perspective: These volumes allow a look into the way the battles within the war were fought. Here the emphasis is on strategies and tactics as planned and executed by the commanding officers, with a longer-term view as opposed to daily concerns.
• Part IV: A Midwestern Perspective: This collection consists of seven newspapers published in Indiana between 1855 and 1869. Thus, it provides pre-and post-Civil War information in addition to coverage of the war itself.

Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690 - 1876:   Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876 offers 350,000 fully searchable issues from over 710 historical American newspapers. Focusing largely on the 18th and early 19th centuries, this online collection is based on Brigham’s “History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820” and provides unprecedented access to the nation’s early periods. Additionally, EAN, Series I is cross-searchable with other Archive of Americana® collections held by ASU Library.

 Hispanic-American Newspapers, 1808 - 1980:  Searchable American newspapers enable users to explore America's past.   Available here: Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980.

Historical African American Newspapers Online:  This LibGuide produced by Elizabeth Clarke of Marist College provides a list of historical African American Newspapers available online as part of digitization projects at libraries and historical societies as well as digitization projects done by Google.

Historical Newspapers Online ( U of Pennsylvania Libraries)  This table provides a list of historical U.S. newspapers that are available online at no cost.

Indianapolis Recorder, 1899-2005:   What began as a two-page church bulletin by co-founders George Pheldon Stewart and William H. Porter, the Indianapolis Recorder is now one of the top African-American publications in the nation. Established in 1897, the Indianapolis Recorder focused on local people and events in Indianapolis but also reported national events. 

The Lily  The Lily, the first newspaper for women in the United States, was issued from 1849 until 1853 under the editorship of Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894). It had a local and national focus on both temperance and women’s rights.

Pennsylvania Gazette Collection  The Pennsylvania Gazette was considered the paper of record for colonial and revolutionary America. The full text coverage spans the time from significant early eastern colonial expansion ( 1728) through the first true world war ( 1763) and then through the Revolution ( with the government centered in Philadelphia) and then including the Constitutional Convention and Washington’s two terms. Coverage continues through 1800.

 The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, 1895 - present: The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project makes available more than one hundred years of Jewish newspapers published in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project is composed of the Jewish Criterion (1895-1962), the American Jewish Outlook (1934-1962), the Jewish Chronicle (1962-present), and the Y-JCC series (1926-1975).  Note: This site will work best on a desktop computer with an up-to-date browser. A PDF reader is required

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Arizona Republican, 1890 - 1922;  Atlanta Constitution 1868 - 1929; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Chicago Defender 1905 - 1975; ;ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Hartford Courant 1764 - 1984; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times 1881 - 1985; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times 1851-2003; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post 1877 - 1990

Provides full text coverage of the above newspapers for their respectives years. Taken as a whole, these newspapers provide excellent historical coverage geographically and nationally.

 Richmond Daily Dispatch, 1860 - 1865  The Richmond Daily Dispatch is a collaboration between the University of Richmond, Tufts University's Perseus Project, and the Virginia Center for Digital History. There are currently 1384 issues of the paper available online, ranging in date from November 1860 through December 1865.

Virginia Gazette, 1736 - 1780:  The first paper published in Virginia, the Gazette is one of the most important southern newspapers for the colonial and revolutionary periods.  While t here are some gaps and searching is by year, the Colonial Williamsburg digital Virginia Gazette provides online access to an important early American newspaper.  In addition, there is a complementary online Index of Topics.

Wikipedia: List of online newspaper archives  This is a list of free and pay wall blocked digital online newspaper archives. Most are scanned from microfilm into pdf, gif or similar graphic formats and many of the graphic archives have been indexed into searchable text databases
 

Access World News  Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 500 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues.

Arizona Republic    Includes full text of articles, editorials, notices, and obituaries from the Arizona Republic. For access to older articles, 1987-1998, see CD-News: Arizona Republic  January 1999 to present

 Chicago Tribune   Chicago Tribune (1985-present) indexes each issue thoroughly, covering not only top news stories but also the information contained on the various sections of the paper. The indexing covers not only complete bibliographic information but also companies, people, products, etc.

Ethnic NewsWatch  (1960+) Full-text of ethnic, minority and native press newspapers, magazines and journals. Provides a broad diversity of perspectives and viewpoints. Represents the diversity of the American population in ways that are not seen in the mainstream media

Nexis Uni  Full text of over 5,000 newspapers( including major US newspaers such as the New York Times), trade publications, legal periodicals, and professional journals.

Los Angeles Times, 1985+  This is the current editions of the LA Times back to 1985 and continues the Historical LA Times

NewsBank NewsFile CDROM : Historical Files 1980 - 1998  Provides full text access to selected articles from over 500 U. S. and Canadian newspapers, wire services, and broadcast news transcripts. NewsBank Newsfile (1996-1998) which includes full text on the CD and NewsBank Reference Services Plus (1980-1996) which provides citations to the microfiche collection of the full text articles.  NOTE: Because of software requirements, this database can only be accessed from ASU Library student/public/staff workstations

Wall Street Journal  (1986+) Full text access to the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal is the financial newspaper of record. It offers in-depth coverage of national and international finance as well as first rate coverage of hard news.

19th Century UK Periodicals Full text collection of series 1 (New Rederships) and Series 2 (Empire) or UK periodicals from the 19th century, representating the range of nineteenth-century periodical literature of interest to historians and students of nineteenth-century literature and culture, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine, the professions, in short, of all aspects of nineteenth-century life that the press encompassed.

Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2012  A searchable collection of every issue of The Economist from 1843 to present (with the exception of the last five years). Each weekly issue contains news reporting and analysis, commentary, editiorials, statistics, demographics, letters to the editor, obituaries, and historical photographs.

Godey's Lady's Book  This is a full text collection  of the premier 19th Century U. S.  woman’s magazine, Parts I-IX 1830-1898.

HarpWeek: The Civil War Era and Reconstruction I-II (1857-1877) (1857-1877) Indexes full-text of Harper's Weekly, probably the only consistent, comprehensive, weekly chronological record of world-wide events of the late 19th century. Covers front-line Civil War reports, the re-election of Lincoln, & Reconstruction.

 Krokodil Digital Archive  A satirical Soviet magazine which began publishing in 1922.Useful for understanding Soviet political science, history and literature

Making of America(Cornell University); Making of America( University of Michigan)
(1800-1925 ) Full text of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This is actually two separate sites with separate resources -- one site is sponsored by The University of Michigan and the other by Cornell University. 

The Modernist Journals Project  The MJP is a multi-faceted project that aims to be a major resource for the study of modernism and its rise in the English-speaking world, with periodical literature as its central concern. The historical scope of the project has a chronological range of 1890 to 1922 (though the earliest journals that currently appear on the site date from 1896 and 1904), and a geographical range that extends to wherever English language periodicals were published.

Vogue Archive The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. More than 400,000 pages are included, constituting a treasure trove of the work from the greatest designers, photographers, stylists, and illustrators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Vogue is a unique record of American and international popular culture that extends beyond fashion. The Vogue Archive is an essential primary source for the study of fashion, gender, and modern social history – past, present, and future

Women's Wear Daily Archive The Women's Wear Daily Archive provides online access to the definitive fashion and retail publication, Women’s Wear Daily (WWD). The entire archive of WWD, previously unavailable in digital form, opens up new opportunities for research. This authoritative record of how the fashion industry developed over the twentieth century provides valuable primary source material for students across the disciplines of fashion, business, and history