Primary sources are documents created at the time of interest. They offer a firsthand or "primary" view of historical events, people, and topics. Examples include:
Use your NetID and password to access databases off campus.
Full text digitized reproductions of more than 1,500 eighteenth and nineteenth century American newspapers and periodicals archived at the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). Titles include general interest, children's, women's, early scientific, and professional publications that chronicle the development of America across 150 years, published from 1740-1940.
Full text of over 15,000 digitized primary sources including correspondence; speeches, sermons, and lectures; articles, essays, and editorials from more than 200 newspapers; and poems and other miscellaneous documents from African Americans involved in the abolition movement between 1830-1865, with the majority of content coming from the U.S., Canada, and the British Isles.
Full text digitized newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. Includes major newspapers as well as those published by African Americans, Native Americans, women's rights groups, labor groups, the Confederacy, and other groups and interests. Also included are illustrated papers that bring the nineteenth century to life through the drawings of many artists. **Note: Access the collection from Gale Primary Sources to cross-search a wider range of digital collections and for more textual analysis tools.
The Mansfield Library owns thousands of books, ebooks, and microfilm reels that contain transcriptions or reproductions of personal papers (such as letters and diaries), business records, and government agency records held in archives around the world. Good keywords to use as you search for these primary source materials are: sources, letters, papers (and papers of), documents (and documents of), manuscripts, and records.
Examples:
Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs: Central Classified Files, 1907-1939 (Microfilm)
Series A. Indian delegations to Washington (25 reels); Series B. Indian customs and social relations (23 reels); Series C, pt.1. Reports on Medical and Nursing Activities (29 reels); Series D, pt.1. General Organization, Regulations, and Types of Schools (12 reels); Series D, pt.2. Correspondence and Reports on Reservation Day and Boarding Schools (30 reels). The microfilm collection is located at call number 970.5 R311 on Level 1 of the Mansfield Library. A guide to the collection is located on top of the Microfilm shelves at call number 970.5 R311.
Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library, Series 2, Women in National Politics (Microfilm)
52 reels of microfilm of women's papers housed at the Schlesinger Library. The microfilm collection is located at call number 973.91 R211Z on Level 1 of the Mansfield Library. Guides for this collection, including biographical sketches, bibliographies, reel indexes, and subject indexes, are located on top of the microfilm cabinets on level 1 at call number 973.91 R211Z.
Addams, Jane. The Selected Papers of Jane Addams. Edited by Mary Lynn McCree Brian, Barbara Bair, and Maree de Angury. (2 volumes) University of Illinois Press, 2003. Located on Level 2 at call number 361.92 A222Z.
Archives West provides access to guides to archival collections and to descriptions of primary source collections held at repositories in the Western United States, including Montana, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Examples of primary source materials held in archival collections include letters, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, business records, oral histories, official papers of senators and congressmen, and the records of organizations.
Use your NetID and password to access databases off campus.
Full text scholarly journal, trade publication, magazine and newspaper articles, books, book reviews, reports, and Associated Press video content, covering all subject areas.
Full text of all 2,800+ academic journals on JSTOR that span more than 60 disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, along with millions of primary sources across four collections: Global Plants, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa, and World Heritage Sites: Africa. Also explore 3+ million images from ARTstor and over 10,000 open access books. Note: The library does not license any collections of fee-based books from JSTOR. New collections added Aug 2023, are identified below. See more... for details.
Index to professional and scholarly journals, chapters, books, reports, theses, and dissertations published internationally in psychology and related disciplines such as psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work, from 1967-present. Produced by the American Psychological Association.
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