What Are Primary Sources | Searching FRANCIS for Primary Sources
Databases and Digital Collections | Local and Regional Collections
Primary sources are first-hand accounts by participants of a particular event or historical time period. Secondary sources, on the other hand, are books and articles written by scholars investigating a research topic using primary sources.
If you were examining racism in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the article in the encyclopedia on the "Negro" would be a primary source. However, an article in the American Historical Review analyzing racism in the Britannica would be a secondary source. (Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History, pp. 14-15.)
Some examples of primary sources include:
Memoirs, speeches, writings, or correspondence of a person can be found by doing an author search in FRANCIS using the name (last name first) of the person.
Autobiographical material can be found in FRANCIS by doing a subject heading search with the subdivision "personal narratives".
Papers of an organization, political party, agency, or association can sometimes be found by doing an author search on FRANCIS using the name of the party, agency or organization.
Another way to find primary sources through FRANCIS is to look for the subdivision "sources" as part of the subject heading for your topic.
Books, newspaper articles, and magazine articles from the time period being studied can often be found in databases and digital collections. Selected resources are listed below.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) (1473-1700)
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Contains titles from Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement.
Evans Digital Edition (1639-1800)
Electronic editions of books from the 17th and 18th century detailing life in America at that time.
Making of America -- Michigan (1850-1877)
Making of America is a digital library of primary sources in American social history primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Michigan's project has focused on monographs in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, science and technology, and religion
Women Writers Project (1400-1850)
Women Writers Project is a long-term research project devoted to early modern women's writing and electronic text encoding. The goal is to bring texts by pre-Victorian women writers out of the archive and make them accessible to a wide audience of teachers, students, scholars, and the general reader.
BOPCRIS (The British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service) (1688-1995)
Web-based bibliographic database of British Official Publications. Contains references to key 18th century House of Commons Journals from the period 1688-1800, key 19th and 20th century documents from the Ford Select Lists and Breviates (bibliographies of British documents), selected documents from the Hansard's Catalogue and Breviate of Parliamentary Papers for 1801-1832, and selected documents from 1983-1995.
Congressional Publications (1789 - Present)
Index and partial full-text [see digital content update] of Congressional prints, hearings, reports, legislative histories. Full-text of Serial Set documents produced from 1789 to 1969. Index to Congressional Record from 1985 - present.
Declassified Documents Reference System (1941-current)
Declassified White House, CIA, FBI, State Department documents from presidential libraries.
Catalog of Government Publications (1976-current)
The CGP is the finding tool for federal publications issued through the Government Printing Office (GPO); includes descriptive records for historical and current publications and provides direct links to those that are available online.
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe - Codes and Regulations (Coverage Varies)
Lexis-Nexis - Legal Research database provides full-text access to state and federal court cases, codes and regulations, international law, patents research, and law firm and law school information.
Official Documents - United Kingdom (1994-present)
Official Documents is the official reference facility for Command and departmentally sponsored House of Commons Papers. From May 2005 onwards, all Command Papers and House of Commons Papers, as well as Key Departmental Papers, are available for free on the site in PDF format.
Making of America -- Cornell (1850-1877)
Digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Cornell's project has focused on the major journal literature of the period, ranging from general interest publications to those with more targeted audiences (such as agriculture)
Nineteenth Century Masterfile (1800s-1920)
Index to English and American books, journals, magazines, newspapers and government documents published in the 19th and early 20th century. Includes Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.
Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)
Index to articles in popular, general interest magazines published in the United States and Canada.
Readers' Guide Abstracts (1983-Present )
Index to articles in popular, general interest magazines published in the United States and Canada.
Chicago Defender (1921-1975)
Digitized version of the Chicago Defender/ Daily Defender. The Chicago Defender is one of the most influencial African-American newspapers in the country.
Early American Newspapers Digital (1700-1859)
Digital renditions of newspapers published in America from 1700-1859.
Ethnic Newswatch (1990-Present; some coverage 1960-1989)
Full-text of articles from newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic minorities and native press in the United States.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers (US)
Searchable full-text articles and images from the Atlanta Constitution (1868-1939), Chicago Defender (1921-1975), Chicago Tribune (1849-1986), Christian Science Monitor (1908-1993), Hartford Courant (1764-1984), Los Angeles Times (1881-1986), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), New York Times (1851-2004), Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002), Wall Street Journal (1889-1990), and Washington Post (1877-1991).
Times (London) Digital Archive (1785 - 1985)
Scanned version of the London Times. Contains full content of the newspaper including advertisements, editorials, reviews, stock exchange tables, and weather reports. Does not include the Sunday edition.
Works best in Internet Explorer.
For additional news databases see the list of Newspaper and New Resources. To identify newspapers on microfilm or microfiche, see Newspapers in microform. Foreign countries (Sawyer Ref: PN4731 .N482) and Newspapers in microform. United States (Sawyer Ref. PN4855 .N48). See also How to Find Newspaper Articles.
In the First Person (1500s - present)
Index to more than 3,350 collections of personal narratives (oral histories, letters, and diaries) in English from around the world. In some cases, the texts and/or audio files are linked and freely available. Most of the older materials are by subscription only.