Primary Source is...
A primary source (also called original source) can be an artifact, a document, a recording, a personal letter, memoirs or other source of information that was created at the time under study. A primary source serves as an original source of information about the topic.
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Primary and Secondary Sources (more!)
- African American CommunitiesCovers 5 key cities in African American History: Atlanta, Chicago, New York, St. Louis and various towns in North Carolina. Contains newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, and photographs from early 1800’s to present. Topics covered include desegregation, urban renewal, housing, civil rights, protests, race relations, labor history, and arts and culture.
- African American History OnlineEncyclopedia covering 500 years of African American history. Contains some primary source materials.
- African American Women Writers of the 19th CenturyThis resource is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers.
- American Civil War: Letters and DiariesFull text of more than 100,000 pages of diaries, memoirs, and letters written by more than 2,000 participants in the American Civil War. A chronology of key events allows the user to see multiple perspectives surrounding a particular event
- American Periodical Series, 1741-1900Over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals
- American Slavery: a composite autobiographyContains the collection of over 2,000 interviews conducted in seventeen states between 1936 and 1938 under the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Progress Administration, as published in 1972 in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography edited by George P. Rawick.
- Black Thought and CultureConsists of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures covering 250 years of history.
- Documenting the American SouthAn electronic collection sponsored by the Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture...Currently, DAS includes five digitization projects: slave narratives, first-person narratives, Southern literature, Confederate imprints, and materials related to the church in the black community
- Making of America, 1850-1857Browseable and searchable collection of United States books and journals, primarily published between 1850 and 1877. Courtesy of University of Michigan and Cornell.
- North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories, 1800-1950Includes more than authors and approximately 100,000 pages contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, which provide a unique and personal view immigrants' experiences in America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries, Colonial to 1950Includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women, as revealed in approximately 150,000 pages of diaries and letters....The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
- Reader's Guide RetrospectiveContaining comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. The complete database covers the years 1890 through 1982.