Finding Primary Sources
The other boxes on this page offer a few suggestions and possibilities for primary source research but are only the beginning.
To discover primary sources generally, try these approaches:
- Scour the bibliographies and notes of relevant secondary sources such as articles, books, and dissertations on your topic. They are necessarily drawing on relevant primary sources. We may or may not have access then to those primary sources.
- Search in our catalog or in WorldCat and include these subject terms: Personal narratives, Facsimiles, Diaries, Correspondence, Sources. Alternately, try including document* as a key word for mentions of "documents" or "documentary" in the title or description.
- Do you know of specific people involved in the events your studying who may have written works? Try searching in our catalog or in WorldCat for such a person's name in the Author field.
Examples from our Loan Shelves
- various speeches, letters, and writings of Mao Zedong. Approximately a dozen different works here.
- Leaves from a Russian Diary and Thirty Years After / Pitirim Sorokin
- History of the Russian Revolution / Leon Trotsky ; translated by Max Eastman.
- The Russian revolution / by V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin ; writings and speeches from the February revolution to the October revolution, 1917.
- The diary of a diplomat in Russia, 1917-1918 / Louis Robien
- Six Red Months in Russia: An Observer’s Account of Russia before and during the Proletarian Dictatorship / Louise Bryant
Revolutionary America online collections
- Early American Imprints, Series I (1639-1800) This link opens in a new windowBasic primary document set for research involving 17th and 18th century American history, literature, philosophy, religion, and foreign affairs. Search by author or keyword in text, title, subject, or publisher. Can also browse by genre, subjects, author, and more. Digitization is ongoing so collection will continue to grow.
- Colonial America (Adam Matthew Digital)1,450 volumes of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London. See the Nature and Scope page for a breakdown of the topical coverage pertaining to the American Revolution.
- Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774 to 1789277 documents, including extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and more.
- Founders Online: Home"George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Over 119,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects" of the National Archives.
- Adams Electronic Archive : Correspondence between John and Abigail AdamsOver 1,100 letters spanning 1762-1801 written by John and Abigail Adams to each other. Digitized images of original documents and also transcriptions of them.
- The James Madison Papers - (American Memory from the Library of Congress)72,000 digital images of 12,000 manuscripts of James Madison's "correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and miscellaneous [items]" from 1723-1836.
- American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
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EBSCOhost access to digitized primary source documents from the late 17th through early 20th centuries in the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection. It includes over 8 million items from several thousand magazines, journals, and other periodical publications from 1684 through 1912, covering "advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more."
You can also choose any of 50 different more focused thematic collections of these periodicals. To combine multiple collections together, after you click through into one, click "Choose Databases" at the top and select additional collections to add to your search set.
20th century online collections
- Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials.
- Woodrow Wilson Papers280,000 documents, including personal, family, and official correspondence, White House executive office files, drafts and proofs of books, articles, speeches, academic lectures, scrapbooks, shorthand notes, and memorabilia from the scholar, university president, and NJ governor who was then U.S. president from 1913-1921.
Material is organized in 20 different series. - Edward M. House DiariesHouse was a key advisor to President Woodrow Wilson and Wilson's chief negotiator in Europe. The nine volumes of his diary provide a record of his activities and personal views from 1912 through 1926.
- Infantry Journal 1914-1950Military trade publication from first half of the 20th century.
- The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System Online"...consists chiefly of summary transcripts of 705 interviews conducted with refugees from the USSR during the early years of the Cold War. A unique source for the study of Soviet society between 1917 and the mid-1940s, the HPSSS includes vast amounts of one-of-a-kind data on political, economic, social and cultural conditions."
online collections spanning multiple eras
- Foreign Relations of the United States"The official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
Search within the volumes, or browse volume titles by administration." - Library of Congress Digital CollectionsOver 500 different digital collections spanning a wide variety of topics and sources.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaMillions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.
- Their Own Words - A collection of books, letters, and personal accounts reflecting our shared heritage.From Dickinson College in PA, "a digital collection of books, pamphlets, letters, and diaries, dating from the latter eighteenth through the early twentieth century, that reflects the history of the United States. This collection currently contains more than 34,500 individual pages of text and corresponding transcriptions, covering a variety of topics, including: colonial American politics; U.S. politics, government, and foreign relations; historical biography and autobiography; slavery and abolition; the American Civil War; the temperance movement; foreign travel; economics; medicine; philosophy; and theology."
- The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC)Over 10,000 digitized photos showing U.S. Army from Civil War through current era. Also several hundred printed items, including official documents, digitized letters, diaries, and memoirs.
Digitized Historical Newspapers
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowFocuses on digitized, searchable versions of American newspapers. Includes Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876, with coverage of 733 newspapers from 22 states and Washington D.C.
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers from the Library of CongressSearch for content in viewable digitized pages from hundreds of newspapers published between 1860 to 1922 from the states of Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: U.S. Major Dailies. This link opens in a new window
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Includes searchable full text of the following newspapers:
- The New York Times—1851-2019
- Wall Street Journal—1889-2011
- Washington Post—1877-2007
- Los Angeles Times—1881-1999
- The Chicago Tribune—1849-1998
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Austin American Statesman (1871 - 1980) This link opens in a new window
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Images of all material published in this important Texas newspaper. Articles, advertising, letters, funeral notices and photos are all included. Fully searchable and browsable.
- The Texas Digital Newspaper Program from the Portal to Texas HistoryIncludes nearly 10 million pages from over 1800 different digitized Texas newspapers covering almost 200 years.
- The Prairie NewsRecent issues of The Prairie. The Voice of WTAMU since 1919. For older editions please see our WT Digital Repository: https://hdl.handle.net/11310/4078
- The Prairie: West Texas Student Newspaper"The Prairie" newspaper began in 1919 as part of the journalism department. It contains campus news, class schedules, campus events, comic strips, business advertisements, and local news pertaining to the region surrounding Canyon, Texas.
Newspapers on microfilm
With the exception of current issues, when available, the following newspapers are on microfilm. Microfilm reader/printers are available in Periodicals. Copies may be made using your Buffalo Gold card.
Indexes for both The New York Times and The Times (London) are located in the Microforms room of the Periodicals department. Ask at the Periodicals Desk for their location.
Check the catalog for detailed availability and dates of newspapers located in Periodicals or browse the newspaper microfilm cabinets.
- Amarillo Globe-News and its predecessor (Jan. 1960-present, with some gaps)
- Austin American and Austin American-Statesman (1914-1976)
- Canyon News and its predecessors (1901-present, with some gaps)
- Christian Science Monitor (Nov. 1908-present); Index: 1950-present
- Dallas Morning News (Oct. 1885-1996)
- Japan Times (1941-44; 1968-1977). [1998 to present online.]
- Nashville Tennessean (1912-1925)
- New York Times (Sep. 18, 1851-present); Index: Sep. 1851-present
- Pittsburgh Courier (1923-1965) and New Pittsburgh Courier (1966-1992)
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1945-1977)
- Times -- London (Jan. 1788-present) ; formerly Daily Universal Register (1785-1787); Index: 1790-present
- Tulia Herald (1918-1979, with some gaps)
- Wall Street Journal (Jul. 1889-present); Index: 1955-present
- Washington Post (1954-1978)
We also have many newspapers with fewer than ten years of coverage, often in the 19th or early 20th century.
These include the Albany Echo, Albany Star, Angleton Times, Aspen Times, Dubuque Daily Times-Journal, Guymon Herald, Indianapolis Journal, Los Angeles Times, Macon Daily Telegraph, Memphis Daily Appeal, and Mobile Daily Register.
More on Primary Sources
For more on primary sources from Cornette Library, please see our detailed guide.