Research Guides: HIS 780-XW81 Seminar in History: E-Journals & Primary Source Databases

Examples (from Penington School)

Primary Sources	Secondary Sources
· autobiography	·biography
· painting or object of art	·article reviewing or criticizing the art
· personal diary or letter(s)	·book about the person or event
· treaty (government document)	·essay interpreting the document
· poem, novel, short story, etc.	·literary criticism of the work
· firsthand observer accounts of event	·report on event years later
· play, film, television show	·biography of writer
· speech given by a person	·commentary on the speech
· research reports by researchers	·interpretation of the research
· photographs	·explanation of photographs

E-Journals Finder

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Definitions (from Pennington School)

A primary source is an original material created during the time under study. Primary sources can be original documents, creative works, published materials of the times, institutional and government documents or relics and artifacts

Secondary sources put primary sources in context. They comment, summarize, interpret or analyze information found in primary sources. Secondary sources are usually written by individuals who did not experience firsthand the events about which they are writing.

Primary Sources Databases

History Databases containing primary source materials.

Founders Online
Spanning the Colonial through Early Republic years, this database from NARA, NHPRC,and the Univ. of Virginia contains some 120,000 papers and correspondence sent and received by our nation's founders.
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750
This bibliographic database is a valuable index containing more than 32,000 entries. It is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. A wide range of subject areas are covered; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks, slavery and more.
Women Working, 1800-1930
Contains approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images of selected rare and historical books, institutional papers, personal papers, diaries, and photographs from Harvard's network of libraries, archives, and museums.
Chronicling America -- Historic American Newspapers
Search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Access the digital images of every page of books published during the 18th Century. With full-text searching of millions of pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.

New York Times: Historical Newspapers
Coverage: 1851-2007 for full page and article images.
For 2007- use the database LexisNexis Academic.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery, A Transnational Archive
Slavery & Anti-Slavery is a four part archive. It covers: (1) Debates over Slavery and Abolition; (2) Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; (3) Institution of Slavery; (4) Age of Emancipation.
Women and Social Movements in the U.S., 1600-2000
74 document projects that interpret and present documents, most of which are not otherwise available online. Each document project poses an interpretive question and provides a collection of documents that address the question.
Google Newspapers
Hundreds of newspapers from across the country.

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection
Over 6,500 historical periodicals (some British) spanning 1693-1877.
In 5 series: 1693-1820; 1821-1837; 1838-1852; 1853-1865; 1866-1912.
History Makers Digital Archive
Since 1999, The HistoryMakers has been recording African American oral histories to refashion a more inclusive record of American history and to educate and enlighten millions worldwide.