Research Guides: HIST 2600: Religion and the American Revolution: Primary Sources

How-To Video: Searching Historical Newspapers

Searching for Primary Sources
This learning module will help you understand how to develop a list of keywords and identify and search within appropriate databases to find primary sources.

Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary means written at or near the time of the historical event.

Secondary means written many years later, probably by a scholar researching the historical event.

Edited Collections

You can find some primary sources in books. Below is a list of relevant subject headings. When searching for these in the catalog, try adding "sources", "documents", "correspondence" or "letters" to your search.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Pamphlets.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Sources.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Personal narratives.

United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Personal narratives, British.

Magazines, Newspapers, Pamphlets and Primary Source Collections

Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
19th Century African American newspapers, American County Histories to 1900, American Civil War Primary Sources, and more.
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Searchable American newspaper collections, including African American Newspapers Series 1, 1827-1998; Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876; South Carolina's Historical Newspapers; Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980; and selected historical newspapers.
American History, 1493-1945 (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
American Indian Histories and Cultures (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Presents unique insight into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century

American Memory Project (Library of Congress)
Primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the U.S.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Full text periodicals published between 1740 and 1940.

Chronicling America: Historic Newspapers 1789-1963
Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Supported by the NEH and the Library of Congress.

Colonial America (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Covering the period 1606 to 1822, the collection includes original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.

Documenting the American South
Primary source materials relating to Southern history. Open access.
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A collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. Includes: First-Person Narratives of the American South; Library of Southern Literature; North American Slave Narratives; The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; The Church in the Southern Black Community.

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books, pamphlets and broadsides printed in America from 1639-1800.
Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Works published in the UK during the 18th century.
Harper's Weekly: 1857-1912 This link opens in a new window
A 19th century illustrated newspaper from 1857-1912. Includes news stories, illustrations, cartoons, editorials, biographies, literature and advertisements.
Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection This link opens in a new window
Newspapers.com North Carolina Collection includes digitized content from over 1,000 NC county newspapers.

North American Slave Narratives (DocSouth)

North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Colonial to 1950 - includes the experiences of 632 women as revealed in diaries and letters.

North Carolina Digital Collections
contain historic and recent photographs, state government publications, manuscripts, and other resources on topics related to North Carolina
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Collections bring together content from the Archives and Library of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
North Carolina Digitization Project: Newspapers (1752-1890)
Papers dating from 1752-1890s from cities like Edenton (1787-1801), Fayetteville (1789-1795), Hillsboro (1786), New Bern (1751-1804), Salisbury (1799-1898), and Wilmington (1765-1816)

North Carolina Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
North Carolina Historical newspapers from late 1700s to 1859
South Carolina's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
South Carolina Historical newspapers from late 1700s to 1859.
Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Historical newspaper archive with full-text coverage of the Times from 1785 to 2013. Supports research across multiple disciplines including business, humanities, political science, and philosophy with coverage of all major international historical events.

DPLA

DPLA
A portal to digitized content made available by libraries, archives and museums

HathiTrust

A repository for digital collections. Items in the public domain (works published before 1923) are freely accessible online.

Internet Archive

A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Includes digitized books, periodicals, media, and more.

Internet Archive

NCpedia

NCpedia
Reference sources related to North Carolina history. Use to gather background information about your topics. Bibliographies may help identify sources to use in your papers (primary and secondary).