Research Guides: HIST 2600: Charlotte and the Region in the First World War Era: 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.

Camp Greene

World War I and Camp Greene
Guide to materials from UNC Charlotte Special Collections related to the history of Camp Greene
Camp Greene Collection, 1917-1918 - Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
This collection includes printed materials and publications.
Jack Dillard Collection, Camp Greene Records, 1917-1919 - Charlotte Mecklenburg Library
This collection contains correspondence, newsletters, publications, photographs, postcards, posters, and artifacts.

Medical History

Influenza Encyclopedia
Historical documents and photographs relating to the American Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919
NC History of Health Digital Collection
Books, journals, reports, bulletins, minutes, proceedings, and histories covering topics in medicine, public health, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing, dating from 1849 to the present.
State Medical Society Journals
From the Medical Heritage Library
US Army Office of Medical History
Includes primary sources documents and other publications
North Carolina Public Health Association Historical Documents
Includes annual meeting notes dating back to 1912
Mecklenburg County Health Department Records
The collection includes annual reports, minutes, and photographs of department staff and clientele dating from 1915 - 1984.
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The Health Department was organized in 1917 and Dr. C. C. Hudson was hired as the first health officer. In addition to a staff of four full-time and two part-time people, the Red Cross sent a unit of five nurses to assist in the Department's work. During the 1920s, the city and county departments were consolidated. In 1973, the North Carolina General Assembly transferred all duties and responsibilities of a local policy Board of Health to the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.
The Legacy of Public Health in our Region
Featured collections from UNC Charlotte Special Collections and University Archives related to a previous exhibit. Highlights Mecklenburg County Health Department records and manuscript collections.

Quarantine and Disease Control in America, 1736-1928 This link opens in a new window
Access to first-hand accounts of infectious diseases in America. Part 1 is a collection of newspapers that cover the administrative and community responses from colonial America to World War 1. Part 2 is a set of books and county histories providing additional insights on many aspects of public health and contagious diseases.

Railways

Railways in Charlotte
Piedmont and Northern Railway records

Government Documents

Congress.gov (formerly Thomas)
Public laws and bills, Congressional Record, Reports, Roll Call. Free or open source.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Legal history and government documents. Contains the entire Congressional Record, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and entire databases of treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, international trade, foreign relations, and more.
ProQuest Congressional Hearings This link opens in a new window
Access congressional publications dealing with the wide variety of topics addressed by Congress.

govinfo (formerly FDsys)
Provides public access to Government information submitted by Congress and Federal agencies and preserved as technology changes.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set This link opens in a new window
Reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 1817-1962.

Foreign Relations of the United States
Access to cumulative indexes for 1861-1899 and 1900-1918
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From University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Foreign Relations of the United States
1914-2000. Official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication.

Newspaper and Magazine Databases

African American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Contains information about cultural life and history during the 1800's and includes first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day, including the Mexican War, Presidential and Congressional addresses, the humanities, world travel and religion.
African American Newspapers in the South, 1870-1926 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to a collection of newspapers reporting on the African American experience in segregated southern America from 1870 to 1926. The collection contains editorial pieces that expose the racial discrimination and violence that many suffered through, and also includes light-hearted pieces that focused on other civil affairs, events, local gossip, and more throughout the local community.
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Full text periodicals published between 1740 and 1940.
African American Newspapers Series 1: 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African-American experience. This collection includes historically significant papers and features many rare 19th-century titles.
Charlotte Observer Historical Archive, 1886-2018 (via Readex) This link opens in a new window
Includes obituaries, stocks, editorials and first-hand accounts of events.
Charlotte Observer (1886-present) This link opens in a new window
Charlotte Observer online from 1886 to the present.

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.

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.

LIFE Photo Archive hosted by Google
Photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750's to today.
Free or open source.
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Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750's to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

New York Times Historical Archives (1851-2020) This link opens in a new window
Major global newspaper including news, editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, as well as photos and advertisements.
Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
Index for general-interest, news, and opinion magazines published primarily in the United States.
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.
Trench Journals and Unit Magazines of the First World War This link opens in a new window
A unique source of information on the common serviceman and woman’s experience of the war. Limit your search by language, unit name, type, origin or location, etc.

Collections

DigitalNC
Statewide digitization and digital publishing program housed in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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.
Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) Digital Library
Digital versions of paper documents from the CARL collections and student papers produced at the US Army Command and General Staff College
Center for Military History
Research by conflict and time period
Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I
An online exhibition from the Library of Congress
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Examines the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it—both at home and abroad.
Europeana, 1914-1918
Explore stories, films and historical material about the First World War from libraries and archives across the globe

First World War Portal (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
From personal collections and rare printed material to military files, artwork and audio-visual files, content highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of a conflict that shook the world.

Historical WWI Films at British Pathe
definitive collection of WW1 films
Imperial War Museum
War and Conflict collections
International Society for First World War Studies
Bibliography of sources related to the First World War
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
A compilation of primary source materials made available online by Fordham University
Kiffin Y. Rockwell WWI Photographs
Original photographs documenting the personal life and military service of Kiffin Yates Rockwell of Newport, TN, and Asheville, N.C., from 1893 to his death in 1916.
National WWI Museum and Memorial's online collections
The National WWI Museum and Memorial's online collections database allows you to search digital records of their global collection that began in 1920. The focus of the project has been on the photograph collection.
North Carolina Digital Collections
Includes World War I materials from the collections of the State Library and State Archives of North Carolina.

Sanborn Maps (Digital)(1867-1970) for North Carolina This link opens in a new window
Sanborn Maps are large scale plans of a city or a town, drawn to a scale of 50 feet to an inch. These historical maps from 1867–1970 list street blocks and building numbers including numbers in use at the time the map was made.

World Digital Library
Significant primary materials from all countries and cultures

Edited Primary Source 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" to your search.

DigitalNC

DigitalNC
Explore original materials from 235 libraries, museums, and archives across North Carolina.

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

DPLA

Digital Public Library of America
Discover millions of digitized images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States