Research Guides: LBST 2301/CTCM 2530: Law and Lives in American History: 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.

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.

DPLA

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

Highlighted collections of Primary Sources

Black Women in America
Provides coverage of the achievements and contributions of African American women in sports, politics, academia, and business throughout history and highlights their contributions in America today.
Everyday Life and Women in America (Adam Matthew)
Showcases unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, c. 1800-1920.
Hispanic Life in America, Series 3 (2010-Present)
A comprehensive digital archive of primary source documents depicting the experience and impact of Hispanic Americans as recorded by the news media, highlighting centuries of Hispanic history, culture, and daily life.
Independent Voices
An open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers and magazines produced by feminists, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, and the extreme right-wing press.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures of North America (Adam Matthew)

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
Native Americans in History, 1663-1928
This two-part collection covers the political, social, and cultural history of native peoples from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries. Part 1 includes news reports and editorials covering 1728-1922, and Part 2 provides access to historical ebooks covering 1663-1928.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Colonial to 1950 - includes the experiences of 632 women as revealed in diaries and letters.
Women and Transnational Networks,1700-1947 (Nineteenth Century Collections Online)
This collection uses serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals that center on
gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th
century.
Women's Suffrage Collection, 1762-1923
Provides access to newspapers and editorials covering roughly 80 years of the fight for women's voting rights.