What are Primary Sources?
Detail of Plan of the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia by Robert Knox Sneden
Primary sources are first-hand evidence from the historical period being studied. Historians use this evidence to establish historical facts.
The Department of History and American Studies at UMW says this about primary sources:
Primary sources are the core of historical research. Broadly defined, they include all materials produced by people. They include obvious sources like diaries, letters, speeches, government documents, contemporary publications, laws, police and court records, maps, newspapers, and photographs. Remember, however, that there are other primary sources too: public opinion polls, telephone directories, coins, inscriptions, advertisements, business records, works of art, city directories, poetry, music, buildings, statues, organizational minutes, railroad schedules, birth, marriage, and death records, novels, political debates, films, furniture, and tombstones. This list is far from exhaustive.
Primary sources are different from secondary sources, such as journal articles. Secondary sources do not provide first-hand evidence; instead, they analyze evidence provided by other sources.
How to Find Primary Sources
A good first step for finding primary sources is to check the bibliographies of secondary sources to see which primary sources they cite. Then, you can search for those specific primary sources yourself.
There are many different ways to find primary sources. Here are some suggestions:
- Look in Quest for diaries, journals, memoirs, collections of the papers of notable people, and published collections of primary sources. Try using these words in your Quest searches:
- Sources
- Personal narratives
- Diaries
- Correspondence
- Interviews
- Speeches
- Facsimiles
- Pamphlets
- Newspapers and magazines are often used as primary sources. To find newspapers, see the Newspaper Articles guide. To find magazines or advertisements, see the Magazines and Advertisements guide.
More suggestions are below. For additional advice, see the UMW History and American Studies Resources page.
Databases of Primary Sources
UMW pays for subscriptions to these databases. Access may require a UMW username and password.
See also our newspaper databases and magazine databases (not included on this list).
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African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883 This link opens in a new window(1865 - 1883)
Books, pamphlets and speeches covering the struggle of African Americans for equality during Reconstruction. -
African Americans and Jim Crow: Repression and Protest, 1883-1922 This link opens in a new window(1883 - 1922)
Books, pamphlets and speeches covering the lives of African Americans during the early Jim Crow period. -
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window(1691 - 1877)
Provides digital access to more than 6,500 American magazines and journals published between 1691 and 1877. (Because all issues of bound volumes were digitized, some periodicals beyond 1877 are included.) -
Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources about individuals, intended for genealogy research. Includes every US Federal Census from 1790 to 1940.
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European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Contains more than 32,000 entries.
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Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984 This link opens in a new window(1920 - 1984)
FBI files documenting government surveillance of notable African Americans. -
Films on Demand Archival Films & Newsreels This link opens in a new window(1900 - present)
Newsreels and other archival videos. You may need to select "Archival Films & Newsreels" from the drop-down menu that defaults to "All Subjects." -
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window(1790-2000)
Statistical data that documents the history of the United States in numbers. -
The HistoryMakers Digital Video Archive This link opens in a new windowAn African American video oral history collection that includes fully searchable transcripts of interviews with African American leaders across a broad range of disciplines and subject areas. These testimonies illuminate the stories of African American men and women living in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries who have made important contributions to America and the world. Most films on the HistoryMakers platform have closed captioning and transcripts.
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Indigenous Peoples of North America This link opens in a new window(16th century - 20th century)
Primary sources related to the political, social, and cultural history of native peoples of North America. -
James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi This link opens in a new window(1961 - 1962)
"Contains extensive FBI documentation on Meredith's battle to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and white political and social backlash. Other notable primary sources include Meredith's correspondence with the NAACP, and positive and negative letters he received from around the world during his ordeal." -
Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life This link opens in a new window(1942 - 1946)
A collection of 25 newspapers that document life in the World War II Japanese-American internment camps. -
Reveal Digital Collections (JSTOR) This link opens in a new window(1800 - 2020)
Includes these collections:- American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside
- Independent Voices (alternative/dissident newspapers and magazines)
- Student Activism
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Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window(17th century - 21st century)
"Brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world." -
We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961 This link opens in a new window(1961)
FBI documents regarding the Freedom Rides of 1961. -
Witchcraft in Europe and America This link opens in a new window(15th century - 20th century)
Texts on witchcraft, including "anti-persecution writings, works by penologists, legal and church documents, exposés of persecutions, and philosophical writings and transcripts of trials and exorcisms."
UMW Special Collections and University Archives
Simpson LIbrary's Special Collections and University Archives includes a collection of rare books and archival materials relating to the history of the Fredericksburg area and of the institution. Access is by appointment only at this time. To make an appointment, call (540) 654-2045 or email
archives@umw.edu.
Our Digital Collections include collections of photographs, materials relating to James Farmer, oral histories compiled by university faculty and students, and a rich array of other items. You can search through digitized versions of the Battlefield, the Bullet, Blue & Gray Press, and other publications using Eagle Explorer.
The DIgital Archiving Lab in room 322 of the Hurley Convergence Center has specialized equipment for scanning and preserving materials from our collections or for projects in History and American Studies courses.
Primary Source Collections Online
Best bets:
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Library of Congress: Digital CollectionsProvides "access to print, pictorial, and audio-visual collections and other digital services." The Library of Congress's page also includes a list of periodicals and newspapers "available inside the library."
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Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers(Library of Congress)
Accesses newspaper pages from 1860-1922. This site also provides bibliographic information (name changes, publication runs, etc.) for American newspapers published from 1690 to date. -
Internet History Sourcebooks Project"A collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts."
Other collections:
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Archives Portal EuropeArchival materials from European archives.
Note: For full-text documents, check the box labeled "Only material with digital objects." -
Avalon ProjectIncludes "digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy, and government" from ancient times to the present.
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British History Online"British History Online is a collection of nearly 1300 volumes of primary and secondary content relating to British and Irish history, and histories of empire and the British world. BHO also provides access to 40,000 images and 10,000 tiles of historic maps of the British Isles."
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Congress.govThe official website for U.S. federal legislative information. Includes the text and status of legislation, the Congressional Record, member profiles, committee information and meeting transcripts, executive communications, and more. See also A Century of Lawmaking For a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Devates 1774-1875.
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Digital State ArchivesLinks to the state archives of all fifty states.
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Document Bank of Virginia"Document Bank of Virginia (DBVa) is the Library of Virginia’s initiative to get documents into classrooms. Using primary sources, teachers can make history relevant to students while helping them learn and understand state standards."
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Early Modern Resources"A a research portal for the early modern period (c.1500-1800 CE)." Includes a page of links to primary sources.
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Eyewitness to History"History through the eyes of those who lived it." Covers the ancient world to the present.
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G. Robert Vincent Voice LibraryIncludes recordings of speeches, oral history interviews, performances, and lectures. See especially the gallery for U.S. Presidents.
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History Matters: Many PastsMore than a thousand primary sources from American history. Part of the History Matters project from CUNY and GMU.
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Internet Sites with Primary Sources for U.S. HistoryA massive collection that includes web pages organized by century, state and region, maps, and newspapers.
From Bowling Green State University Libraries -
Mount Vernon: Research DatabasesA list of online collections focused on the Revolutionary War era.
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National Union Catalog of Manuscript CollectionsProvides a gateway for locating archival and manuscript collections.
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Virginia Center for Digital History: ProjectsA variety of Virginia history projects, many of which include primary sources. Provided by the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.
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Virginia Memory (Library of Virginia)The Library of Virginia, the state archives and reference library, "maintains vast and varied collections of print materials, manuscripts, archival records, newspapers, photographs and ephemera, maps and atlases, rare books, and fine art that tell the history of the commonwealth and its people." Of special interest is the Digital Collections page.
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World History MattersA collection of history websites from the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, including:
Primary Sources Collected in Books
These books are in the Reference section on the first floor of Simpson Library. Reference books may not be checked out, but if you find a useful document in one of these books, you can make a PDF scan using the library's book scanners.
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American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals to 1980Call Number: REFB CT 214 .A7x 1983Publication Date: 1983 -
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Encyclopedia of American Historical DocumentsCall Number: REFB E 173 .E54 2004Publication Date: 2004 -
Milestone Documents in African American HistoryCall Number: REFB E 184.6 .M55 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
