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 often cite primary sources and analyze their meaning, but secondary sources themselves are not first-hand evidence.
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
- Newspapers and magazines are often used as primary sources. Several historical newspapers are available in the library databases, and many older newspapers have entered the public domain and are freely available online. To find newspapers, see the Newspaper Articles guide. To find magazines, 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.
Newspaper databases are listed separately. See below.
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African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883(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(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(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.) -
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750A 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(1920 - 1984)
FBI files documenting government surveillance of notable African Americans. -
The HistoryMakers Digital Video ArchiveAn 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(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(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(1942 - 1946)
A collection of 25 newspapers that document life in the World War II Japanese-American internment camps. -
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law(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(1961)
FBI documents regarding the Freedom Rides of 1961. -
Witchcraft in Europe and America(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."
Newspaper Databases
These databases are listed in (approximately) chronological order. Databases containing the oldest content are at the top; databases containing the newest content are at the bottom.
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Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690-1876) & Series 2 (1758-1900)(1690 to 1922)
This collection, hosted on the America's Historical Newspapers platform, contains more than 290 significant 18th- and 19th-century newspapers from every region of the United States. -
Accessible Archives(coverage varies)
The Virginia Gazette (1736-1780), the South Carolina Gazette (1732-1780), the Pennsylvania Gazette (1728-1800), Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1898), the Liberator (1831-1865), and assorted other publications, including Civil War-era newspapers, 19th-century African American newspapers, and American county histories (to 1900). -
American Periodicals Series Online(1741 to 1900)
Digitized images of more than 1,000 American magazines, journals, and newspapers. -
HarpWeek: The Civil War Era and Reconstruction I and II(1857-1877)
Full-text access to 21 years of Harper's Weekly, a leading 19th-century illustrated newspaper. -
ProQuest Historical Newspapers(coverage varies)
Provides full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. Users can search the newspapers separately or together. -
Chicago Tribune: ProQuest Historical Newspapers(1847 to 1996)
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New York Times: ProQuest Historical Newspapers(1851 to 2016)
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Washington Post: ProQuest Historical Newspapers(1877 to 2003)
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Ethnic NewsWatch(1960 to date)
Full-text articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press. -
Factiva(1970s to today)
Magazines, newspapers, news wires, and reports from around the world. -
Nexis Uni (LexisNexis Academic)(1980s to today)
Full-text articles from newspapers and magazines, and transcripts of television and radio broadcasts. -
Newspaper Source Plus(1990s to today)
Full-text articles from more than 400 U.S. newspapers, especially newspapers from smaller cities and towns. This database also contains television and radio news transcripts.
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) 654-1752 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
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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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Eyewitness to History"History through the eyes of those who lived it." Covers the ancient world to the present.
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Finding Primary SourcesPart of the eHistory page at Ohio State University. Includes letters, historical texts, documents, and oral histories.
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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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Internet History Sourcebooks Project"A collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts."
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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 -
National Union Catalog of Manuscript CollectionsProvides a gateway for locating archival and manuscript collections.
Libraries and Archives
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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. -
Digital State ArchivesIncludes links to the state archives of all fifty states.
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Library of Congress: Digital Collections and ServicesProvides "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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Document Bank of VirginiaA collection of historical documents from the Library of Virginia. Researchers can browse by era and theme.
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Mount Vernon: Research DatabasesSome of the databases on this list focus on George Washington, but many do not.
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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.
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 -
