Guides: History: United States: Primary & Secondary Sources

Primary and Secondary Sources

There is no better way to study the past than through consultation of original, primary source documents produced during the time period or event being studied. Scholars and historians agree that the study of primary sources is the core of any serious historical research.

What are primary and secondary sources?

A primary source is original material, such as a first-hand account of an event by a participant or an eyewitness. Official government records and publications are also primary sources. Secondary sources analyze, evaluate, or interpret primary source material. Some examples of primary and secondary sources are:

Primary Source	Secondary Source
Autobiography, memoirs, diaries, letters, etc., written by an individual	Book about an individual (biography)
Transcript of a Presidential speech	Newspaper commentary on a Presidential speech
Text of a court decision	Book that analyzes or explains court decisions on a particular topic
Congressional Record	Journal article summarizing recent events in Congress
Description of the 9/11 terrorist attack by someone who witnessed or survived it	Book on national security since the 9/11 attack

Primary Source Databases

African-American History This link opens in a new window
Reference book articles, videos, timelines, primary sources, biographies, maps, and more.
African American Experience This link opens in a new window
Covers the black experience from its African origins to the present day. Topics include history, biography, literature, arts, music, pop culture, folklore, business, slavery, civil rights, politics, sports, education, and science & technology.
Includes hundreds of primary documents: manuscripts, speeches, court cases, quotations, advertisements, statistics, and other papers; More than 4,000 interviews with former slaves, including the WPA slave narratives from the acclaimed The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography; Sixty-seven Negro University Press texts from the late 1700s to the early 1970s classics in black scholarship. Other Features: In their Own Voices (audio clips, such as interviews with former slaves and music files). Links to vetted Web sites. Lesson plans, directly tied to associated primary source documents and images, and other classroom resources. Hundreds and hundreds of photographs, maps, and other images.
Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Digital collections of historical material on many topics. Includes manuscripts, printed books and periodicals, and government documents. Material comes from the U.S. National Archives, the U.K. National Archives, and many other libraries and archives.
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle This link opens in a new window
Archival materials including: digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and more.
GPO (Government Information) Index This link opens in a new window
1976 to date. Updated monthly. U.S. Government publications index. Records on all subjects of interest to the U.S. government. The duPont-Ball Library receives a large number of items indexed in this database. Check OneSearch for holdings.
In Response to the AIDS Crisis: Records of the National Commission on AIDS This link opens in a new window
Briefing books, hearing and meeting transcripts, reports, and press clippings document the activities of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from 1983-1994.
Literature, Culture and Society in Depression Era America: Archives of the Federal Writers' Project This link opens in a new window
This collection presents the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) publications of all 47 states involved in the project, which ran from 1933 to 1943.
Forming the most complete collection of publications from all participating states, this archive contains more than 450 individual items, many of which are typed or mimeographed and received only limited circulation. The FWP was a part of "Federal One," the arts project established by the WPA to cover music, theater, art and writers. The WPA recognized that steelworkers, bricklayers, share-croppers, and factory workers were not the only section of the economy hit by the Depression. Academics, post-graduate students, journalists, playwrights and novelists were also unemployed. In five years the WPA spent millions, provided literary training and, more significantly, the opportunity for participants to observe, eat and write.
Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new window
Provides a comprehensive and systematically organized collection of material on this series of events. All aspects of the war are covered in this collection.
Contents cover the Viet Cong and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Southeast Asia, the campuses and political forums in the U.S., and conflicting perceptions about the nature, course, and purpose of the war. The collection spans 21 years and includes 365,000 pages of materials.
Prestatehood Legal Materials This link opens in a new window
Brief overviews of state histories from colonization to statehood with links to full-text documents.
Smithsonian Open Access This link opens in a new window
Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s 2D and 3D images. access. Includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.

Newspaper articles

Historical Newspapers (Five Major Papers) This link opens in a new window
Includes full page images of newspaper articles, including advertisements. Indexing is keyword. The library subscribes to the full package: New York Times 1851-2017, Wall Street Journal 1889-2003, Washington Post 1877-2004, Christian Science Monitor 1908-2007, Los Angeles Times- 1881-1996. For recent newspaper articles, see our Newspaper Databases.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full-text coverage of 19th century newspapers from across the U.S. published between 1800 and 1900. Many published in what were, at the time, territories. Florida newspapers include papers from St. Augustine, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, and Pensacola. This database funded by the College of Law.
Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life This link opens in a new window
This digital collection of Japanese relocation camp newspapers record the concerns and the day-to-day life of the interned Japanese-Americans.
Although articles in these files frequently appear in Japanese, most of the papers are in English or in dual text. Many of the 25 titles constituting this collection are complete or substantially complete. Editions have been carefully collated and omissions are noted. A sampling of titles include:Rohwer Outpost, Poston Chronicle, Gila News Courier, Tulean Dispatch, Granada Pioneer, Minndoka Irrigator, Topaz Times, Manzanar Free Press, Denson Tribune, and Heart Mountain Sentinel.

Websites with digitized historical collections

Making of America (Cornell) This link opens in a new window
The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.

Avalon Project
Created by Yale University Law School. A digital library of documents in the areas of law, history, and diplomacy. Coverage is from ancient times to the 21st Century. Links within the digitized text link to related documents.
World Digital Library
This collection contains cultural heritage materials gathered during the World Digital Library (WDL) project, including thousands of items contributed by partner organizations worldwide as well as content from Library of Congress collections.
Library of Congress Digital Collection: American History
Wide-ranging digital collection of manuscripts, sound recordings, and other items focusing on United States history
American Archives: Documents of the American Revolutionary Period, 1774-1776
Beginning in 1837 the printer Peter Force, devoted 16 years to collecting thousands of pamphlets, booklets, and newspaper articles pertaining to the "Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America" from the Revolutionary Era in order to preserve them for future generations. He published them in a set of 9 large volumes that he called the American Archives. By the late 20th century Force's collection of materials from the years 1774-6 had become a valuable scholarly resource, as it contained the only surviving copies of many important documents.

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History: United States

Primary and Secondary Sources

There is no better way to study the past than through consultation of original, primary source documents produced during the time period or event being studied. Scholars and historians agree that the study of primary sources is the core of any serious historical research.

What are primary and secondary sources?

Primary Source

Secondary Source

Autobiography, memoirs, diaries, letters, etc., written by an individual

Book about an individual (biography)

Transcript of a Presidential speech

Newspaper commentary on a Presidential speech

Text of a court decision

Book that analyzes or explains court decisions on a particular topic

Congressional Record

Journal article summarizing recent events in Congress

Description of the 9/11 terrorist attack by someone who witnessed or survived it

Book on national security since the 9/11 attack

Primary Source Databases

Newspaper articles

Websites with digitized historical collections