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What Are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are documents or objects created by participants or witnesses at the time of an event.
Examples of primary sources: diaries, interviews, autobiographies, government documents, speeches, photographs, and artifacts, such as pottery.
Need help citing primary sources in Chicago Style? Watch these video tutorials!
Online Sources for Primary Documents
- Digital Public Library of AmericaExplore by subject, time period, or type in keywords.
- Black Freedom Struggle in the United StatesFrom ProQuest
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowOver 8,000 articles by top scholars that focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American history and culture. Also includes images and primary sources. (NVCC)
- African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883 (Readex) This link opens in a new windowThis collection offers roughly 1,400 fully searchable printed works, books, pamphlets, and speeches from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of Jim Crow. It includes documents related to African Americans and citizenship, voting rights, literacy, land rights, employment, and more, including the gaps between written law and practice. (VIVA)
- African Americans and Jim Crow: Repression and Protest, 1883-1922 (Readex) This link opens in a new windowThis collection offers +1,000 fully searchable books, pamphlets, and speeches from the beginning of Jim Crow to post-World War I that provide insights into African American culture and life during this period of segregation and disenfranchisement. Topics include African American identity, relationships with peoples of other nations, and literature. (VIVA)
- Indigenous Peoples of North America (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowA collection of manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, images of artwork, and more that increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada. (VIVA)
- U.S. History (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
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Includes U.S. History reference articles, periodical articles, images, viewpoint essays and primary documents. Select PRIMARY DOCUMENTS from the search box in the upper right.
Virginia
- Document Bank of VirginiaDigitized primary documents; includes context. Organized by era and by theme. From the Library of Virginia
- Virginia Memory: Collections By TopicFrom the Library of Virginia
- Alexandria History: IndexExplanatory text and links to additional sources, including primary sources. From the City of Alexandria.
- Conducting Your Own Historic Research in AlexandriaLocal places with additional information and primary sources.
- Encyclopedia VirginiaLook specifically for "Primary Documents" or "Primary Resources."
Search for Primary Documents Online
In Google, search for "primary sources" and your topic.
You could also try "primary documents" or "digital collection" or "digital library" in addition to "primary sources".
Search Tip:
Use words that would have been used during the time period you're researching. For example, African American was not always used. The language in documents in previous times may have included Negro, slave or black.
Library Catalog: Find Books with Primary Documents
How to Search the Library Catalog for Books with Primary Documents
Search for your topic AND primary sources. For example: united states AND primary sources