Research Guides: History: Primary Sources

Database for Archive Searching

ArchivesGrid
ArchiveGrid is a collection of historical documents, personal papers and family histories held in archives throughout the world. It includes descriptions of archival collections held by thousands of libraries, museums, historical societies and archives worldwide.

Databases Containing Primary Sources at The New School

Below is merely a small sample of databases accessible through the New School Libraries containing primary sources. To see a more comprehensive list, from the library homepage, click on the Databases link, and then choose History from the subject pull-down menu. Or contact Paul Abruzzo with your subject area: abruzzop@newschool.edu

African American Experience
The African American Experience is the widest ranging and easiest-to-use online database collection on African American history and culture.
Adam Matthew Explorer
Through AM Explorer, you can now search millions of pages of primary sources spanning the 15th – 21st centuries, including a wealth of new content added every year.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1 (EBSCOhost)
The AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: 1691-1820 presents titles from 1691 through 1820.
African American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998
Covers African-American history, culture, and daily life from 1827-1998, with concentration on the 1870s-1930s, as reflected in 282 newspapers from 35 states. Includes considerable rare 19th century material and the following topics of note: the Antebellum South, the Jim Crow era, the Great Migration [from South to North], the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights movement.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals, Part I: Women's, Children's, Humour, and Leisure (Gale)
19th Century UK Periodicals is a major multi-part series which covers the events, lives, values and themes that shaped the 19th century world. It is mainly based on the repositories of the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of South Africa, the National Library of Australia, and many others.
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960 to 1974 documents the key events, trends, and movements in 1960s America—vividly conveying the zeitgeist of the decade and its effects into the middle of the next. Through letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories; accounts from official, radical, and alternative organizations; posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and rare materials —125,000 pages of text and 50 hours of video—the collection tells the story of the 60s.

Primary Source Books (Print and / or Electronic)

Step 1: Choose Advanced Search in our catalog from the homepage.

Step 2: Run a keyword search for your subject (in this case Palestine); under material type choose Books; in the second search line choose Subject searching from the menu. From here, you can type in the general word Sources or you can hone in on particular types of primary sources like diaries or letters by typing those instead.

Step 3: Notice this search yields results for all different types of primary sources, both in print and in e-format.

Primary Source Databases (Archives) on the WWW

A very brief list chosen at random in order to demonstrate the types of free primary source archival material available for free on the Web. For methods of searching for sites like this, see the final tab in this guide on Finding Other Guides.

Digital Archives at The Library of Congress
A vast collection of mixed media sources from U.S. and colonial history from our national library system.
World Digital Collection from the Library of Congress
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. The original World Digital Library site (preserved in LC’s Web Archives here) and all descriptive metadata were translated from English and made available in six additional languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese. All item records include narrative descriptions submitted by the contributing partners and enhanced by WDL researchers to contextualize the item and its cultural and historical importance. Books, manuscripts, maps, and other primary materials in the WDL collection are presented in their original languages; more than 100 languages are represented, including many lesser known and endangered languages. Additionally, all World Digital Library metadata in each of the seven languages is available as a downloadable dataset.
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History
Covers all time periods in European history. Extensive collection of primary sources and links to other sites. Browse by broad era (prehistory/ancient, medieval/renaissance, modern) or by country.
Avalon Project
A free collection from Yale Law School of primary sources in law, history, and diplomacy from antiquity to the present.
The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960 at Northwestern University Libraries
The collection depicts the breadth of African experience; documents African life; European life in Africa in all its manifestations; and the African landscape, in particular as it changed over time. Included are photographs showing the building of East Africa’s railways, the growth of its urban centers and the development of European colonial administration. There are outstanding examples of portraiture.

History

Database for Archive Searching

Databases Containing Primary Sources at The New School

Primary Source Books (Print and / or Electronic)

Primary Source Databases (Archives) on the WWW

Libraries, Collections, & Academic Services

University Resources

Colleges