Tips for Locating Primary Sources
Choose historically appropriate keywords. For example, use "Great War" instead of "World War I" to locate documents discussing the war during and just after it occurred. You may also consider different terms that might have been used to describe the same event from opposing sides or perspectives. Searching for the names of particular people or places may also be effective.
Think about what types of primary sources might have been produced that would be relevant to your topic; think also about which persons or organizations might have produced materials. Some possible types of sources:
| Books | Photographs and images |
| Magazine and newspaper articles | Cartoons and advertisements |
| Diaries and journals | Movies, videos, and DVDs |
| Memoirs and autobiographies | Audio recordings |
| Interviews | Public opinion polls |
| Letters | Fiction |
| Speeches | Research data and statistics |
| Documents produced by organizations | Documents produced by government agencies, including congressional hearings and census records |
To locate potential primary sources in the library's online catalog, look for subject headings that contain terms such as diaries, letters, correspondence, autobiography, interviews, or personal narratives following the main heading.
Selected Published Primary Source Collections
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A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence
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Call Number: ONLINEISBN: 9781595588517Publication Date: 2012-03-27 -
The World Turned Upside Down: Indian Voices from Early America
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Call Number: Main Stacks - Wilson wing, 1st floor ; E77 .W883 1994ISBN: 9780312102814Publication Date: 1994-03-15 -
Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents
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Call Number: Main Stacks - Wilson wing, 1st floor ; E269.N3 H65 2009ISBN: 9780312413590Publication Date: 2009-01-23 -
Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives
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Call Number: Main Stacks - Wilson wing, 1st floor ; E276 .K54 1998ISBN: 1570032181Publication Date: 1998-05-01 -
Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution Series (32 volumes)
Call Number: VariousISBN: 0405012136Publication Date: 1968-1969
Primary Source Collections
To see more primary sources related to American History, visit the Primary Sources at ZSR guide.
COLONIAL, REVOLUTIONARY, AND EARLY REPUBLIC DOCUMENTS
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Colonial America This link opens in a new windowProvides access to all volumes of the CO 5 series from the UK National Archives, which consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.
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American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new windowSourced from the Gilder Lehman Collection, this collection of primary source materials contains two thematic modules - Module I: Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859; Module II: Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945. Coverage: 1493-1945
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Documenting the American South, Colonial and State Records of North CarolinaThe Colonial and State Records of North Carolina includes documents and materials from throughout the country and from several European repositories covering the earliest days of North Carolina's settlement by Europeans through the ratification of the United States Constitution.
The original 26 volumes of historical materials were published between 1886 and 1907. This digital version is complete for the 18th century, but some earlier volumes are still in progress. -
Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774 to 1789Contains 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
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Indigenous Peoples of North America This link opens in a new windowCultural, political, and social history of indigenous peoples from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
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Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800Online collection of 55,000 documents of the early War Department
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ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new windowAll things Congress- full text of: federal bills and laws (1776-present); voting records (1987-present); U.S. Serial Set and American State Papers (1817-present); published and unpublished Congressional hearings from (1824 to present); Congressional Record (1873-present) and its predecessor publications (1789-1873); Congressional Research Service reports (1916-present). Coverage: 1789-present
HISTORICAL PERIODICALS
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Accessible Archives This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text, image level access to historical periodicals from colonial and early American history. ZSR has purchased: The Virginia Gazette, South Carolina Newspapers, and The Pennsylvania Gazette.
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American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new windowA collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912. Documents the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
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America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowSearch the full text of historical newspapers. WFU access includes the Early American Newspapers Series 1 (1690-1876), African American Newspapers Series 1 (1827-1998), African American Newspapers Series 2 (1835-1956), and Caribbean Newspapers (1718-1876). Coverage: 1690-1876, 1827-1998
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Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new windowSearch across a wide range of eighteenth century periodicals that cover multiple aspects of contemporary life and culture, including literature, theatre and arts, politics, religion, morality, satire, business, and gender. Primarily UK, but also includes colonial publications from India, Ireland, Canada, and the Caribbean.
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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection This link opens in a new windowCollection of 17th and 18th century English newspapers and news pamphlets. Published mostly in London, but there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India. Includes page images. Coverage: 1604-1804
HISTORICAL BOOKS & PAMPHLETS
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Early American Imprints, Series I & II (combined) This link opens in a new windowIncludes the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in the 13 colonies and the United States between 1639-1819. Combined search of both the Evans collection and the Shaw & Shoemaker collection. Coverage: 1639-1819
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online - ECCO This link opens in a new windowContains books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England or in English between 1701 and 1800. Includes many of the items indexed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Coverage: 1701-1800
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HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowFull-text seachable library of high-quality digitized materials such as books, articles, government information, and more from libraries around the world. Includes public domain and in-copyright content. Log in as a WFU user to download PDFs and access additional features. Coverage: Varies
COLLECTIONS OF PERSONAL PAPERS
Additional collections may be available through the Library of Congress or through other online or print archives. For more, review the Library of Congress guide for finding Presidential Papers and Documents.
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Alexander Hamilton Papers Online - Library of CongressThe papers of Alexander Hamilton (ca. 1757-1804), first treasury secretary of the United States, consist of his personal and public correspondence, drafts of his writings (although not his Federalist essays), and correspondence among members of the Hamilton and Schuyler families. The collection also includes documents about his experience as a Revolutionary War officer and aide-de-camp to General George Washington.
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Founders Online (National Archives)George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Over 185,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.
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George Washington Papers Online - Library of CongressThe papers of army officer and first U.S. president George Washington (1732-1799) held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress constitute the largest collection of original Washington papers in the world. They consist of approximately 65,000 items accumulated by Washington between 1745 and 1799, including correspondence, diaries, and financial and military records. Transcriptions are provided for some documents.
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North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowIncludes the full text of diaries and letters of women who lived in the United States and Canada from colonial times until 1950. Coverage: 1675-1949
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Presidential Papers (Library of Congress)The Library of Congress holds the papers of twenty-three presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, all of which have been digitized and are now available online. Scroll to the bottom of the article for links.
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Rotunda This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text, searchable access to the papers of George Washington and Andrew Jackson.
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Thomas Jefferson Papers Online - Library of CongressThe complete Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents ranging in date from 1606 to 1827.
Finding Primary Sources in the Library Catalog
To find published primary source collections, as well as some materials available in our digital primary source collections, use Primo. If you have the title of a published primary source, try searching for it through ZSR Library. If you can't find the information you need in ZSR Library's holdings in Primo, you can check "Include Items with No Full Text" in the facets on the left side to expand your search beyond ZSR. (Note: This option is only available in the Everything search, not the Library Catalog search.)
To locate potential primary sources, from the search box, choose "Library Catalog" and use the Advanced Search option to search in the Genre field for items that contain the generic term, "Sources", or more specific terms such as diaries, letters, correspondence, autobiography, interviews, or personal narratives. (Note: This option is only available in the Library Catalog search, not the Everything search.)
Find a relevant record, and review the related subject headings to further refine your search.
You can also try searching WorldCat, which includes holdings information from other libraries. You can request these books through Interlibrary Loan if you are on campus. (Remember that it may take 1-2 weeks or more for items to arrive through Interlibrary Loan, so plan ahead!) Note that libraries are not allowed to loan ebooks through Interlibrary Loan. In cases where you are unable to access the physical book, but just need a portion of the book, you may be able to request a chapter or two be scanned and emailed to you, rather than a physical copy. You can also check for full text ebooks through resources such as the Internet Archive.