Study Guides: Primary Sources: Finding Primary Sources

When searching for primary sources, include the types of primary sources (e.g. pamphlets, speeches) you are looking for in your search.

For example: if you are looking for personal memoirs on slavery, your search words could be slave AND diary.

For a full list of primary source types to include in your search, refer to the homepage of this guide.

Gale Primary Sources A multi-disciplinary resource, collections cover a broad range of topics from Crime, punishment, and popular culture 1790-1920 to Nineteenth-century collections.
ArchiveGrid Connects you with primary source material held in archives, special collections, and manuscript collections around the world. You will find historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.
Repositories of Primary Sources A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources. LAST UPDATED in 2015 - some links may be broken.

ARTstor Contains more than 300,000 digital images and associated catalog data. ARTstor covers many time periods and cultures and documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design, as well as many other forms of visual culture.
The British Museum: Images The British Museum's image licensing service offers unrivalled access to over two million years of human history and culture through its extensive collection of footage and images.
Database of Mid-Victorian Wood-Engraved Illustration Contains records and images of 868 literary illustrations that were published in or around 1862, providing bibliographical and iconographical details, as well as the ability for users to view images at exceptionally high quality.
The Victorian Web: Letters from the Past in the age of Victoria The letters give an insight into the daily lives and concerns of ordinary people from history's past.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics Offers valuable insights into the history of medicine and to researchers seeking a historical context for current epidemiology. Provides general background information on diseases and epidemics worldwide and is organized around significant “episodes,” topics, and people concerned with contagious diseases.

Coin & Conscience: Popular Views of Money, Credit and Speculation This online exhibit showcases seventy items from the Bleichroeder Collection, which includes woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and lithographs ranging in date from the 16th to the 19th century.
The Art of American Advertising: Trade Cards Briefly explores how trade cards were used as a means of advertising, and displays a number of examples.

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914 Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet features over 420 trial narratives involving the crimes and passions of both renowned and ordinary people.
Women Working, 1800-1930 An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression.
Harvard's: Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran Explore the lives of women during the Qajar era (1796-1925) through a wide array of materials from private family holdings and participating institutions.

Trove: Australian Newspapers and Gazettes Browse and find Australian newspaper issues using Trove.
Google News Archive Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of articles organized from thousands of newspaper publishers and magazines.

Academic Search Complete allows you to limit your search to Primary Source Documents, under Publication Type, before running your search.

Academic Search Complete Provides access to more than 20,000 journals, 9,000 of which are full-text and the majority are peer-reviewed. Subject coverage includes the Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Engineering, Business and Management.

When visiting other databases, you should check for similar filters.

Primary Sources: Finding Primary Sources