Primary Sources

This page lists a variety of kinds of sources and offers links to resources for exploring them. 

 Searching in HathiTrust & Other Digital Libraries and Collections

HathiTrust Digital Library. Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata and subject terms.  Thus a full text search of the whole database can be limited by title or Subject term.  The catalog can be searched separately.  Many post-1923 out-of-copyright books, especially government documents, are full text viewable. You can search within copyright books to see what page your search term is on.

Google Book Search offers full text of:

  • Largely, pre-1924 books and periodicals scanned from libraries,
  • Post-1924 books and periodicals digitized in libraries. Full text searchable and snippet views displayed
  • "Previews" of books submitted by publishers. Some pages are hidden.  Some, but not all, of the hidden pages are searchable.

Internet Archive .

  • Full text for a variety of digitized print materials and archived web pages (Wayback Machine), as well as manuscripts (a few), digitized microfilm, films, audio files, TV News, and more.
  • Unlike Google and Hathitrust, IA usually offers multiple download options including e-readers.

Other Digital Libraries and Collections

There are many other digital libraries, some general - some specialized, which offer digitized primary sources.  

The Digital Public Library of America offers textual, visual, and sound resources contributed by numerous libraries, archives, and museums.  Searches catalog records, not full text, and links to the items on the contributors' websites.  Contains many individual items, such as letters and photographs, from digital collections.

Digital Libraries by State: These websites list hundreds of local, state, and regional resources.

Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture

Online Books Page: Public Works Subject List

Sabin Americana Digital Archive (1500-1926) searchable full text of writings on the Americas, including many European works. Description. On Joseph Sabin.

American History, 1493-1945 contains letters, diaries, maps pamphlets, printed books, newspapers and ephemera.

100 Milestone Documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.'

American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900

The Making of the Modern World offers full text searching of works on economics and business published from 1450-1850 from the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Baker Library, Harvard Business School and the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library. Includes material on commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, public health, trade and transport.

Finding Primary Sources Online  offers methods for finding digital libraries and digital collections on the open Web  and for finding Digital Libraries/Collections by Region or Language.  Note especially the Google Advanced Searches Described here.  For example:

  • all these words: Miami
  • any of these words: "digital archives" "digital collection" "digital library" "online collection" "primary sources"

Finding local online sources not available elsewhere. Includes local historical societies

Diaries and Other Personal Writings

Writings in which people reflect or report on their own lives and experiences are called personal writings.  They are sometimes written for publication (autobiographies, memoirs) and sometimes for private use (diaries, letters, although diaries are sometimes written with an eye to publication) and published posthumously.  Personal narratives are usually accounts of wars or diseases.  See also Oral Histories

To find them in HOLLIS Advanced Search search Subject : "civil rights workers" AND (sources OR diaries OR narratives OR correspondence).

Autobiographies usually bear the Subject term Biography, and so are not distinguished from biographies. The search Autobiographies OR Autobiography yields many autobiographies, but by no means all.

Memoir is not an official subject term.  Search memoir as a Keyword anywhere or Keyword title search

To find them in HOLLIS, search: Boston AND disasters AND (diaries OR archives OR correspondence).

Films/Videos

Library of Congress Motion Picture Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division holds vast numbers of films. Most are not available online, but copies can sometimes be purchased. Many of these films are available through American Memory and the Prelinger Archives of "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films in the Internet Archive (select Search Moving Images). If the film you want is not evident on the LC website, enquire directly as the collection is not fully cataloged.

Museum of Broadcast Communications offers the Encyclopedia of Television which includes articles on television programs, personalities and other topics with references.

Internet Archive includes films, radio audio clips, news clips, educational films, advertisements, industry films, etc.

American Archive of Public Broadcasting offers American public radio and television content dating back to the 1950s.

Boston TV News Digital Library: 1960-2000 

March of Time (1935-1967). Time Inc.'s newsreel series.

The Associated Press and British Movietone have put a huge collection of digitized newsreels (1895- ) into Youtube. Use Advanced Search to search by topic and specify date range.

American History in Video has numerous modern documentaries together with newsreels from 1929 to the present.

To find books about films about your topic, search Topic keywords AND Subject "in motion pictures". Example​

Government Documents

ProQuest Congressional provides full-text access to Committee Hearings, House and Senate Documents, House and Senate Reports, Senate Executive Reports, Senate Executive Treaty Documents, Legislative Histories, Serial Set Maps, Serial Set. More information.

Hathitrust includes numerous government documents. 

  • In Catalog Advanced Search, you can use a government department or agency name as author.
  • In Full Text Advanced Search, you can use a government department or agency name as author, "Add another group of search fields", and add a Subject.

HathiTrust also offers:

There are also many government documents in the Internet Archive.  There are two Internet Archive collections GovDocs Government Documents and FEDLINK - United States Federal Collection which are full text searchable and which contain foreign, US, state and local documents.  These may not include all government documents in the Internet Archive.

For presidential documents.

Other sources for government documents are listed in the Library Research Guide for History.

Government Documents: State and Local


See the Library Research Guide for History 

Images

Records for many, but by no means all, individual Harvard University Library images are available in HOLLIS Images, an online catalog of images. Records include subjects and a thumbnail image.

Combining your topical words with the phrase "Pictorial Works" in HOLLIS yields books that are largely composed of pictures.

Historic American Buildings Survey/ Historic American Engineering Record

Images of America: a history of American life in images and texts is the online version of thousands of books in the Arcadia US local history series. The histories Includes photographs from archives, historical societies and private collections. Images and text are fully searchable. Searchable by location, person, event, date, ethic group and organization. Search HOLLIS+ HOLLIS tab Advanced search as Series (exact phrase) Images of America for the print books.

For more see the Library Research Guide for History

Law

Legal sources include the laws themselves, legislative histories of their passage, judges' opinions in appeals to higher courts (case law), periodical articles in law reviews, and other sources.  See Research Guide for History 97g: "What is Legal History? for sources

Magazines

Magazines

For popular magazines see the Introductory Library Research Guide for History:  Periodicals: Popular tab.

Maps

The Harvard Map Collection contains one of the world’s finest collections of maps. Although their atlases are in HOLLIS, many of their older, individual maps are not.  See the Library Research Guide for History.

Newspapers

See the chronological and topical pages of this guide and the Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes

For information on how an event was covered by news sources, search the phrase "Press coverage" in HOLLIS or the historical indexes along with your keywords.

Oral Histories

Participants in historical movements and events are often interviewed and asked to report and reflect on their experiences.

To find oral histories in a HOLLIS search: topical keyword (or Subject term) AND (interviews OR "oral histor*"); search (interviews OR "oral histor*") as Subject keyword.

Oral History Online indexes oral history collections, with links to interview-level bibliographic records and to full-text materials, audio files and visual files where these are available.

HistoryMakers: An African American oral video history archive

Policy Literature

PolicyFile (1990-) offers public policy reports and studies published by think tanks, university research programs, research organizations including the OECD, IMF, World Bank, the Rand Corporation, and a number of federal agencies.

Policy Archive is a digital library of public policy research containing over 30,000 documents.

Think Tank Search - from the Kennedy School of Government, a customized Google search of documents produced by think tanks.

Google advanced search. You can limit by domain: .org

Public Opinion

Roper Center for Public Opinion collects thousands of opinion polls. The iPoll search searches words in poll questions. The dataset search searches words in the summaries of polling studies. Both searches can be limited by date.

See the Public Opinion Sources guide for more resources. 

Statistics and Data

Statistics and Data Research Guides

Historical Statistics of the United States (HSUS). Includes US-level, not local, statistics.  

Statistical abstract of the United States, prepared by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department. Washington, 1879- Proquest (2013-present),
LLMC (1916-2006)
Hathitrust (1878-2012)
HOLLIS Records

United States Census Data Resources (Research Guide) 

The experts on the Census are in the Government Documents section in Lamont (govdocs@fas.harvard.edu)