Primary Sources
What are Primary Sources?
Primary Sources are documents or artifacts that offer a contemporaneous account of an event because they were created by participants or people directly involved. Examples may include:
- Diaries and letters
- Legal / government documents
- Editorials
- Speeches and interviews
- Literary narratives (memoirs, autobiographies)
- Artistics works (musical and visual arts)
- News transcripts
Finding Primary Sources in the Library Catalog
You'll find several collections of primary documents in the library, here are a few examples:
American Decades Primary Sources online
Antebellum Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1820 to 1860 online
Civil War: Primary Documents on Events from 1860 to 1865 online
Early Republic: Primary Documents on Events from 1799 to 1820 online
Family in Society: Essential Primary Sources online
Economic Report of the President HC106.6 .A272 or online
Historic Documents of 2006 Ref E839.5 .H57 2007
Landmark speeches of the American conservative movement JC573.2.U6 L36 2007
Speeches of the American Presidents online
To search for other library materials in the catalog, use the advanced search screen and enter personal narratives into the first box and select "subject" from the search in dropbox. Enter another keyword in the box below. If you enter Holocaust, for example, you will find a variety of personal narratives from those involved in the Holocaust.
Substitute correspondence for personal narratives in the above search to track down the letters of a specific person or from a specific time period. For example, if you searched Correspondence and Holocaust, you'd find collections of letters written by people involved in the Holocaust.
Films, musical scores and recordings may be primary sources, depending on your topic. To find these, search the library catalog by title or key word and choose the appropriate limit (videorecording, music score, musical record) from the quick limit dropbox.
Finding Primary Sources in the databases:
A few historical newspapers are linked under Find Articles...in Newspapers. You can, for example, search the New York Times all the way back to 1851!
Speeches and Interviews can be searched in Proquest. Select from many options in the document type dropbox.
TV and Radio Broadcast Transcripts are available through Lexis Nexis Academic. Select the "Search within" box underneath the search terms box.
Vanderbilt Television News Archive provides access to streaming television news.
Finding Primary Sources Online
Local / Regional:
Volunteer Voices - The Cultural Heritage of Tennessee
Tennessee Virtual Archives - The State Library and Archives' digital repository of Tennessee history and culture.
Vanderbilt University Special Collections - Includes several unique collections, including the Sam Fleming Southern Civilization Collection which focuses on the social, intellectual, and educational history of the South since the Civil War.
Nashville Public Library Special Collections - Many collections, including the civil rights movement in Nashville.
Documenting the American South - Details the rise of Southern secessionism using first-hand written accounts, literature and narratives from the time period.
National:
The American Memory Project, offers a diverse collection in a variety of formats (prints, photographs, letters, reports, sheet music, recordings, maps).
Chronicling America: Offers online access to historic American newspapers
The National Archives & Records Administration and Google Video have collaborated to offer a selection of historical video clips.
The National Archives and Records Administration has a huge collection of photographs, documents, reports, and more. The NARA selected, in collaboration with USA Freedom Corps, 100 Milestone Documents of our country.
Thomas - is a comprehensive guide to legislative information online.
Other:
Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy from Yale University
Valley of the Shadow - Two communities (one northern, one southern) during the American Civil War.
Harvard Digital Collections - Provides online access to many of their collections, including, for example, Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
University of Minnesota Digital Collections - Find World War I and II Posters, U. S. Government Manuals, Social Hygiene Posters, and more!
Europeana - A "digital museum" of European paintings, photos, recordings and texts.
EuroDocs - Primary Documents from Western Europe
The Guardian and The Observer - Full text of articles from these important British publications are now freely available online.