LibGuides: ENGL 3813: American Literature Since 1945: primary sources

approaches to finding a primary source

How do you define a source as "primary" (for instance, as opposed to "secondary"?)

The UC Berkeley Libraries offer a definition of a primary source as "either created during the time period being studied or...created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs)."

(source: Finding Historical Primary Sources: Getting Started, last updated 8/12/18, http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/c.php?g=4409&p=15606)

When determining primary sources for your research, it's helpful to define for yourself a historical frame for your search. This could include a range of dates. It could also be determined by geographical sites of origin. You might also be interested in a specific type of source and specific identity/social location of source creator. Some examples include:

photographs
diaries
newspaper articles
advertisements
films
web sites
sound recordings
government documents
works of art

Databases and digital repositories can offer a multitude of paths to potential primary source material for your research. In addition, you might want to try searches in CLIO, limited by date of publication.

primary sources: historical newspapers and other periodicals

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998
African American Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1827-1998, provides online access to more than 350 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection, which includes historically significant papers from more than 35 states, features many rare 19th-century titles. Part of the America's Historical Newspapers collection, African American Newspapers was created from the most extensive African American newspaper archives in the world.
Alternative Press Index
More than 300 alternative, radical, and left journals, newspapers, and magazines and includes selected abstracts from research journals. Indexes journals covering cultural, economic, political, and social change. Coverage is international and interdisciplinary.
Alternative Press Index Archive
Index of journals (1969-1990) covering cultural, economic, political & social change."
"Comprehensive guide to alternative sources of information published from 1969-1990. Coverage is international and interdisciplinary. Indexes alternative, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines. Provides alternative viewpoints on internationally significant subjects
American Indian Newspapers
Presents the publications of a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and British Columbia, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.
American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside
American Prison Newspapers bring together hundreds of prison periodicals from across the country into one collection that will represent penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions.
Black Newspapers
Full text and full-image articles from major African American newspapers including but not limited to the Atlanta Daily World, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, and the Chicago Defender.
Ethnic American newspapers, 1799-1971
Extensive coverage of many of the most influential ethnic groups in U.S. history. Enables the study of often-overlooked aspects of the nation's history, politics & culture. Covers immigrant contributions to U.S. business, music, science, wars & more
Independent Voices
A four-year project to digitize over 1 million pages from the magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative press archives of participating libraries. Starting with collections by feminists and the GI press, the collection will grow to include small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, the minority press (Latino, Black and Native American) and the extreme right-wing press.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Full-text and full-image articles from major American newspapers: Atlanta Constitution, Baltimore Sun (1837-1985), Boston Globe, Call and Post (1934-1991), Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor (1908-1997), Irish Times (1859-2009), Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922), Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Scotsman (1817-1950). Every page in PDF files.

Rolling Stone Archive
The backfile of Rolling Stone, from its launch in 1967 to the present. One of the most influential consumer magazines of the 20th-21st centuries, it initially sought to reflect the cultural, social, and political outlook of a generation of students and young adults. It has been a leading vehicle for rock and popular music journalism, as well as covering wider entertainment topics such as film and popular culture.

Women's Magazine Archive
A searchable archive of leading women's interest magazines, dating from the 19th century through to the 21st. Subject coverage includes consumer culture, economics/marketing, family life, fashion, gender studies, health and fitness, home/interior design, popular culture, and social history.

primary sources: digital collections and repositories

Alexander Street Literature
Alexander Street Literature is a comprehensive, cross-searchable package of collections covering literatures of place, race, and gender. It includes poetry, short fiction, and novels, along with full-text plays and film scripts.
American Indian Histories and Cultures
A wide-ranging digital resource presenting a unique insight into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library's extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection. Includes manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books, photographs and newspapers. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism
This collection includes the extensive FBI documentation on the evolution of the American Indian Movement (AIM) as an organization of social protest. In addition, there is documentation on the 1973 Wounded Knee Stand-off. Informant reports and materials collected by the Extremist Intelligence Section of the FBI provide unparalleled insight into the motives, actions, and leadership of AIM and the development of Native American radicalism.

American Memory (Library of Congress)
A gateway to the Library of Congress’s vast resources of digitized American historical materials, with over 9 million items documenting U.S. history and culture. American Memory is organized into more than 100 thematic collections based on their original format, their subject matter, or who first created, assembled, or donated them to the Library.
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Original formats include manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or searched across multiple collections.

Black Women Writers
Searchable and browsable online database containing the full text of approximately 100,000 pages of the writings of black women from North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and the rest of the African Diaspora. This database also includes works of literary criticism and history related to Black women's writing.
Digital Library of the Caribbean
The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) provides access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections. Sources include photographs, maps, newspapers, legal materials, and more.

Digital Public Library of America
A portal to the digitized collections of various institutions across the nation, including millions of photographs, documents, books, audio materials, and moving images.

Gender: Identity and Social Change
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women's rights, from the 19th century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men's movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics. Covers the 19th to 21st centuries, focusing on the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. Includesdigitized archival documents, image gallery, and video content.
HathiTrust Digital Library
As a digital repository for the nation's great research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the immense collections of partner institutions. It provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.
Home economics archive--research, tradition and history
HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Published between 1850 and 1950, these titles were selected by teams of scholars for the great historical importance they hold. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site.
North American Indian Thought and Culture
North American Indian thought and culture contains biographies, auto-biographies, personal narratives, speeches, diaries, letters, and oral histories. Biographies include works on Quanah Parker, Dennis Banks, Susan La Flesche Picotte, Cochise, Jim Thorpe, Crowfoot, Peter Pitchlynn, Sacajawea, Geronimo, Hosteen Klah, Black Elk, Pocahontas, George Washington Grayson, Standing Buffalo, and many more.
TRB Publications Index
Contains papers, articles, and reports published by the Transportation Research Board, Highway Research Board, Strategic Highway Research Program, or the Marine Board from 1923 to date.
Twentieth century advice literature : North American guides on race, sex, gender, and the family.
provides a window into American social history by bringing together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. When complete, the collection will contain 150,000 pages of fully searchable handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave.
Women and Social Movements, International: 1840 to Present
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women's international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women's international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. Also contains numerous online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
A resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors.