Prescott Library: Primary reSources in World History: Find Primary Sources

Find Primary Sources (organized by format)

Thanks to technology, libraries, archives, and museums around the country are digitizing their collections—making it possible to view thousands of primary source collections formerly restricted in access. Here are a few worth exploring...

Audio

American Rhetoric & Speech Bank
British Oral Histories
National Jukebox - Library of Congress
Oral Histories of the Left
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The Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University form a unique, internationally-known center for scholarly research on Labor and the Left.

The primary focus of our collections is the complex relationship between trade unionism and progressive politics, and how this shifted over time. Tamiment has one of the finest research collections in the country documenting the history of radical politics: socialism, communism, anarchism, the cultural left, the New Left and the struggle for civil rights and liberties.

This website is a digital repository for Tamiment’s growing collection of digitized materials, including oral histories, films, photos, posters, special projects, publications and Tamiment events.
The Studs Terkel Radio Archive Over the course of his 45 years on WFMT radio, Studs Terkel discussed every aspect of 20th-century life with movers, shakers, artists, and working folks. From civil rights to labor to jazz, his work spanned an impressive array of topics and figures. These enchanting, historically-significant interviews — which have been largely inaccessible to the public — are gradually coming to life in a new website hosting the comprehensive Studs Terkel Radio Archive.
World War II Archive

Books & Monographs

Government Documents

Milestone Documents in American History This link opens in a new window
Primary texts from documents related to key events in US history are included in this resource as well as document analysis. This site also makes Milestone Documents in World History available.
Milestone Documents in World History This link opens in a new window
e-book
Primary texts from documents related to key events in world history are included in this resource as well as document analysis. This site also makes Milestone Documents in American History available.

The National Security Archive, USA

Maps & Images

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Image database containing over 1 million images from art, architecture, music, world history and more. Collections are made up of contributions from museums, libraries, artists' estates, photographers, and scholars from all over the world.
Registered users are able to save images as well as download them into a presentation slide format.
For home access, contact the library staff.

Flickr Commons
Images Canada
Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive
Perry Casteneda Library Historical Maps Collection
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The majority of these maps are in the public domain and free to download and use. Those with restrictions will have copyright clearly labeled.
Punch Cartoons
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Punch, a magazine of humour and satire, ran from 1841-2002. A very British institution renowned internationally for its wit and irreverence, it introduced the term 'cartoon' as we know it today and published the works of great comic writers and poets such as W.M. Thackeray, Mayhew, P.G. Wodehouse, Sir John Betjeman, Alan Coren and Miles Kington amongst others. Its political and social cartoons swayed governments, capturing life in detail from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Mixed Collections

American Memory
British National Archives - online exhibitions
Digital Vaults - National Archives
EuroDocs: History of Europe as a Supranational Region
Europeana Collections
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Participating institutions include The British Library, Wellcome Library of Medicine, Irish Manuscripts Commissions, Universitat de Barcelona, Rijksmuseum and more.

Narrow your search to "Free Re-Use" to find images that can be immediately downloaded.

Copy the HTML code for the "Attribute the Author" to correctly link back to this resource within your work.

History Study Center This link opens in a new window
"An online resource providing a vast collection of digitised primary and secondary sources for the study of history. It is suitable for a wide range of users, from high school students looking for quick and reliable facts on a historical topic, to researchers examining hard-to-find primary source texts." Includes Study Units, Historical Documents, Maps, References titles, Multimedia, Academic Journals, and Primary Sources.
JStor This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a not-for-profit, journal storage service created to help libraries and publishers access academic articles and documents from the past.

It provides full-text and images of over 150 scholarly journals in a variety of disciplines.

For home access, contact the library staff.

Modern History Sourcebook
The Morgan Library and Museum
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Images provided through the Music Manuscripts Online Web pages may be printed or downloaded for personal, educational, or noncommercial use. For example, images may be printed out for study, or downloaded for classroom presentations, dissertations, or non-commercial Web sites or blogs. The images must remain unaltered. The accompanying description (e.g. "Front matter, p. [i]; title page. Chopin, Frédéric, 1810-1849. Allegro de concert. Allegro de concert : manuscript in the hand of Julian Fontana, 1841? Heineman MS 42B") must be included without alteration, and the citation should include the manuscript URL (e.g. http://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript/114337)
NYPL Digital Gallery

Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new window
Off campus password is maryc
Opposing Viewpoints in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information and opinions on hundreds of today's hottest social issues. Drawing on the acclaimed Greenhaven Press series, the solution features continuously updated viewpoints, topic overviews, full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, statistics, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.

World History in Context This link opens in a new window
Off campus password is maryc
World History in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in World History. The new solution merges Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.

Newspapers & Magazines

Flipster for Magazines This link opens in a new window
Read current issues of magazines using this resource.
Access to Digital editions of magazines including The Atlantic, Consumer Reports, Sports Illustrated and more!

Google News Archive

Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Access archived articles from ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times with Index, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

Personal Accounts

Repositories

Specific Topics

African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
- Why search here?
  African American Studies Center provides a great collection of resources on people and events within African American History.
- What's included?
  This site includes primary sources.
"The online authority on the African American Experience" from Oxford UP.

Primary reSources in World History

Primary v. Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

Types of primary sources include:

Secondary Sources

Evaluating Primary Sources

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