Find Primary Sources: Introduction - Intermediate Writing Seminar - Atlantic Revolutions: HIST 3096

Find Printed & Online Primary Sources in the Library Catalog

Many primary-source documents have been reproduced in books commonly held in research libraries. You can use the Catalog search in Library Search to retrieve this material.

Try adding keywords such as Correspondence, Diaries, Interviews, Personal Narratives, and Sources along with your research topic to identify printed primary sources.
Or you can also filter for these terms under Genre to the left of your search results.
When you find a title of interest, such as personal narratives from the first Haitian Revolution, select the hyper-linked subjects in the item record to find additional titles. For example, the heading: Haiti — History — Revolution, 1791-1804 — Personal narratives.

Browse Multiple Primary Source Databases

These databases aggregate many different primary source collections, especially from the United States and Great Britain. Contact me for help with the resources.

AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
AMExplorer allows users to search across multiple Adam Matthew collections that include millions of pages of social sciences and humanities primary sources spanning the 15th – 21st centuries.
Gale Primary Sources (formerly Artemis) This link opens in a new window
Gale Primary Sources cross searches all Gale digital archives. These primary source collections provide pages of newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Can limit to "Primary Source Content" after you enter your search terms. Note that not everything that appears will be a primary source depending on the context of your research.

Free Digital Primary Source Collections

Library of Congress
Limit your search results to "Available Online" to see digital content.
Digital Public Library of America
Brings together the digitized riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.
Europeana
Europeana is a rich collection of digital primary source content from the archives of Europe.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Hathi Trust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and access platform. 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

Temple University

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Need help? Email us at asktulibrary@temple.edu