LibGuides: Literature: Primary Sources for Historical Context

What we mean when we talk about primary sources

Often in literature classes you will be expected to find materials that are contemporary to the works you are studying. Here are suggestions and techniques to help lead you to these resources, typically called primary sources.

Primary Sources
A brief overview of primary source possibilities, as well as ideas for how to use and interpret them.

Timelines, Chronologies & Resource Guides

Timelines, like the ones listed here, not only provide a short-cut to knowing what was happening where at a particular time, they can help us see relationships between major world events and socio-cultural developments as they co-occur.

Annual Register: A Record of World Events This link opens in a new window
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A year-by-year record of world events, published annually since 1758.
Information on the major and minor events of the past 250+ years, with historical context and perspective and a mass of biographical information. Key insights into contemporary 18th and 19th century attitudes towards the political and social events, issues, developments, and trials of the time.

Coverage:1758 - current

Part of the ProQuest Primary Sources Collection.

Timelines: Sources from History
This British Library timeline allows you to explore collection items chronologically, from medieval times to the present day. It includes a diverse combination of texts: those that allow glimpses of everyday life (handbills, posters, letters, diaries), remnants of political events (charters, speeches, campaign leaflets), and the writings of well known historical and literary figures.
U.S. History Scene
A multimedia history education website focused on providing easy access to premier digital resources, live digital curriculum, and cutting-edge history scholarship. Organized by century (pre-18th, 18th, 19th, 20th & 21st).

Newspapers

Newspapers are excellent primary sources, often providing firsthand accounts of important historical events and chronicling the cultural ethos of the day.

Historical Newspapers
Memorial Library's collection of historical newspapers.

Periodicals in Print

The historic 19th and 20th century periodicals listed here may all be found in the Bound Periodicals section on the 1st floor of Memorial Library. The time range and topics-covered vary, but all provide insight into how people were living and what they were reading during the time covered.

Harper's Magazine (1866-1977)	Scribner's Monthly (1871-1881)
Hours at Home (1867-1870)	Life (1936-1972, 1978-2000)
International Review (1874-1883)	Vogue (1960-present)
Our Day (1888-1894)	Newsweek (1933-present)
Outlook (1898-1931)	Good Housekeeping (1926-present)
Scribner's Magazine (1874-1937)	Travel (1914-1971)

Periodicals: Electronic Archives

Online full text of periodicals, most intended for a popular audience - these are the publications regular folks were reading at the time. Some go back to the 16th and 17th centuries, but most are from the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Special interest and general magazines published between 1740 and 1800.
Periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.

Part of the ProQuest Primary Sources Collection.
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Hundreds of periodicals from 1681-2005. Search by topic or browse particular publications.
Coverage:1681 - 2005

Part of the ProQuest Primary Sources Collection.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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US and UK magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater, 1880-2015.
Primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies. Includes film fan magazines and music press titles. Magazines have been scanned cover-to-cover in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of all articles, covers, ads and reviews.

Coverage:1880 - 2015

Part of the ProQuest Primary Sources Collection.
Harper's Bazaar Archive This link opens in a new window
The US and UK editions of Harper's Bazaar, a fashion, arts, and culture magazine, 1867 - present.
Part of the ProQuest Primary Sources Collection.
Life Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
The prominent photojournalism magazine, 1936-2000.
The cover-to-cover format means each issue is presented in its entirety, including the front and back covers as well as all articles and advertisements contained in the original publication. Everything has been indexed with relevant subject terms to ensure that researchers and readers can quickly and accurately find what they are looking for. Valuable to researchers of 20th-century current events, politics and culture, as well as those interested in the history of business, advertising, and popular culture.
News, Policy & Politics Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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15 major magazines spanning areas including current events, international relations, and public policy, ‎1918 - 2015.
These titles offer multiple perspectives on the contemporary contexts of the major events, trends, and interests in these fields throughout the 20th century. Title list:
- Americas, 1949 to 2012
- Church & State, 1948 to 2015
- Common Cause Magazine, 1980 to 1996
- Dollars & Sense, 1977 to 2015
- Europe, 1954 to 2002
- Fellowship, 1935 to 2016
- In These Times, 1976 to 2015
- NATO Review, 1953 to 2001
- New Internationalist, 1971 to 2013
- Newsweek, 1933 to 2012
- State Legislatures, 1975 to 2015
- The UNESCO Courier, 1948 to 2001
- UN Chronicle, 1964 to 2015
- Whole Earth, 1974 to 2002
- World Tomorrow, 1918 to 1934
Religious Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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Magazines for a broad audience devoted to religious topics, spanning 19th-21st centuries.
The publications were originally written by/for a wider populace rather than academic/cultural elites and offer insights into, for example, the influence of belief systems on public life, the history of popular religious movements and the means used by religions to gain adherents and communicate their ideologies. A wide variety of religions and denominations are represented, allowing for comparative studies of religions during this period.
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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Women's interest consumer magazines from the late-19th century through to 2005.
Issues are scanned in high-resolution color and feature detailed article-level indexing. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period.

Title list:
keywords: women, gender

Collections of Primary Sources: Library Subscriptions

These databases will help you find primary source material in Memorial Library's collections. Examples include letters, diaries, and the full text of magazines and journals that were written during the period that interests you. Some collections are focused around a specific topic (women, the entertainment industry) or period (the sixties, the Gilded Age); others will be more comprehensive (American periodicals).

Research Databases: All Primary Resources

Here are examples of a few key primary source collections:

AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
Collections of primary sources for the social sciences and humanities from the 15th-21st centuries. Collections include African American Communities, Defining Gender, Eighteenth Century Drama, and many more.
Adam Matthew publishes unique primary sources for the social sciences and humanities. AM Explorer provides access to the entire portfolio from Adam Matthew from the 15th – 21st centuries. Collections include African American Communities, Defining Gender, Eighteenth Century Drama, and many more.
Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new window
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Books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.
In the late 1800's, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. The Gerritsen Collection has since become the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world.
History Reference Center This link opens in a new window
Articles, books, images, video, U.S. and world history.
A full-text history reference database designed for secondary schools, public libraries, junior/community colleges, and undergraduate research. The database features reference books, encyclopedias, non-fiction books, and history periodicals as well as thousands of historical documents, biographies of historical figures, photos, maps, and over 80 hours of historical video.

Coverage Dates: 1917 - present

Collections of Primary Sources: Open Access

Here are a few examples of significant collections of primary source materials that you can find on the open internet, accessible to all users. To search for primary sources on your topic, add terms such as "digital collection" or the specific type of primary source to your topic search in your favorite browser. For example,

to find primary sources on slavery, Google slavery digital collections
to find letters on the women's suffrage movement, search for women's letters 19th century or letters women's suffrage

Here are some examples of the type of collections you will be able to find:

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
Developed by Duke University, collection includes advertising items and publications, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the U. S.
Making of America
Created by the University of Michigan, MoA constitutes a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
NINES: Nineteenth Century Scholarship Online
Digital distribution center for archival documents pertaining to the long nineteenth century.
Yale Indian Papers Project
Focusing on Native Americans of New England, YIPP provides a foundational set of documents that explores various aspects of Native history and culture, including sovereignty, land, gender, race, identity, religion, migration, law, and politics.
American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920
From the Library of Congress, narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920.
Women Working, 1800-1930
Explores women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented. From Harvard University.