Primary Sources

Finding Primary Source Documents in the IMC

Books and Recordings -- Searching the Catalog

There are many volumes of primary source material in the Middle School libraries. Try the following strategies to locate the ones you need.

    1. Go to the IMC catalog
    2. Select the Power search tab
    3. Enter your topic in the first box, and one of the terms below in the second box:
        • sources
        • personal narratives
        • documents
        • correspondence
        • interviews
        • speeches
        • primary

Finding Primary Sources Online

Databases

Issues & Controversies in American History

Look for "Primary Sources" on the left navigation menu within your topic.

This subscription database contains primary source documents as well as secondary source articles and analysis.

Research in Context, US History in Context, World in History

These subscription databases contain primary source documents as well as secondary source articles from reference books, periodicals, and elsewhere.

[access from home]

Web Collections of Primary Source Documents

Annals of American History by Encyclopedia Britannica - america.eb.com

American Memory - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html

From the Library of Congress, this ever-expanding collection covers all periods of U.S. history. Note that the "documents" may be images as well as text.

Annotated links to specialized collections within American Memory are available from ipl.org. [curriculum connections]

National Archives - http://www.archives.gov/

National Archives' search engine: http://research.archives.gov/search

Google search of archives.gov

ipl.org's annotated lists of selected National Archives collections

Core Documents of U.S. Democracy - http://www.gpo.gov/libraries/core_docs.htm

Supreme Court decisions, bills, executive orders & proclamations, U.S. code, and famous historical documents from the Articles of Confederation forward

World War I Document Archive - http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/

Assembled by volunteers from the World War I Military History List (WWI-L) online discussion group; hosted by Brigham Young University.

see also: http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/wwi/wwi.html

World War II Resources - http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/

Over 10,000 pages of text reproduced here.

See also: Historic Government Publications from World War II from SMU

New Deal Document Library - http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/

Large, categorized collection of primary source texts, photos, and cartoons.