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The Hulbert Taft, Jr. Library

Women in US History: Research Paper: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Sources created by those who lived it

Any document, image, or artifact created at the time of the topic being researched is a primary source. Examples include: eyewitness accounts, autobiographies and memoirs, diaries, letters, speeches, reports, newspapers, household and day-to-day objects, clothing, works of art, architecture, and photographs.

Please note: primary source documents are a reflection of the time and culture in which they were created and may contain language or images that are considered offensive today.  

 

Click Here for Tips on Citing Primary Sources

Find Primary Sources in Online Databases

FIND PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL IN 

HISTORICAL NEWSPAPER DATABASES

  • Always limit your search to the date range relevant to your topic.
  • Try searching terms, phrases, etc. that were commonly used at the time in relation to your topic. For example: Great War instead of World War I.
  • Look for document-type limiters that may improve your results, such as article, commentary, editorial, front page / cover story, letter to the editor, etc
Resource Allows NoodleTools Export  Citations can be exported from this source to NoodleTools.

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History Databases containing Primary Sources

Find Primary Sources in RhinoCat

 

FIND PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL IN 

BOOKS / eBOOKS and REFERENCE BOOKS / eBOOKS

USING RHINOCAT

 

Find PRIMARY SOURCES by or about a person relevant to your topic in RhinoCat.
  • Do an Author search using the name of a person relevant to your topic to find books, letters, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies written by that person.
  • Do a Keyword search using the name of a person to identify writings, interviews, and speeches in anthologies and collections.
 
Find PRIMARY SOURCES on your topic in RhinoCat using Advanced Search.
  • Click here to open the Advanced Search page.
  • In the first Keyword search line, substitute your search term for xxxxx.
  • In the next Keyword search line, change Keyword to Subject and paste in (sources OR diaries OR narratives)
  • You may add additional Keyword search lines, but the Subject search line should be the last line of your search.

 

Primary Source Magazines in the Library

These original journals are shelved at the end of the Reference collection.

Thank you for handling these fragile bound volumes with care.

If you would like a copy of an article or an advertisement, please take a picture or scan the image using your smartphone.

If you have any questions, see
Mr. Padgett, Ms. Taylor, or Mr. Previti
OR email us at 
spadgett@taftschool.org  
  taylorp@taftschool.org
rpreviti@taftschool.org
We're here to help!

Find Primary Sources on the Internet

Primary Sources: American Women

A research guide from Christopher Newport University Library

Discovering American Women's History Online (Digital collections of primary source materials browsable by subject, place, time period, and source type)

LIFE Magazine Archive (published from late Nov 1936 to 1972, LIFE was "the photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th century")

Women's History: Digital Collection at the Library of Congress

Teaching American History: Core Document Collections by Era (A project of the Ashbrook Center, Ashland University, dedicated to supporting students and teachers of U.S. history)

TO SEARCH GOOGLE: Combine your topic search term(s) with the phrase documents OR "primary sources" 

Google Web Search