Research Guides: HIST 301: The Historians Craft (Sheriff, Fall 2024): Primary Source Databases

Primary Source Databases

For this Assignment you will be using primary sources from the very excellent SCRC collection, and as such won't need to use our extensive collections of digitized primary sources.

All the same, I want to let you know they exist for your future classes and assignments. We have about 150 databases of primary sources materials, not including another ~150 digitized newspaper databases with historic content.

TIPS FOR PRIMARY SOURCE DATABASES

Language has changed over the centuries, and it is often difficult to speak like - and think like - our 17th century ancestors.

Words like college, race, "Indian," meant different things, and concepts like gender or nationalism didn't even exist.

As an example, a search for "gender" in Colonial America only yields 2 results, and only then relating to grammar rules.
Most primary source databases will have "thematic" filters to get you started. Before keyword searching, start there. See what curated documents come up. From those documents, see what terminology is being used by contemporaries.
Begin with basic searches and do not be too complicated. DO NOT USE TOO MANY TERMS AT ONCE
Be sure to use period-specific language.
Do NOT search a bunch of terms. This will give more, not less, false its.
Pick keywords carefully -- remember that words and their meaning change over time
- Example. If you're interested in depictions of Gender, the word "gender" won't work -- it meant something else. Try masculinity or femininity. Similarly, the Civil War was not called the Civil War, the same way the "Seven Years War" wasn't called that as it was happening.
Use the database limiting tools (publication date, place of publication, etc) to limit results. Do this instead of adding more search terms.
Use boolean (and or not) to make the best searches.

Why so many databases?

Examples of Pre-1877 US History Databases

Wide range of material (correspondence, journals, notes, etc)

Age of Exploration This link opens in a new window
Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.
America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
American history, literature, culture, and daily life. Choose this database to search the following as one file: American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900; Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1670-1800; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1652-1800. Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1801-1819; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1801-1819. Coverage: Varies.
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I This link opens in a new window
Fully searchable facsimile images that capture daily life in America. Wide variety of items, including clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, theater and music programs, stock certificates, advertisements, menus, and social invitations. Coverage: 1760-1900.
American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
Contains books, maps, artwork, and other primary source materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859; and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
AM Explorer: Americana This link opens in a new window
Cross-searchable access to millions of pages of essential American history, literature and culture. Uncover captivating manuscript and typescript letters, diaries, notebooks, journals, newspapers, plus incredible art works, illustrations, photographs, video and 360-degree objects.
Black Life in America This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive coverage of the African American experience from the early 18th century to the present. Sourced from more than 19,000 American and global news sources.
Slavery & Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. Part 1. Debates over slavery and abolition; Part 2. Slave trade in the Atlantic world; Part 3. The institution of slavery; Part 4. The age of emancipation. Includes legal documents, plantation records, first-person accounts, newspapers, government records, and other primary sources Covers: 1492 to 1888.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries, with 16 key areas of focus: slavery in the early Americas; African coast; the Middle Passage; slavery and agriculture; urban and domestic slavery; slave testimony; spiritualism and religion in slave communities; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement and the slavery debate; legislation and politics; freed slaves, freedmen and free black settlements; education; slavery and the Islamic world; varieties of slave experience; slavery today and the legacy of slavery. Documents include legal materials and court cases, broadsides, court records, maps, pamphlets, lists of enslaved peoples, ship's logs, registers, and reports. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
Brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. The library has hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery--defending it, attacking it or simply analyzing it. Covers 1450s to 1880s.
Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records (History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents of records and correspondence of southern plantations during the Antebellum period of U.S. History. These documents reflect the business and operation of plantations, including slavery records. Part of ProQuest's History Vault.

PRINTED MATTER (BOOKS, BROADSIDES, ETC)

Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new window
Economic and business activity in the West, including agriculture, commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade, and transportation. Fully searchable. From the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. Coverage: 1450-1945.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Early American history and culture. Books, pamphlets, serials, and other works and print matter about North, Central, and South America. Documents also cover the Caribbean and the Atlantic World. Coverage: 1500-1926.
European Views of the Americas, 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
Citations to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Based on the bibliography European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750, by John Alden and Dennis Landis. Coverage: 1493-1700.
HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. HathiTrust provides long-term preservation and access services to digitized content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house member institution initiatives. Items in the public domain are in full-view for everyone and items held in copyright are searchable.

Magazines and Popular Periodicals

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
Provides digital access to a highly comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1912. Subject coverage includes: advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more. Produced by a partnership between EBSCO and the American Antiquarian Society (AAS).
Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new window
Bringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Offering comprehensive full-run coverage for popular periodicals, this growing resource will offer facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries, totaling almost five million pages.
American Periodicals Series Online This link opens in a new window
This database contains 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.

Government Records

East India Company This link opens in a new window
East India Company offers access to a unique collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947.
British History Online This link opens in a new window
Primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Includes the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial; Calendars of State Papers, Domestic; the Calendars of State Papers for Scotland and Ireland; the Calendar of Close Rolls; and the official records of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Coverage: 1500-1850, some earlier coverage. Access to premium content.
Virginia Company Archives Online This link opens in a new window
Includes fully searchable previously unpublished transcripts of over 500 documents from the Virginia Company Archives; records of the Virginia Company of London; complete Ferrar Papers from Magdalene College, Cambridge; and a wide range of maps, illustrations, and other works. Coverage: 1590-1790.
Colonial America This link opens in a new window
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. Access: Modules 1 - 5

HISTORIC NEWSPAPERS

17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom from the collection of the Reverend Charles Burney. Coverage: 1619-1800.
America's Historical Newspapers (includes Early American Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
Newspapers from all 50 states with eyewitness reporting, letters, advertisements, obituaries, etc. Includes access to Series I (1690-1876), Series II (1758-1900), Series III (1829-1922), Series IV (1756-1922), and Series V (1777-1922). Coverage: 1690-1922.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
This database allows you to search and view public domain newspaper pages (1690-1963) and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Early American Newspapers Series, 1-5, 1690-1922 This link opens in a new window
Digital archive of over 1000 U.S. historical newspapers published during the past four centuries. Includes titles from all 50 states. Coverage: 1690-1922.
Collections include: African American Newspapers ; Series 1, From Colonies to Nation Early American Newspapers; Series 2, The New Republic ; Series 3, From Farm to City; Series 4, The Rise of Industry ; Series 5, An Emerging World Power
Hartford Courant: Historical Newspapers 1764-1995 This link opens in a new window
America's longest continuously published newspaper, the Hartford Courant is older than the nation. It provides historians and other researchers a front-row seat from which to view the birth of an independent nation.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Historical Newspapers 1786-2003 This link opens in a new window
The Post-Gazette is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh. Reporting news in a city that was once considered the industrial center of a nation, and now considered an education and medical hub, this newspaper offers researchers valuable regional perspectives on international, national and local news.
Accessible Archives (History Commons) This link opens in a new window
Collections of 18th- and 19th-century resources. Collections include: African American Newspapers, African American Newspapers in the South, American County Histories, American Inventor, Anatomy of Protest in America (1701-1928), Colonial Newspapers, Frank Leslie's Weekly, Native Americans in History, North American Women's Magazines & Newspapers, Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue, Quarantine and Disease Control in American, The Civil War Collection, Women's Suffrage Collection, and World War I: Military Camp Newspapers.

Plantation Records

Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records (History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents of records and correspondence of southern plantations during the Antebellum period of U.S. History. These documents reflect the business and operation of plantations, including slavery records. Part of ProQuest's History Vault.

Plantation Records in Print at WM Libraries
Includes Plantation Records that are held in the library in print or microform

Letters, Diaries, Papers

AM Explorer: Americana This link opens in a new window
Cross-searchable access to millions of pages of essential American history, literature and culture. Uncover captivating manuscript and typescript letters, diaries, notebooks, journals, newspapers, plus incredible art works, illustrations, photographs, video and 360-degree objects.
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750-1950 brings together 100,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, displayed as high-quality images of the original manuscripts, semantically indexed and online for the first time.
North American Women's Drama, Second Edition This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights and brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays. The plays themselves have been selected using leading bibliographies and with the assistance of Alexander Street's editorial board.
Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new window
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters.

Reminder: Use advanced Boolean

EBSCO

Near Operator (N) will return results where words are close together, regardless of order
- Women N5 colleges = women and colleges within 5 words of each other
Within Operator (W) will return results where words are close together, in that order
- Women W5 colleges = colleges within the last 5 words after women.

ProQuest

Near Search, NEAR/# finds terms within # words apart in any order
- woman NEAR/7 colleges = woman and colleges within seven words apart in any order
Within Search, PRE/# or P/#, finds terms within # words apart in that order
- woman PRE/7 colleges = searches were colleges is listed within 7 searches after woman

Gale

Near search N# finds terms within # words apart in any order
- woman N4 colleges = women and colleges 4 words apart
Within search W# finds terms within # words apart in that order
- woman W4 colleges = results where college is within 4 words after woman.

WorldCat

Near (n#) finds both terms, in any order, within # words (only up to 25)
- women n10 colleges = colleges and women within 10 words in any order
Within (w#) finds both terms, in the order typed, within # words (only up to 25)
- women w10 colleges = colleges no more than 10 words after women

GoogleBook

AROUND(#) in any order, within # words
- woman AROUND(5) colleges = woman and colleges 5 words apart

British History Online

"term1 term2"~# finds both terms, in any order, within # words
- "women colleges"~5 = woman and colleges 5 words apart
- NOTE: this is weird. Usually "" around words searches as a phrase, but in this case the "" act as parentheticals.

Some Database like Chronicling America have a special drop-down feature for proximity searches built into the search commands.