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Hist 301: Historian's Craft (Benes, Spring 2024)

Finding Primary Sources in the Catalog

Use The main library catalog to find primary sources by limiting to publication date or using the subject headings below. 

Example: "College of William and Mary" limited to 1800-1850

Use Subject Terms to find historic materials in the collection. NOTE: DO NOT LIMIT PUBLICATION DATE RANGE FOR THESE SEARCHES

  • Personal narratives
  • Correspondence
  • Biography
  • Interviews
  • Letters
  • Speeches
  • Pamphlets
  • Sermons
  • Diaries
  • Wills
  • Logbooks

Unofficial terms that are not Library of Congress official terms but may be helpful

  • Account
  • Archives
  • Autobiography
  • Collection
  • Documents
  • Documentary history
  • Eye witness
  • First hand account
  • Letters
  • Life stories
  • Manuscript documents
  • Manuscripts
  • Minutes
  • Oral history
  • Papers
  • Primary sources
  • Primary documents

Collections of Primary Sources

Using the Subject Heading SOURCES or FACSIMILES or EARLY WORKS or MANUSCRIPTS you can find printed collections of translated primary sources.   

You can also use the Subject Headings above to find reprinted translations of historic documents on your topic.

Example:
su:("personal narratives" OR sources OR interviews) AND su:longshoremen 

su:(interviews) AND "Colonial Williamsburg"

 

^^ For most of your topics, we won't have material in the main catalog so you'll use worldcat.