Research Guides: HIST 491: History and Memory in America and Europe (Spring, 2024): Primary Sources: Where to start?

Where to Start?

Consider the types of sources your topic will require. Look at our full primary source database list and narrow from there.
Look at the Secondary Results from earlier. Limit the publication range to your time period of interest.
Pay attention to the primary sources being cited in your secondary sources.

the layout of DC as a reflection of national narrative/memory
- Congressional commission reports (L'Enfant plans, McMillan Plan (Report of the Senate Park Commission. The Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia) ,
- Newspaper coverage
- personal papers and writings of designers, legislatures, others
the way the Crusades have been taken up into extreme right wing memory
- newspaper coverage
- websites and publications of groups
depictions of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and how that has been treated differently in the US and in Japan
- books published during time period under examination.
- Personal narratives
- novels, magazines, films, popular works
four films reflecting a child's-eye view of war
- the films themselves
- Reviews of the films
meanings of the Vendee uprisings in the French Revolution
- writings from the period
- personal narratives
- source books
- depictions in later materials
the Polish 'Ministry of Memory'
- ministry records
- minister publications
- newspaper coverage
- Critiques/support writings from scholars
Irelands 'industrial schools' run by the Catholic church
- school commission records
- church records
- personal narratives
- newspaper coverage