NVC Research Guides: .U.S. History: Primary & Secondary Sources

Finding Primary Sources in the Online Databases

Online Databases
The following databases contain Primary Sources. Please follow the directions below.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Use the drop down menu by Publication Type and limit to Primary Source Document.
Historical New York Times This link opens in a new window
Includes years 1851-20-- (Most recent 4 years not available here) and offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue.
U.S. History in Context This link opens in a new window
Contains 1000s of primary documents (Search: “Your Topic” : Select the link for primary documents)
Women & Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Browse or search the Documents section

Tertiary Sources

Tertiary sources are a consolidation of primary and secondary sources. Tertiary sources usually present an overview or summary of a topic and do not contain analysis or evaluation.

Examples of tertiary sources include dictionaries, almanacs, handbooks and encyclopedias.

"Front Cover." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. [0]. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Image Source: Amazon

Primary Source

Remembering Slavery by Ira Berlin (Editor); Marc Favreau (Editor); Steven F. Miller (Editor); Robin D. G. Kelley (Foreword by)
Call Number: E444 .R46 2007
ISBN: 1595582282
Publication Date: 2007-10-30
Summary: Includes live recordings of interviews with former slaves conducted in the 1930s by researchers working with the Federal Writers' Project and dramatic readings from written interviews collected at that time.

Primary sources are original, unaltered documents and physical objects that were created during the time under study. Primary sources allow researchers an insider’s view point into a particular event, person or condition.

A few examples of primary sources are poems, diaries, court records, interviews, research results, sets of data, such as census statistics (which have been tabulated, but not interpreted), artwork, artifacts, music.

"Leonarda da Vinci's Mona Lisa." Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. Ed. Paul F. Grendler. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2000. World History in Context.

"Advertising notice announcing the sale of slaves." Image. Library of Congress.

Daily Life through History. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana.

Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Map of the battle field of Gettysburg. July 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1863. Library of Congress

Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
Call Number: PE1122 .W378 2004
ISBN: 1576465055
Publication Date: 2001-11-01
"Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his work to rise from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps" -from Amazon

Secondary Source

Secondary sources provide interpretation, analysis and evaluation of primary sources. Secondary sources are created after the events have occurred and usually focus on discussion and commentary.

A few examples include biographies and other and books and articles that interpret or review research works.

"The American Historical Review (AHR) is the official publication of the American Historical Association (AHA)." -American Historian Association (AHA)

America's Great Debate by Fergus M. Bordewich
Call Number: E423 .B73 2012
ISBN: 9781439124604
Publication Date: 2012-04-17
The spellbinding story behind the longest debate in U.S. Senate history: the Compromise of 1850, which brought together Senate luminaries on the eve of the Civil War in a desperate effort to save the Union.
The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff
Call Number: E208 .M53 2005
Publication Date: 2005
As part of the Oxford History of the United States series, this volume is a history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic. Beginning with the French and Indian War and continuing to the election of George Washington as first president, the author offers a panoramic history of the conflict between England and America, highlighting the drama and anguish of the colonial struggle for independence.
A. Lincoln A Biography by Ronald C. White
Call Number: E457 .W597 2009
ISBN: 1400064996
Publication Date: 2009-01-13
Lincoln scholar Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity--what today's commentators would call "authenticity"--whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln's personal, political, and moral evolution. White shows us Lincoln as a man who would leave a trail of thoughts in his wake, jotting ideas on scraps of paper; a country lawyer who asked questions in order to figure out his own thinking on an issue; a president embarked on a religious odyssey; a man of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, unafraid to "think anew and act anew."--From publisher description