Primary sources are materials directly from the historic event or time. They provide first-hand accounts of history. This includes materials written or produced in the time period you are studying, eyewitness accounts, documents related to specific events, and later recollections by participants in historic events. Examples include:
Secondary sources are books, articles, websites, and other published materials where an author presents an interpretation of an event based on primary sources. The writer is not an eyewitness to, or a participant in, the historic event. Examples include:
Secondary Sources are useful for gaining a general understanding of an event, person, etc. and can lead you to primary sources.
Information from: Hoogland, Tim and Kurt Kortenhof, Introducing National History Day, St. Paul Minnesota Historical Society, 2002. Introducing National History Day Accessed February 3, 2003.
Library Services provides access to many primary sources for United States history topics. In addition to the resources below, please check MavScholar for books and archival material available within Memorial Library.
Provides citations, abstracts, and full text to newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.
Provides full-text newspaper articles from many states and countries, transcripts from mostly major American news sources, and provides citations and selected full-text to legal materials.
Users can study the progression of events over time by browsing full-text, full-image issues of the Minneapolis Star Tribune from 1867-2001 with access to news articles, photos, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons, and more.
Provides searchable full-image articles published in the Atlanta Daily World that is part of the ProQuest Historical newspapers – Black Newspapers series.
Provides searchable full-image articles published in The Baltimore Afro-American that is part of the ProQuest Historical newspapers – Black Newspapers series.
Provides searchable full-image articles published in the Chicago Defender that is part of the ProQuest Historical newspapers – Black Newspapers series.
Daily newspaper with full-text coverage from Feb 17, 1997 to present and indexing back to Jan 2, 1989. *This resource is provided by the Electronic Library of Minnesota, freely accessible to anyone in Minnesota!*
Search current U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980's.
Contains top news stories and thorough indexing that covers complete bibliographic information, companies, people, products, and more for local and regional news from 1987 and forward. *This resource is provided by the Electronic Library of Minnesota, freely accessible to anyone in Minnesota!*
Includes digitized images of pages from American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century.
Provides a searchable index to full articles, editorials, news briefs, cartoons, illustrations, poetry, and advertisements from Harper's Weekly during the Civil War era from 1857-1865.
A searchable archive of leading women's interest magazines that serves multiple research areas from gender studies, social history, the arts, education, politics, and marketing/media history.
This resource consists of declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events - including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions - from 1945 to the present.
Covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples in a wide range of subject areas; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery.
Gale Primary Sources allows unified searching of Gale primary source collections for a comprehensive research experience.
From 1941 to 1961, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the State Department had classified reports written to help shape U.S. foreign policy and therefore make this an excellent resource for studying significant areas of the world.
A collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the directive of Congress includes Congressional reports & documents, executive agency & departmental reports ordered to be printed by Congress, the American State Papers, as well as maps, illustrations, photos, and lithographs
A list of historical documents of important events each year for the United States and the world organized by volumes.
Provides full text reports that comprise in-depth, non-biased coverage of political and social issues, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy.
A public policy research institution, the RAND Corporation focuses its research on a wide range of policy issues including national security, transportation & infrastructure, international affairs, workforce & labor issues, education, public safety, environmental issues, and healthcare.
Comprises information on thousands of slave expeditions between 1514 and 1866 with information about the enslaved peoples, vessels, trading routes, slave traders, and slave owners.