Thinking about Primary Sources
A primary source is an original source of information, written or created during the time period under study. Primary sources may include:
- Original documents like diaries, manuscripts, photographs, film footage, newspaper articles, speeches, and official records
- Creative works like novels, poetry, music or artifacts like furniture, clothing, buildings
Contrast these with secondary sources, which interpret and analyze primary sources. Secondary sources are generally written after the fact.
Finding Primary Sources
Finding primary sources can be tricky. Here are some ways to search for them:
1. Search a primary source database.
2. Use library catalogs to find primary sources published in books.
3. Use the bibliographies of secondary sources.
4. Search for manuscript and archival materials.
5. Search an index (not full-text, but sometimes the best for the topic).
Women's & Gender Studies
- Spare RibFew titles sum up an era and a movement like Spare Rib. When the first issue came out in July 1972, many women were starting to question their position and role in society. The magazine was an active part of the emerging women's liberation movement. It challenged the stereotyping and exploitation of women in what was the first national magazine of its kind. It supported collective, realistic solutions to the hurdles women faced and reached out to women from all backgrounds. Spare Rib became the debating chamber of feminism in the UK. It continued until January 1993. This curated British Library Spare Rib site contains contextual essays and selected magazine content.
- Discovering American Women's HistoryThis database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to Katrina Thomas's photographs of ethnic weddings from the late 20th century.
- American Memory: Women's HistoryMultimedia collections of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress's Americana collections.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowOver 400 underground and alternative newspapers spanning the 1960s to 1980s. Includes campus zines, armed forces newsletters, feminist periodicals, and small press literary magazines.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowBrings together primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews, website reviews and teaching tools, all documenting the multiplicity of women's activism in public life.
- Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 This link opens in a new windowLetters, diaries, and other writings providing a feminist perspective on the Ottoman Empire, French colonial Africa, U.S. administration of the Philippines and Panama Canal Zone, and other modern imperial movements. Can be cross-searched with Women and Social Movements International.
- Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present This link opens in a new windowA collection of primary source materials drawn from more than 300 repositories. The collection includes conference proceedings, reports of international women's organizations, publications of women's non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of international women activists dating as far back as the middle nineteenth century. Covered topics include war and peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, women's rights and gender inequality.
LGBT & Sexuality Studies
- ONE National Gay and Lesbian ArchivesONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the oldest active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records and personal papers. A small subset of this material has been digitized and is available online.
- Digital Transgender ArchiveThe purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.
- Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new windowThe Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender.
We have access to the following Archives:
International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture
LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I
LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II
Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century - In Response to the AIDS Crisis: Records of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 1983-1994 This link opens in a new windowReports, hearing transcripts, press clippings, and other correspondence of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic and the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (NCAIDS). Part of Archives Unbound.
Published Primary Sources
Use these search terms- in addition to your keywords- in order to identify published primary sources at the library:
- Archives
- Interviews
- Correspondence
- Description and travel
- Diaries
- Manuscripts
- Oral Histories
- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
- Personal narratives
- Pictorial Works
- Speeches
- Sources
These search terms are especially powerful if you place them in the "subject" field in the HoyaSearch advanced search option.Special Collections at Georgetown
- Profiles in Peace Oral History CollectionThe project shares the critical and personal insights from women and their allies on the frontlines of peace and security work globally. The interviews in the collection illuminate topics paramount to the Women, Peace and Security agenda including: violent extremism, violence against women, women’s political participation, peacebuilding and security sector engagement, economic empowerment, conflict and fragility, and women’s experiences with climate change and other environmental disasters
- Women's Manuscript CollectionsJournals, papers, and other materials available in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections.
General Sources
- HathiTrust This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
- Internet Archive This link opens in a new windowOffers permanent access for researchers, historians and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. It includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages. E-book collections include Text Archive and Project Gutenberg.
- American Periodicals Series Online (1740 to 1940) This link opens in a new windowDigital images of historically significant American periodicals from 1740 to 1900, including literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and popular magazines. All typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts appear exactly as originally published. Allows searching by article type (e.g., letter, obituary, poetry, recipe, ad, editorial cartoon, review).
- Archives Unbound This link opens in a new windowArchives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Collections in Archives Unbound cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history.
- Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family This link opens in a new windowThe collection provides a window into American social history by bringing together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. The collection currently includes 152,489 pages.
