LibGuides: Primary Source Collections: Home

What is a Primary Source?

"Primary sources are the raw materials of history — original documents and objects that were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts that retell, analyze, or interpret events, usually at a distance of time or place. " (Library of Congress, "Getting Started with Primary Sources" https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/)

Collections

American History in Video (North America) This link opens in a new window
American History in Video includes approximately 1,000 hours of newsreels from the late 1890s to the 1980s. Beginning with the Spanish American War, the early films provide documentary footage of actual people, places, and events together with interviews and other broadcast content from the period. In addition to the officially received perspectives offered by newsreels, this collection includes some 200 hours of rare, hard-to-find, and diverse perspectives as captured in a wide range of short films.

American Prison Writing Archive
Digital archive of over 3,000 non-fiction works by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers, hosted by Johns Hopkins. Keyword searchable. Includes metadata for state, ethnicity/race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1922 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Keywords: history, newspapers
Civil Rights Digital Library This link opens in a new window
The struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s is among the most far-reaching social movements in the nation's history, and it represents a crucial step in the evolution of American democracy. The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. The CRDL features a collection of unedited news film from the WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany, Ga.) television archives held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. The CRDL provides educator resources and contextual materials, including Freedom on Film, relating instructive stories and discussion questions from the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia, delivering engaging online articles and multimedia.
Digital Transgender Archive This link opens in a new window
The 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
Europeana This link opens in a new window
The Europeana website provides access to millions of items from providing institutions across Europe. Discover artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport, and much more.
Gale Databases This link opens in a new window
A directory of all Gale (Cengage) databases to which Drexel University Libraries subscribe.

The Primary Sources available through Gale include:

Archives of Sexuality and Gender
Indigenous People of North America
Womens Studies Archive
The Economist Historical Archive (content from 1843 to 2015)
Archives Unbound Collections:
- Final Accountability Rosters of Japanese-American Relocation Centers, 1944-1946
- Japanese American Internment: Records of the Franklin d. Roosevelt Library (Executive Order 9066)
- Personal Justice Denied: Public Hearings of the commission on Wartime Relocation and Interment, 1981
- U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Little Rock Integration Crisis, 1957-1958
- U.S. Military Activities and Civil Rights: The Military Response to the March on Washington, 1963

HeinOnline U.S. Congressional Documents Library This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive resource for U.S. Congressional documents research. Contents include the complete Congressional Record bound volume set (1873-present) and its three predecessor titles: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873), as well as Congressional Record Dailies from 1980-present, House and Senate reports and documents, Congressional hearings, and Congressional Research Service reports.
Keywords: congress, house, senate
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 This link opens in a new window
The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 is the most comprehensive full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises available today. Sourced from the world's foremost law libraries, this archive covers nearly every aspect of American and British law and encompasses a range of analytical, theoretical, and practical literature for research in US and British legal history. It features casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches, and other works from the most influential writers and key legal thinkers of the time.
This resource was purchased by Drexel's Kline School of Law, but is accessible to all authorized Drexel patrons
Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new window
Contains full text of more than 10,000 accounts of civil and criminal trials published between 1600 and 1926, including trial transcripts, briefs, transcripts of oral arguments, records of legislative and administrative proceedings, arbitration records, and popular accounts of trials.
Making of the Modern World, Part I: The Goldsmiths’-Kress Collection, 1450-1850 This link opens in a new window
This collection follows the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth -- the driving force behind many of the major historical events during the period (1450-1850). With full-text search capabilities on an abundance of rare books and primary source materials, this resource provides unparalleled access to more than 61,000 books and 466 serials, plus essays, government publications, pamphlets and broadsides, proclamations, and ephemera, many of which are the only known copy of the work in the world. Languages include French, German, Spanish, and more. Features unique search capability for illustrated works. All content is downloadable.
This resource was purchased by Drexel's Kline School of Law, but is accessible to all authorized Drexel patrons.
Keywords: capitalism, industrialization, trade
Modernist Journals Project This link opens in a new window
Access a select number of digitized journals and magazines published between 1890 and 1922 in English. Users can search for information and download pdf copies of original content.
Keywords: primary sources, literature, modernism
ProQuest Historical New Amsterdam News This link opens in a new window
The New York Amsterdam News was started more than a century ago, with a $10 investment. It has gone on to become one of the most important Black newspapers in the country and today remains one of the most influential Black-owned and -operated media businesses in the nation, if not the world.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times 1851 - 3 years Ago This link opens in a new window
Search historical New York Times content from 1851 to 3 years ago. Articles, editorials, cartoons, and even advertisements are fully seachable.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Philadelphia Inquirer 1860 - 2001 This link opens in a new window
Full text access to The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1860 - 2001.
ProQuest Historical Philadelphia Tribune This link opens in a new window
With a rich history of growth and advocacy that closely mirrors the nation’s Civil Rights progress, The Philadelphia Tribune is the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper reflecting the African-American experience.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 1786 - 2003 This link opens in a new window
Full Text access to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper from 1786-2003
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Washington Post 1877-2000 This link opens in a new window
Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1877 through 2001. Provides full text and full image articles with digital reproductions of every page, every article and every issue in PDF format. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.
Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation This link opens in a new window
The Visual History Archive® is the Shoah Foundation's collection of audiovisual interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. See Drexel's Visual History Archive LibGuide for more information on using this resource. VHA offers a collection of 55,000 audiovisual interviews with witnesses of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Central African Republic Conflict, contemporary antisemitism, the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Guatemalan Genocide, and the Nanjing Massacre gathered by USC Shoah Foundation and partnering organizations.
New platform and expanded access as of 2018

Primary Source Collections

Teaching with Primary Sources

Contact A Librarian

What is a Primary Source?

Collections