LibGuides: United States History: Primary Sources

What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources provide immediate, firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning an event or topic.

Examples of primary sources include letters and diaries; photographs, audio and motion picture recordings; transcribed speeches; books, newspapers and magazines published during the period under consideration; government documents and other publications; oral histories, autobiographies and memoirs; and even artifacts, like clothing, furniture, and other items of material culture from the period.

How to Find Primary Sources via UC Library Search

To find primary sources via UC Library Search, search the Library Catalog and type in words that represent your general topic. Here we are searching for primary sources that have something to do with Renaissance women.

In the top line, type in your topical words: women AND Renaissance.

In the line below your topical words, type in Subject words that represent primary sources. Such words include:

autobiographies
correspondence
diaries
journals
manuscripts
memoirs
pamphlets
personal narratives
sources
speeches, addresses etc.

Try different combinations of topical and Subject words to make sure that you are finding all of the primary sources available to you in the UCSB Library.

Subject-Focused Databases & Related Resources - U.S. History

African American Communities This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also.
American Consumer Culture: Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Provides a unique insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the market research reports and supporting documents of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer.

Colonial America
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. From Adam Matthew.

Documenting the American South This link opens in a new window
Access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. From the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Letters, diaries, memoirs and other accounts from the early history of North America.
Everyday Life and Women in America This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Provides access to rare primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. Includes images, monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.
Primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library

Great Depression Interviews.
Recorded interviews focused on the Great Depression, from the stock market crash of 1929 to the beginnings of World War II, preserved at the Henry Hampton Collection, Washington University (St. Louis) Libraries.

Documenting White Supremacy and its Opponents in the 1920s This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The Hate in America collection includes papers promoting as well as those opposing white nationalism, bringing together local, regional, and national newspapers published by Klan organizations and by sympathetic publishers from across the U.S. It also includes key anti-Klan voices from newspapers published by ethnic, Catholic, and Jewish organizations.
Statement from the Database Provider:

The primary mission of Reveal Digital’s open access publishing program is to document a range of viewpoints that chronicle the historical record of 20th century America, whether driven by racial, gender, social or political motivations. The publications that make up our collections are the product of their time and place. Some contain extreme images and remarks that readers may consider offensive today. Bigotry and hate have no place in our society, yet they persist. By publishing these primary source collections Reveal Digital seeks to expose the opinions and thoughts of their authors for scrutiny in scholarship and public discourse.
Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
On February 19, 1942, the lives of thousands of Japanese Americans were dramatically changed when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order led to the assembly and evacuation and relocation of nearly 122,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry on the west coast of the United States. This site contains personal and official photographs, letters and diaries, transcribed oral histories, art, and more show the faces of the men, women, and children who were incarcerated; the prewar neighborhoods and wartime camps; and daily life there.
Market Research & American Business, 1935-1965 This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Provides insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters; from individuals writing from Colonial times to 1950.

Oral Histories of the American South.
Interviews gathered by the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) focusing on such topics as integration, civil rights, environmental transformations in the South, industrialization of the Piedmont region, Southern politics, and the lives and roles of Southern women.

ProQuest Civil War Era This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Newspapers and pamphlets from the American Civil War period.
Revolution and Protest Online This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Explores the protest movements, revolutions, and civil wars that have transformed societies and human experience from the 18th century through the present.
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project This link opens in a new window
Primary source materials, including court records, contemporary books, maps, images, and literary works, relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692.The project is hosted at the University of Virginia Libraries.
Hosted at the University of Virginia e-text archive.
Sixties: Primary Documents Personal Narratives 1960-1974 This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary on this important period in American history, culture, and politics.
Trade Catalogues & the American Home This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
A visual record of a variety of products and facilitate research into popular culture, material culture, social norms and attitudes, as well as the history of marketing, business, and technology.
This database includes materials from the The Romaine Trade Catalogue Collection held at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and from the Winterthur Library and Hagley Museum and Library.
Victorian Popular Culture Series
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. UCSB has access to Module I: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Module III: Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Module IV: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema.
UCSB's access to the Victorian Popular Culture Series includes the following modules:
- Module I: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic
- Module III: Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment
- Module IV: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2023 This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Women and Social Movements is intended to serve as a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history, 1600-2000.
Date Coverage: 1600 - 2023
Materials Indexed: Books; Government Documents; Journal Articles; Magazine Articles; Manuscripts; Pamphlets; Primary Sources; Transcripts

Broad-Ranging Primary Source Databases & Related Resources - U.S. History

Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
From the Library of Congress, American Memory gives access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America is a nonprofit organization that brings together on one platform digitized and born digital content from across the U.S. and the world, making it more readily accessible for public use.

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800) This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans and enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography, the collection was first published by Readex in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). This is an excellent resource for information about every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States, Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819) provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. This is a continuation of Readex's Early American Imprints: Series I.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this collection contains over 96,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised edition.
Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
The Text Creation Partnership creates standardized, encoded electronic text editions of early print books. It transcribes and marks up the text from the millions of page images in ProQuest's Early English Books Online, Gale Cengage's Eighteenth Century Collections Online, and Readex's Evans Early American Imprints.

Library of Congress. Digital Collections.
Digitized American historical materials, including images, maps, manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music.
Library of Congress. State Digital Resources.
Links to State Digital Resources: Memory Projects, Online Encyclopedias, Historical & Cultural Materials Collections.
New York Public Library. Digital Collections.
Prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more, from the collections of the New York Public Library.

Primary Documents in American History This link opens in a new window
A guide created by the Library of Congress with links to the full text of major documents of American history and related materials from the American Revolution through Civil War and Reconstruction.

Primary Sources for United States History
Links to important, substantial, and freely available collections of primary sources dealing with American history, from the History Section of the American Library Association's Reference & User Services Association.

Guides to Collections of Primary Sources - U.S. History

ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Includes descriptions of historical documents in libraries, museums, and archives. Use ArchiveGrid to learn what institutions have archival materials on a particular topic, and how to arrange a visit to examine the materials.

California History

California Heritage Collection This link opens in a new window
Archive of more than 36,000 images illustrating California's history and culture, from the collections of the Bancroft Library.
California Newspaper Project This link opens in a new window
The California Newspaper Project (CNP) was an 18 year effort to identify, describe and preserve California newspapers, with close to 9,000 California newspapers.inventoried in over 1,400 repositories throughout the state
Calisphere This link opens in a new window
The University of California's free public gateway to more than 150,000 digitized items — including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts — that reveal the diverse history and culture of California and its role in national and world history.
Online Archive of California (OAC) This link opens in a new window
The Online Archive of California is a collaborative project to create a searchable online union database of finding aids to archival collections.

American Presidents & U.S. Government History Sources

American Presidency Project This link opens in a new window
Established in 1999 as a collaboration between Prof. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the American Presidency Project is an important online resource for accessing presidential documents.
American State Papers This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
American State Papers contain the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838. They are a rich source of primary material on early American history as well as a complement to the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980. Approximately two-thirds of the publications cover the first 14 Congresses (1789-1817), whereas the remaining third chronologically overlap with the Serial Set from 1817-1838.
Covers such historical events as Lewis and Clark's Expedition, Burr's Conspiracy and Arrest, and the Treaty of the Creek Indians. Other documents address the Exploration of the Pacific Ocean, Free Negroes in North Carolina, Land for Female Academies, Protection of the Western Frontier, Trade with China and much more. Unlike the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, the publications in the American State Papers are not divided into reports and documents and do not include House and Senate journals.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln This link opens in a new window
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, a multi-volume set of Lincoln's correspondence, speeches, and other writings represented the first major scholarly effort to collect and publish the complete writings of Abraham Lincoln, and the edition has remained an invaluable resource to Lincoln scholars.
Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Covers the most critical world events, countries, and U.S. policy decisions from post World War II through the 21st century. Together, these collections offer unparalleled access to the defining international strategies of our time.
Founders Online: Correspondence and other Writings of Six Major Shapers of the United States This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Full-text of thousands of documents from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, covering the growth of democracy and the birth of the Republic.
Lincoln/Net This link opens in a new window
Presents historical materials from Abraham Lincoln's Illinois years, including Lincoln's writings and speeches, as well as other materials illuminating antebellum Illinois, 1830-1861.
Papers of George Washington: Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Created for the University of Virginia's Rotunda project, this digital edition of George Washington's papers includes diaries, letters, legal documents and even poetry by the first President of the United States, from the colonial era to his death in 1799.
Papers of James Madison: Digital Edition
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Documents the life and work of one of the most important political and constitutional thinkers in our nation’s history. As chief author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, secretary of state during the Louisiana Purchase, and the fourth president of the United States, Madison played a central role in the American founding and the growth of the early Republic.
Papers of John Adams: Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
John Adams’s complete diaries, selected legal papers, and the ongoing series of family correspondence and state papers, presenting in a searchable online environment the 37 volumes of The Adams Papers in print. Date Coverage: 1734-1807
Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
Covers Jefferson's life from the colonial era, through the American War for Independence, his careers as Secretary of State and President and his retirement years. It includes a vast array of his correspondence to and from his contemporaries, among other documents.
Presidential Recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson This link opens in a new window
[online resource; UCSB IP addresses only]
This first installment of what will be a complete online edition of the presidential recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson collects nearly 400 conversations, beginning in July 1964 and running to July 1965.