Primary Sources
A primary source is a document or piece of evidence written or created during the time period you are studying. A primary source allows you to examine evidence firsthand without being affected by other opinions.
Types of Primary Sources:
- Diaries
- Letters
- Memos/E-mails
- Speeches (both the text of the speech & the giving of the speech)
- Manuscripts
- Autobiographies
- Interviews
- Patents
- Laws, legislation, court rulings
- Newspaper & magazine articles as an event happened
- News footage
- Raw data
- Artifacts: buildings, clothes, jewelry, toys, fossils
- Journal articles reporting original research or an experiment
- Official records of governments, agencies, organizations: meeting minutes, reports, vital records (e.g., Census records)
- Creative works: poetry, novels, drama, music, art, photography, movies, scripts, performances
- Technical reports (i.e., accounts of work done on research projects)
Note on Primary Sources
Finding primary sources for this time period can be a more a more difficult task than finding primary sources for more modern history where photography, diaries, and videos are available.
Keep in mind you may be able to utilize the primary sources found in some of your secondary sources. For example, you might find a map in a book from the time period you are studying or find an image of hieroglyphics you want to utilize. While the book would be a secondary source, those parts could count as primary sources.
If you have questions about this or need clarification, ask a librarian or your instructor.
Remember, if you are unable to find what you are looking for in the recommended resources below, click on the Research Help page to connect with a librarian.
Recommended Databases
- Artstor
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Subjects covered include art, design, architecture, fashion, maps, photography, and more. Find images from museums, archives, and other institutions. - World History In Context
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Subjects covered include world history including biographies, cultural trends, political movements, wars & conflicts, and religions. Find academic, popular, trade, and primary sources. - Project Gutenberg This link opens in a new windowProject Gutenberg is an on-going project to produce and distribute free electronic editions of books in the public domain. Most are works of literature such as novels, poetry, and drama.
- Digital Library of the Catholic ReformationSubjects covered include religion, philosophy, history, and humanities. Find primary sources: theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, social and political works, sermons, letters, and polemical treatises.
- Digital Library of Classic Protestant TextsSubjects covered include history and humanities of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras. Find primary sources: theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, sermons, and letters.
Places to look for primary sources
- The Library of Alexandria Digital Assets RepositoryDeveloped to create and maintain the Library of Alexandria's digital collections. Explore their large collection of Arabic digital books, photo albums and more.
- Library of Congress: World Digital LibraryThe WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution.
- Ancient World Image BankThe Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.
- Manar Al-AtharProvides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.
- Digital ScriptoriumDigital Scriptorium is a growing consortium of American libraries and museums committed to free online access to their collections of pre-modern manuscripts.
- Morgan Library & Museum: Medieval & Renaissance ManuscriptsList of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and rolls in the Morgan Library and Museum's collection. Includes links to digitized images and bibliographic information.
- Manuscripts and Rare Books: The Walters Art MuseumCollection of digitized western medieval manuscripts in the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD). Searchable by name and date.
- Oxford Text ArchiveA repository of full-text literary and linguistic resources.Thousands of texts in more than 25 languages.
- Library of Congress: World Digital LibraryThe WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution.
- British Library: Digital CollectionsExplore the digital collections of the British Library and Britain's history.
- GallicaGallica is the digital library of the National Library of France and its partners. Online since 1997, it is enriched every week with thousands of new features and today offers access to several million documents. Open in Chrome to translate to English. Search by document type or theme.
- Princeton University Library Digital Collections: Princeton Papyri CollectionsThis collection contains the largest number are Greek documentary papyri, including census and tax registers, military lists, land conveyances, business records, petitions, private letters, and other sources of historical and paleographic interest from Ptolemaic (332-30 B.C.), Roman (30 B.C.-300 A.D.), and Byzantine Egypt (300-650 A.D.)
- The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation Topos TextThe largest, most diverse set of ancient texts in English on the web, indexed to offer the primary sources for almost any ancient place or personality a highly detailed archaeological site map for Greece.
- Goodspeed Manuscript CollectionSixty-eight early Greek, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Arabic, and Latin manuscripts ranging in date from the 5th to the 19th centuries.
- Digital ScriptoriumDigital Scriptorium is a growing consortium of American libraries and museums committed to free online access to their collections of pre-modern manuscripts.
- British Library: Digitised Manuscripts.The Digitized Manuscripts site contains many different kinds of manuscripts, archives and documents. Includes Greek and Medieval manuscripts.
- Ancient World Image BankThe Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.
- PleiadesPleiades is a community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places. It publishes authoritative information about ancient places and spaces, providing unique services for finding, displaying, and reusing that information under open license. It publishes not just for individual human users, but also for search engines and for the widening array of computational research and visualization tools that support humanities teaching and research.
- The National Library of Israel: The International Collection of Digitized Hebrew ManuscriptsThe International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts enables global centralized digital access to the complete corpus of existing Hebrew manuscripts.
- Brown University's Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine: A collection of ancient inscriptions from Israel/PalestineThe Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine project seeks to collect and make freely accessible all of the previously published inscriptions (and their English translations) of Israel/Palestine from the Persian period through the Islamic conquest
- The Dead Sea Scrolls Digital LibraryView infrared photos from the 1950s archive and examine the latest high-definition spectral images, which enhance the texts' visibility and readability. Browse the fragments by Site, Language, or Content or use the "free search" option and let your imagination be your guide.
- Library of Congress: World Digital LibraryThe WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution.
- Ancient World Image BankThe Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.
- Manar Al-AtharProvides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.
- The National Library of Israel: Digital CollectionsExplore a wide array of digital resources from the National Library of Israel.
- Library of Congress: World Digital LibraryThe WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution.
- Ancient World Image BankThe Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.
- Manar Al-AtharProvides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.
- Library of Congress: Persian Language Rare MaterialsThe Library of Congress is home to a noteworthy collection of rare Persian language manuscripts, lithographic books and early imprints, as well as printed books, housed in the African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
- Digital Persian ArchiveThe Database includes "public" and "private" documents: royal decrees and orders, official correspondence, and shari'a court documents, such as contracts of sale and lease, vaqf deeds, marriage contracts, and court orders. It also serves as a bibliographic reference tool, being a continually updated repertoire of published historical documents.
- Library of Congress: World Digital LibraryThe WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures and significant historical documents on one site, in a variety of ways. Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films. Browse by place, time, topic, type of item, language, and contributing institution.
- The Medici Archive ProjectThis documentary sources database provides access to 200 volumes of documents from the Medici Granducal Archive (Archivio Mediceo del Principato). Documents include letters and biographical records of the Medici Family from 1537-1743.
- Ancient World Image BankThe Ancient World Image Bank is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.
- Digital Vatican LibraryThe Digital Vatican Library provides free access to the Vatican Library’s digitized collections: manuscripts, incunabula, archival materials and inventories as well as graphic materials, coins and medals, printed materials
- Digital Archives of the Polo Museale FiorentinoThis resource features eight databases created to provide access to the artworks and historical collections of Florentine galleries.
- Manar Al-AtharProvides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research, and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art, cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e., from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period.
- PleiadesPleiades is a community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places. It publishes authoritative information about ancient places and spaces, providing unique services for finding, displaying, and reusing that information under open license. It publishes not just for individual human users, but also for search engines and for the widening array of computational research and visualization tools that support humanities teaching and research.
Not Finding What You're Looking For?
If you still can't find what you are looking for, click on the research help page of this guide to connect with a librarian, or contact your course librarian Jeff Ellair in the library or via email ellairj@uwgb.edu