Research Guides: FNS 393: First Nations and Education Policy: Primary Sources

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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)

For more information on primary sources, see our Primary & Secondary Sources library guide linked below.

Primary & Secondary Sources
by Sarah Weber Last Updated Apr 22, 2022 317 views this year

Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
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Subjects covered include history, news, and a wide range of topics. Find primary sources: the full text and full image articles from the New York Times dating back to the 19th century.
Coverage from 1851 to present- most recent 3 years not available.
Early American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Subjects covered include historic local, regional, & national news. Find news and primary sources.
Available here: Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876; Series 1 (2009 ETC); Series 2, 1758-1900; Series 2 (2009 ETC); Series 3, 1829-1922; Series 3 (2009 ETC); Series 4, 1756-1922; Series 4 (2009 ETC); Series 5, 1777-1922; Series 5 (2009 ETC); Series 6, 1741-1922; Series 6 (2009 ETC); Series 7, 1773-1922 and Series 7 (2009 ETC).
NewspaperARCHIVE.com This link opens in a new window
Subjects covered include genealogy, history, and culture. Contains Wisconsin newspaper coverage.
NewspaperARCHIVE includes fully searchable newspaper pages from more than 400 cities and towns—from The Washington Post to the Stevens Point Gazette.Years of coverage vary, but some newspapers go back as far as the 1700s and include titles from the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom. Pages are reproduced in PDF format.Coverage: 1700s - (updates vary); varies by title
US Newsstream
Subjects covered include news and current events. Find current and archival to 1980 U.S. news.
Includes The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune as well as over 80 Gannett titles.
Accessible Archives
Subjects covered include history, biography, multicultural & ethnic studies, and news. Find eyewitness accounts of historical events, editorial observations, and genealogical records. Includes historical African American Newspapers, the Civil War Collection and other historical documents.

American Indian History
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Subjects covered include First Nations Studies, history, culture studies, law, art, and more. Covers over 600 regional cultures and over 15,000 years of First Nations history. Also includes a selection of primary sources.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
Subjects covered include history, First Nations studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. Find primary sources; both published and unpublished acounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.
It focuses on personal accounts and provides wide range of perspectives. Includes both published and unpublished acounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.Coverage: 1534-1850
U.S. History In Context
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Subjects covered include United States history, including events, biographies, social movements, and politics. Find academic, trade, popular, and primary sources.
Gilded Age (Alexander Street Press) This link opens in a new window
Subjects covered include race, labor, immigration, commerce, western expansion, and women’s suffrage. Find photographs, songs, and other primary source materials as well as scholarly essays.
These essays illuminate the rapidly changing cultural landscape of America during the decades between the end of the Civil War and the election of Theodore Roosevelt.Coverage: Approximately 1865-1902.
Artstor
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Subjects covered include art, design, architecture, fashion, maps, photography, and more. Find images from museums, archives, and other institutions.
Description: The Artstor Digital Library is a database of 2 million images for use in the humanities. Comprised of nearly 300 collections from museums, archives, scholars, and artists, the Artstor Digital Library makes available high-qualities images for download, along with tools for exporting images into PowerPoint and creating citations.

This is not our full list of databases related to primary source research. For a full list of primary source databases, see link below.

Full list of databases for primary source research

Online Resources

Tip: If you are researching a specific tribe or event relating to a geographic area, you might try locating a museum, university, or library in the region that may have digitized primary sources related to your topic.

National Archives: Indian/Native American History
This page contains links to American history relating to Native Americans. You can find links to several digital collections with primary source materials.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Try searching with keywords related to Native Americans and your topic.
Smithsonian: Native American and Indigenous History and Culture
Browse the topics and images to explore some of the Smithsonian’s digitized collections relating to Native Americans and Indigenous Communities.
UW-Madison Libraries Digital Collections: Documents Relating to Indian Affairs
This sub-collection presents United States government records that document debate and decisions related to Native American affairs. The collection currently includes Documents Relating to the Negotiation of Ratified and Unratified Treaties With Various Indian Tribes, 1801-1869 and the Office of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

UW-Green Bay Archives & Area Research Center

Interested in using primary source material from our archive? Email archives@uwgb.edu or visit the archives on 7th floor of the library. Visit their hours page before planning a visit.

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FNS 393: First Nations and Education Policy