Research and Course Guides: HIST 353 History of the American Revolution: Find Primary Sources

Good places to find references to Primary Sources

Reference sources may contain citations to repositories of papers or other primary material. The American National Biography and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography are good examples of such sources.

Bibliographies in scholarly books often arrange sources consulted by type. The language may vary but the arrangement is clear - primary and secondary, published and unpublished, manuscripts, letters, papers, archives, etc.

Footnotes in books and journal articles may refer to contemporary publications or other primary materials.

Find Primary Sources in Books

Search the LibrarySearch to find primary sources in books and ebooks. Using keywords like the ones listed below in your searches will help single out the primary source materials:

correspondence
documentary history
diary/diaries
literary collections
personal narratives
songs and music
sources

Find Period Books and Magazine Articles

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
The Evans, Early American Imprint collection is a searchable full-image primary source collection which features books, pamphlets, and ephemera documenting life in 17th- and 18th-century America. It includes materials relating to agriculture, foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, slavery, temperance, and witchcraft.
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500–1926 This link opens in a new window
Sabin Americana, 1500–1926 is digital archive of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean the from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s.
American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to 1,500 magazines, newspapers and popular journal titles published in the United States dating 1741 through the 1930s.
British Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to magazines, popular journals and other periodicals published in Great Britain dating from the from the late 1600s to World War II.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection This link opens in a new window
This database access to largest collection English news media from the 17th and 18th centuries. It includes more than 1,200 titles, including pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers.
American Antiquarian Society Periodicals This link opens in a new window
This database is a digital collection of American magazines and journals dating from 1684 – 1912.

Papers of Panton, Leslie and Co.

Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and Company
Comprising the papers of the Panton, Leslie & Co., a trading firm, this collection is the most complete ethnographic collection available for the study of the American Indians of the Southeast. More than 8,000 legal, political and diplomatic documents recording the company's operations for over half a century have been selected and organized for this collection.

Selected Primary Source Collections on the Web

Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America is a searchable portal to a vast array digital collections.

Adams Family Papers
An electronic archive of the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society

George Washington Papers
An electronic archive of the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress.

Founders Online
Over 149,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects

Early American Manuscripts Project
From the collections of the New York Public Library