Research and Course Guides: Topic: History of the American Catholic Church: Find Primary Sources

Find Primary Sources in Books

Search LibrarySearch to find primary sources in books and ebooks. When searching the catalog, you will want to use specific subject headings in your searches to single out the primary source materials. These subject headings are specialized "tag" added to the records to books by catalog librarians to provide accurate descriptions of books. Using the following subject headings in your search will help you find the source material you seek:

correspondence	personal narratives
literary collections	pictorial works
diary or diaries	songs and music
sources

Find Period Books, Magazines and Newspaper Articles

* Catholic Periodical and Literature Index

OSF-Reference Indexes AI3 .C286

(Located on the second floor in the Great Room near the Current Periodicals )
Print index to Catholic interest journals, magazines, reviews, newspapers and church/papal documents. The indexes cover the time period, 1930-1980.

* Guide to Catholic Literature OSF - Reference Indexes AI3 . C28
(Located on the second floor in the Great Room near the Current Periodicals )
Print index to Catholic interest publication. The indexes cover the time period 1880 - 1967

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.
Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Use the Readers' Guide Retrospective index to locate articles published in popular press magazines and journals dating from 1890 to 1982.
New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
This database provides you access to the complete content of The New York Times newspaper (1851 - 2008) including all articles, editorials, advertisements and photographs.
Washington Post (Historical) This link opens in a new window
This database provides you access to the complete content of Washington Post newspaper (1877 - 1997) including access to all articles, editorials, advertisements and photographs.

Historical Minneapolis Tribune
The database provides a digital version of the Minneapolis Tribune (1867-1922).

Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
In this database, you will find full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life.
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.

Find Primary Sources on the Web

Catholic News Archive This link opens in a new window
A searchable, digital collection of historic North American Catholic newspapers, including “The Catholic Worker.” Provided by the Catholic Research Resources Alliance.

American Catholic History Classroom
A primary document site featuring a range of materials related to the American Catholic experience.
Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Records
The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions (BCIM) was created in 1874 as the Office of the Commissioner for Catholic Indian Missions to protect, promote, and administer the Native American mission interests of the Catholic Church in the United States.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America is a searchable portal to a vast array digital collections.

Catholic Pamphlets Collection
The Catholic Pamphlet Collection contains a sample of published pamphlets related to the Roman Catholic Church which have been collected by the University of St. Thomas Libraries. The topics covered include the sacraments, the bible, saints and social issues.
Msgr. John A. Ryan Pamphlet Collection
A collection of pamphlets written by Msgr. John A. Ryan from the University of St. Thomas Libraries collection.
Holy Cards
A collection of Holy Cards from the University of St. Thomas Libraries collection.
Temperance Tracts
A collection of temperance tracts from the University of St. Thomas Libraries collections.
Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions Photographs
Clergy and women religious, who taught and evangelized among Native Americans, routinely submitted photographs to the editors of The Indian Sentinel, 1902-1962, a fundraising magazine published by the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. These photographs comprise the bulk of the pre-1970 images in the collection, from which the digital images were selected.