Research Guides: ECON 2P10: United States Economic History: Find Primary Sources

What are primary sources?

Primary sources refer to documents or artifacts created during a particular period of time, and may include these categories:

personal documents: letters, diaries, newspapers, pamphlets, and other first person accounts of events
social documents: government documents such as censuses or other organizational records
diplomatic sources: laws, treaties, etc.

Adapted from: Crelin, J. (2013). Primary source. In Salem Press Encyclopedia Research Starters.

Finding Primary Sources on U.S. Economic History

1. You can search for your topic in Omni (e.g., Civil War AND Reconstruction) and limit the results by Resource Type to Archival Material / Manuscripts.

2. Consult one or more of the following Library Databases which contain a variety of types of primary sources that are relevant for this course:

New York Times @ ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
America's Historical Imprints (Early American Imprints) This link opens in a new window
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window

Other Primary Source Collections

Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
Provides access to digitized U.S. newspaper pages from 1789-1963.
Primary Source Sets (Library of Congress)
Collections of primary sources organized by topic/theme. Examples include speeches, correspondence, photos, maps, government reports, and more.