A primary source is "first-hand" information, sources as close as possible to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources are contrasted with secondary sources, works that provide analysis, commentary, or criticism on the primary source. In literary studies, primary sources are often creative works, including poems, stories, novels, and so on. In historical studies, primary sources include written works, recordings, or other source of information from people who were participants or direct witnesses to the events in question. Examples of commonly used primary sources include government documents, memoirs, personal correspondence, oral histories, and contemporary newspaper accounts.
Documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945, compiled by top scholars and experts.
Personal accounts, such as diaries and letters, of people in North America from 1534-1850, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials.
Historical books, pamphlets and broadsides from 17th and 18th century America.
Primary sources on American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
Access to personal narratives including several thousand indexed and searchable pages of Ellis Island Oral History interviews, starting around 1840 to the present, focusing on 1920 to 1980.
Letters and diaries from colonial times to 1950 plus journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings
Primary source material from 18th and 19th century including historical periodicals and books; eyewitness accounts of historical events, descriptions of daily life, business advertisements, and genealogical records.
Series I offers more than 700 historical American newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia printed between 1690 and 1876
Available through May 20, 2020
Trial available until June 3, 2020.
Explore. Discover. Create.
24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90263 Phone: 310.506.7273Copyright © 2022 Pepperdine University