Guides: HIST 481: Senior Seminar: Primary Sources

Major Collections

Library of Congress Digital Collections
A place to view maps & photographs; read letters, diaries & newspapers; hear personal accounts of events; listen to sound recordings & watch historic films. All collected and made available by the Library of Congress

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) This link opens in a new window
Photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States.

HathiTrust
A not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items
National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records.

Select Specialized Sources

This list is not exhaustive, for specific primary sources not listed please contact me! For the full list of Pepperdine provided primary sources, click here

Archive of American Journalism This link opens in a new window
Articles from major American authors including Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Ambrose Bierce, H.L. Mencken, Theodore Roosevelt, Ray Stannard Baker, Jack London, Stephen Crane, Henry Stanley, Ida Tarbell and Nellie Bly.
Archives of Traditional Music This link opens in a new window
The Archives at Indiana University cover a wide range of cultural and geographical areas, and include commercial and field recordings of vocal and instrumental music, folktales, interviews, and oral history, as well as videotapes, photographs, and manuscripts.

Archives Nationales (France)
In the online catalogue you can explore the resources of the Archives Nationales via over 24,000 finding aids detailing the collections and 14 000 notes defining the entities (organisations and individuals) from which the archives originate; directly consult over 1.9 million digitised archives and LEONORE database documents (records of Légion d'honneur holders, 1800-1976, partly digitised).

British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Provides page images and searchable full text for approximately 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries (1681-1920).
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Collection of English or foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom from 1701-1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.
Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents on leading social issues of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents on immigration and multiculturalism in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection This link opens in a new window
Access to scarce and unique Latin American pamphlets published during the 19th and the early 20th centuries, documenting the emergence of the Latin American colonies as independent states.

Loeb Classical Library
Digital version of the print library, which presents Greek and Latin texts alongside their English translations.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Letters and diaries from colonial times to 1950 plus journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings