What is a Primary Source?
Primary sources are information sources that document events in the time/era of the event; they are important because they present historical information from the point of view of those living through it. Likewise, secondary sources synthesize, analyze, and review primary sources. Both primary and secondary sources are necessary in nearly every field of study. The examples below will give you a sense of what types of information you could consult in your research.
Documentable Phenomena: elections, migrations, fads, scientific breakthroughs, disasters, political movements, etc.
Primary Sources (that document phenomena): newspaper articles, diaries, letters, photos, videos, tweets, interviews, etc.
Secondary Sources (that reference primary sources): scholarly humanities articles, encyclopedias, books and documentaries that utilize primary sources, etc.
Newspapers and Magazines
- Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window Associated Press Images Collection is a searchable collection of recent and historical photos from the Associated Press, plus AP graphics, articles, and brief sound clips.
- Boston Herald Historical and Current This link opens in a new window Explore Boston history through local news, events and people with Boston Herald Collection. Search current and archived issues with full-color newspaper pages, full-text articles and content only published online. Boston Herald Historical, 1848-1992, supported by the Boston University Humanities Library Endowment Fund.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by ethnic, minority and native presses in the U.S. Includes both historic publications, starting in 1959, as well as current ones.
- Readers' Guide / Reader's Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window Readers' Guide indexes hundreds of general interest and specialized magazines dating from the late19th century to the present with full text of articles for more recent publications. Date coverage: Indexing - 1890 - present; full text - 1994 - present.
- Periodicals Archive Online A full text archive of millions of articles published in more 700 magazines, and journals in the humanities and social sciences, in English and other Western European languages. Date coverage: 1802 to 2001. (Varies by publication)
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers Full-page images and article images (PDF) with searchable full text from the following newspapers: Boston Globe; New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Defender. See listing for each individual newspaper for date coverage and to search that publication separately.
Government Documents
- U.S. Congressional Documents This link opens in a new window Includes Congressional Record from its inception in 1873 as well as the three predecessor titles: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873), among other publications.
- U.S. Presidential Library This link opens in a new window Includes Public Papers of the Presidents, Daily and Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, and other documents related to U.S. Presidents.
- Congressional Committee Prints The subjects vary based on the committee. Includes historical and confidential staff reports. Full text from the 84th Congress (1955-56) through the present.
- Pentagon Papers Officially titled "United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense", the Pentagon Papers are a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.
- ProQuest Congressional Covers abstracts and indexing for hearings, reports, documents and committee prints. Date coverage: 1970-
Other Sources
- FBI Confidential Files: Radical Politics in the US 1945-1972 (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window This collection covers investigations and tracking of the activities of Communist groups, Communist-front groups, and other left-wing organizations in the U.S. by the FBI and the Subversive Activities Control Board from 1945-1972. It includes files from the office of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, many of which were originally intended to be destroyed but were preserved through both intended and inadvertent exceptions to Hoover’s orders.
- "After Vietnam" from the Washington Post, 25 May 1980 Excerpts from Voices of a Wounded Generation by Richard Harwood & A. D. Horne (Editors)
- "An Extraordinary Competition" from AIA Journal, August 1981 Winning designs for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement (ProQuest History Vault) This module consists of 14 collections representing 12 different anti-Vietnam War organizations.
- The United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration: Oral History Video interviews from the Vietnam War Commemoration Oral History Project
- Vanderbilt Television News Archive Streaming video of news and commercials from NBC and CNN plus searchable archive of abstracts of news broadcasts from ABC, CBS, Fox News, and other channels . Date coverage: NBC video 1968 - present; CNN video 1995 - present.
- Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive Audio interviews from participants in the Vietnam War
- Vietnam War: Looking Back, from the Library of Congress Interviews from Serving Our Voices: Stories from the Veterans History Project
- Vietnam War interviews, from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum Dozens of interviews of those who served or were otherwise impacted by the Vietnam War.
