Library Guides: History, 17th-18th Century U.S.: Primary Sources

What's a Primary Source?

A primary source is any record contemporary to an event or time period. Primary sources may be written, oral, visual or physical. Some of these sources were produced with the intent of being preserved for the future. Such intentional sources include government documents, church records, autobiographies or memoirs. On the other hand, many primary sources were produced without any intent of future use. Such unintentional sources may include private correspondence not originally meant for posterity but which later are deposited in archives and libraries. Physical evidence such as buildings, clothing, tools, and landscapes may also be labeled as unintentional sources.

--Galgano, Michael J., J. Christopher Arndt, and Raymond M. Hyser. Doing History: Research and Writing in the Digital Age. Cengage Learning, 2007, p. 57.

Letters and Diaries

Letters & diaries published as books can be found in the UM LIBRARIES CATALOG by adding keywords:

DIARIES
CORRESPONDENCE
PERSONAL NARRATIVES

North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Provides access to full-text letters & diaries by North American women from colonial times to 1950. This collection includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Date Coverage: Colonial times-1950.

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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17th & 18th Century Publications

Early American Imprints Series I Evans (1639-1800)
Contains searchable PDF's of materials published in Colonial America and the early U.S. such as books, pamphlets, and broadsides. The collection may be browsed by topic (e.g., Genre: Songs, Economics: Liquor Traffic, History: Louisiana Purchase,etc.)
Date Coverage: 1639-1800

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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ECCO - Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Contains English-language titles and editions based on the English Short Title Catalogue, made available online over the course of the next two years.
Date Coverage: 1701-1800

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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Search Guide: http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?locID=morenetuomcolum&ste=24
Early American Newspapers. Series I and II, 1690-1900
Images and full-content access to historic newspapers from the 18th to mid-19th Century, based on the collections of the American Antiquarian Society, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and 90 other institutions, from every region of the United States.
Date Coverage: 1690-1900

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Book: History and annotated bibliography of American religious periodicals and newspapers established from 1730 through 1830
This 2-volume set is in the Special Collections Reference collection (4th Floor, northwest corner Ellis Library). Its call number there is PN4888.R4 A43 1994.

Finding Primary Sources in the Library Catalog

There are certain words that appear in the subject headings of items in the UM LIBRARIES CATALOG that constitute primary sources. The most important of them is sources, but there are others.

In the simple keyword search box, you can put such words after SU: in order to specify the SUBJECT field.

ex.: trail of tears and SU:sources

In the advanced keyword search, you can put your search term(s) in the top box, and in the second box, put the word(s) you're using to locate primary sources in the next box, and change the drop-down menu to Subject:

Keywords that will help you find primary sources:

sources
correspondence
sermons
diaries
personal narratives
interviews
quotations
collections
speeches
manuscripts
archives

Depending on the period being studied, it can also be helpful to limit your search by publication date.

More keywords identifying primary sources in Library of Congress Subject Headings

To find the papers of a historically prominent individual, use the Advanced MERLIN Search. Use the first line to specify the author (surname first, e.g., Lincoln, Abraham) and the second line to specify papers in the title. You can also use the Advanced search to combine any of the above primary source oriented keywords with a particular author.

U.S. Government

For further information about state and federal government sources, see the guides to Federal Government Documents, Missouri Government Documents, and the Primary Sources By Decade page. For Britain and foreign governments that were part of the British Empire, see the Parliamentary Papers guide.

HeinOnline
The single most comprehensive source of treaties and other international agreements to which the United States has become a party. In addition, includes law and law-related periodicals.
Also includes a number of treaty guides and indexes, including Treaties in Force.
Date Coverage: 1925-date
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources 1600-1970
Based primarily on holdings of the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University, including early state codes, city charters, and documents relating to constitutional conventions. Access provided by the MU Law Library.
Missouri resources include state constitutional conventions, adopted Constitutions, and historical Revised Statutes, among other resources.
Date Coverage: 1800-1926
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Search Guide: http://proxy.mul.missouri.edu/login?url=http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MOML?locID=mizzou_law&ste=24
Making of Modern Law - Trials 1600-1926
Contains trial transcripts from Harvard, Yale, and the Library of the Bar of the City of New York that give scholars insight on class structure and the making of modern law. Access provided to the campus by the MU Law Library.
Date Coverage: 1600-1926
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Search Guide: http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MMLT?locID=mizzou_law&ste=24

Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800
Fire destroyed the office of the War Department and all its files in 1800, and for decades historians believed that the collection, and the window it provided into the workings of the early federal government, was lost forever. Thanks to a decade-long effort to retrieve copies of the files scattered in archives across the country, the collection has been reconstituted and is available here as a fully-searchable digital database.
more...less...
Date Coverage: 1784-1800

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From: America's Historical Imprints

Statistics

Historical Statistics of the United States
Presents the numerical history of the United States. It contains annual time series of quantitative historical information covering virtually every quantifiable dimension of American history, all from the earliest times to the present.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Almanacs

A Topical Index of Early U. S. Almanacs, 1776-1800 by Robert K. Dodge
ISBN: 9780313260490
Publication Date: 1997
Information contained in early U.S. almanacs includes cures for common diseases, recipes for food, instructions for preparing many of the items that modern Americans would expect to buy at a store, agricultural advice, tables for computing interest and currency depreciation, church and court schedules, and lists of all kinds. In addition to such practical information, these almanacs often published poetry, essays, maxims, illustrations, and advertisements. This reference book indexes hundreds of almanacs published between 1776 and 1800 and thus makes it easy for researchers to learn about daily life in early America.