Research Guides: Women's and Gender Studies: Primary Sources

Databases and Collections of Primary Source Documents

Additional resources that may be of interest can be found in the library's Primary Sources guide.

Capturing Women's Voices on the Web
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe. A diverse, archived sampling of women's blogs and websites.
Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement
Special Collections Library, Duke Univ. "Manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s"
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
Duke Univ. Libraries. "...over 9,000 images, ...relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, ...provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture.” Search with typical terms such as women, woman, female, girl, etc.; products, cultural concepts, proper names, or any word that might relate to women’s experiences. (WB)
Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World
Cochran Library, Sweet Briar College. “... dedicated to preserving and creating access to speeches made by influential contemporary women.”
HEARTH: Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, History
Mann Library, Cornell Univ. "...a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals."
Historic Government Publications from World War II
Informational pamphlets, government reports, instructions, regulations, declarations, speeches, and propaganda materials distributed by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) during the Second World War
History of Women
University Archives (upper floor) Z7965 .A79 microfilm. Made from archives of the Sophia Smith Collection, the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, and others (including the Miriam Y. Holden private collection on medieval and Western European women). Single documents and collections, including letters, journals, reports from women’s organizations and groups, books, and speeches (WB). Guide available in Archives; documents also can be identified through Library Catalog.
Online Books Page
Univ. of Pennsylvania Libraries. Includes free full texts of over 25,000 books by well-known (and other) authors and an extensive collection of complete early periodicals. The site has a subset...: “A Celebration of Women Writers”. This is the most comprehensive source of free online books to-date. However, there are important book collections not cataloged here, including those found at the HEARTH site. (WB)
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress. Many, but not all, images can be viewed online. Search using typical terms that might relate to women’s experiences or proper names. (WB)

Images

Acknowledgement

Some resource annotations provided by former Reference & Instruction librarian William Boatman (WB)

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What is a Primary Source?

Primary sources are "fundamental, authoritative documents relating to a subject, ...e.g., original records, contemporary documents, etc." (Young, Heartsill, ed. The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science. Chicago: American Library Association, 1983, p.176). Primary source documents are first-hand accounts by a direct participant or observer and may include letters, diaries, interviews, photographs, films, maps, government documents, and more.

Original primary source documents usually are housed in museums, archives, restricted library collections, and government offices. Reproductions of primary source documents often can be found in online digital collections, microform collections, books, and other secondary works.

Using Primary Sources in Your Writing
RUSA guide to citing and using primary sources in writing, including links to style guides.
Finding Historical Primary Sources
The Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Google Books

Usually provides snippets or previews of content and includes full text if a book is not under copyright protection. See also Advanced Search. Check OneSearch to see if UHCL owns a desired book.

Women’s Studies researchers will benefit from the wide array of texts by women, including primary source materials: organization publications and reports, volumes of published letters, journals, research works, government documents, art, musical texts, etc. These publications range from some of the earliest published works in the Renaissance to the late 20th Century. (WB)