RILINK Schools: Winman Library: Primary Sources

Primary Source Images

Ad*Access
Images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement (up to 1844)
American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.
Archive of Early American Images A database of images of the colonial Americas, 1492-1825
A database of pictures of the colonial Americas, from Hudson Bay to Tierra Del Fuego based entirely on primary resources printed or created between 1492 and ca. 1825. High quality images of art, buildings, people, events. Good for visual documentation for your research.

New York Public Library Picture Collection Online
Contains 30,000 high-resolution digital images taken from the New York Public Library's extensive collection of books, magazines, newspapers, photographs, and prints. Most images are pre-1923, and the collection is especially strong in the areas of fashion and natural history
Perseus Digital Library
Extensive digital library of primary source texts and artifacts, covering Ancient Greece and Rome, the English Renaissance, and early North American history.
Picture History
Accesses thousands of high-quality digital images and video clips documents over 200 years of American cultural, political, military, and social history. Offers a variety of search functions as well as the ability to save or e-mail images for free.
Picturing US History
From the website: "Picturing United States History: An Interactive Resource for Teaching with Visual Evidence is a digital project based on the belief that visual materials are vital to understanding the American past. "
Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
Provides access to more than one million historically significant digital images, some of which can be freely downloaded.

Primary Sources

A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. Examples include: Autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters, minutes, news film footage, official records, photographs, raw research data, speeches, government documents.

One great resource is the New York Times Historical (1851-)

This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. You will need your CLAN library barcode number.

You can also contact the Library of Congress Librarian if you can't find what you need.

Winman Library: Primary Sources

Primary Source Images

Primary Sources

Primary Sources for American History

Web Sites with Links to Primary Sources