Library Guides: HIST 26213: Migrations and the Americas, Conquest to Present: Primary Sources

Finding Primary Sources in the Catalog

The following terms are found in the subject headings of records for published primary sources.

In the Library catalog:

Use the BROWSE option, select SUBJECT from the drop-down menu.

Making of the Modern World
Contains 1000s of titles (books, pamphlets, maps, etc.) relating to the expansion of European empires, and on slavery and moves toward its abolition in the western world.

Full-text version of the Goldsmith-Kress microfilm collection, a comprehensive collection of economics and business literature dating from the last half of the 15th century to the early 20th century.
Combines Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration-along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University. The collection presents more than 61,000 books from the period 1460-1850, and 466 pre-1906 serials. The collection focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing. The collection includes works by major economists as well as political pamphlets, government publications, proclamations and other ephemera.

Examples of catalog searches are followed by a selection of digital primary sources for each time period.

Slaves -- United States -- Biography
Slaves --Cuba-- Biography
***The headings above are very broad, and includes letters, memoirs and other autobiographical accounts written by slaves.
slaves' writings, american
slave writings--cuba
KEYWORD slave narratives and KEYWORD west indies
KEYWORD antislavery and KEYWORD pamphlets
Haiti -- History -- Revolution, 1791-1804 -- Personal narratives
Brazil -- History -- To 1822 -- Sources
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Sources

Civil War: Letters and Diaries

Includes published memoirs, letters and diaries, drawn from more than 500 sources, plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished materials, searchable by words and phrases, as well as by places, battles, dates, form of material, etc. Database also includes 1000-item bibliography and 1000 biographies.
Born into Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer's Project, 1936-1938
Narratives and photographs, plus excellent bibliography of primary and secondary sources, from the Library of Congress.

Transcriptions of 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves, from the Library of Congress.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories

Contains letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, of immigrants to the United States and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Includes 342 authors and approximately 37,500 pages of material, including some audio material.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries

Contains diaries and letters, dating from colonial times to 1950 drawn from more than 1,000 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, and 7,000 pages of previously unpublished materials.

Stories of U.S. Immigrants in Their Own Words

A site that enables U.S. immigrants from all nations to share their immigration stories in their own words.

Minnesota Immigrant Oral Histories
Collected and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society.

Contact:

Bibliographer for Art and Cinema
Bibliographer for History
Regenstein Library Room 463

773-702-5193