Searching for Primary Digital Sources - ENG 112 - Dunn - LibGuides at North Carolina Wesleyan University

Primary Source Websites

American Archive of Public Broadcasting The Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston have embarked on a project to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 60 years: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting.
American Presidency Project The American Presidency Project is a collection of 75,795 public documents to be used in the study of the presidency. It contains fully digitized presidential papers from the 1700s to today, all in searchable digital format.
Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South A selection of 410 recorded oral history interviews chronicling African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s from the Duke University Center for Document Studies
Carolina Digital Collections (UNC)
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (LOC) From the Library of Congress, search and view newspaper pages from 1796-1963 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Civil Rights Greensboro Civil Rights Greensboro provides access to archival resources documenting the modern civil rights era in Greensboro, North Carolina, from the 1940s to the early 1980s. During this formative period, Greensboro was an epicenter of activity, continuing a tradition that traces its roots back to the 19th century when members of the area's large Quaker population provided stops on the Underground Railroad.
Civil Rights History Project From the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) oral histories, articles and essays relating to the civil rights movement.
Digital Public Library of America Discover over 46,000,000 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States.
Documenting the American South A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to Southern history, literature, and culture.
Duke Digital Collections Digitized historic photographs, advertisements, texts & more from Duke's unique library collections. Browse over 860 collections.
National Archives
NC State Archives - Digital Collections The North Carolina Digital Collections contain over 90,000 historic and recent photographs, state government publications, manuscripts, and other resources on topics related to North Carolina. The Collections are free and full-text searchable, and bring together content from the State Archives of North Carolina and the State Library of North Carolina.
New York Public Library Digital Collections Explore 884,351 items digitized from The New York Public Library's collections. This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
Southern Appalachian Digital Collections The Southern Appalachian Digital Collections Partnership was founded in 2019 to host centralized online access to unique regionally focused digitized materials that document the history and culture of Southern Appalachia.
Southern Oral History Program Access to digitized oral history interviews from UNC.
Stanford King Institute - Martin Luther King, Jr. Encyclopedia The Encyclopedia, based on the extensive historical research originally conducted for The Papers,has over 280 articles on civil rights movement figures, events, and organizations. It also offers a detailed day-to-day chronology of King's life, drawn from the volumes.

The links above are just a few of many sites that contain high-quality primary source materials (often digitized).
For additional sources, look for:

National archives (US and other countries)
National and other libraries
Universities and colleges
Museums and other institutes
Government statistics, records, and legal documents

Internet Archive

Internet Archives - Newspapers Includes scanned and/or digitized microfilm, some are not keyword searchable.
Historical Newspapers LibGuide with links to digitized historical newspaper collections.

Genealogy and Family History Resources

Genealogy Resources LIbGuide Library guide with genealogical and family history resources.

Primary Sources Assignment - Digital Sources Video Walk Through

VIdeo Walk Through for Advertisements & Diaries

Library of Congress

ITEM INFORMATION

National Archives

The National Archives has many primary source materials available in digital form through their catalog. To view diaries available online, click on the link below.

National Archives - Diaries

To search for other items in the National Archives, clear the diary search and put in your own keyword (s). After your search is completed click on the tab for Available Online to limit your search to digitized items.

Duke Repository: Advertising

Repository Collections & Archives
The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.