Research Guides: Primary Source Collections: Primary sources by topic

Primary sources by topic

African American Music Reference (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
African American Music Reference provides information and insight on the history and development of African American music. Information on performers, instruments, individual works, and significant events from genres as diverse as Negro Spirituals to Ragtime to Hip-Hop are included.
Black Drama- Third Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Black Drama, now in its expanded third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Proquest's new Black Freedom Struggle website, features selected open access primary source documents including historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
Black Thought and Culture (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Ebony Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Ebony is one of the key Afro-American magazines of the 20th century. This archive provides access to its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
Jet Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Provides access to Jet magazine from its first issue in 1951 through 2014. Covers the civil rights movement, politics, education, and other social topics with an African American focus.
JSTOR: Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa This link opens in a new window
The liberation of Southern Africa and the dismantling of the Apartheid regime was one of the major political developments of the 20th century, with far-reaching consequences for people throughout Africa and around the globe. This collection focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers (CRL) This link opens in a new window
The collection includes 84 publications documenting events from the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the demonstrations of the Arab Spring.
Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu (CRL) This link opens in a new window
This is a collection of 19th century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu. The collection of 206 manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali, in Arabic, provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies.

Historical Black Newspapers

Baltimore Afro-American Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1893-2010) to this Black newspaper with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time. Content, includes articles, obituaries, photos, editorials, and more.
Chicago Defender Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1905-2010) to the Black newspapers The Chicago Defender and The Chicago Daily Defender with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time. Content, includes articles, obituaries, photos, editorials, and more.
Los Angeles Sentinel Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1934-2005) to this newspaper with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time.
Philadelphia Tribune Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1912-2001) to this newspaper with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time.
Pittsburgh Courier Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1911-2002) to the Courier, New Pittsburgh Courier, and Pittsburgh Courier, with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time.
New York Amsterdam News Historical (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Provides historical access (1922-1993) to the Black newspapers The New York Amsterdam News and the New York Amsterdam Star-News with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts of the politics, society and events of the time. Content, includes articles, obituaries, photos, editorials, and more.

Baltimore and Maryland History research guide
This guide provides links to both analog and digital archival databases and collections on Baltimore and Maryland history

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
This collection includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters. The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years.
LGBT Thought and Culture (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
LGBT Thought and Culture is a resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection illuminates the lives of lesbians, gays, transgender, and bisexual individuals and the community
North American Women's Drama: Second Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights and brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada.
North American Women's Drama: Second Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights and brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada.
Vanity Fair Archive This link opens in a new window
Complete archive of Vanity Fair magazine, including covers and advertisements, from 1913 to 1936 and 1983 to 2015.
Vogue Italia Archive‎, 1964 - current (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
A digital archive of Vogue Italia from its launch in 1964 to the present. Recognized as the least commercial and most artistic edition, it has a tradition of innovation and bold treatment of current issues and events.
Women's Magazine Archive‎ 1883 - 2005 (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period.
Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Some Full Text
WSI covers the core disciplines in Women’s Studies to the latest scholarship in feminist research. The majority of coverage is from 1972 to the present. Over 2,000 periodical sources are represented.
Women's Wear Daily Archive‎, 1910-recent (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
From the first issue in 1910 to the present year, Women's Wear Daily Archive preserves one of the industry's most influential reads, tracing day-to-day news, opinion, and socio-economic trends, from runway reports to beauty product reviews.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820 (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
This collection explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this archive and database includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Coverage: 1600-2000
Database of books, documents, images, scholarly essays, commentaries and bibliographies of all aspects of American Women's public lives and political activities.
Women Writers Online This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Full Text
Searchable, full-text digital archive of texts by pre-Victorian women writers (includes Renaissance Women Online).

Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Digital Collections)
The Yad Vashem Digital Collections includes the Central Database of Shoah Victim's Names, Online Photo Archive, Deportation Database, and Survivor Testimonies.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has digital collections featuring photographs, oral histories, and articles about the Holocaust. Scroll down for survivor reflections and oral histories.
Experiencing History: Holocaust Sources in Context
A primary source database from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Discover the richness of first person accounts by learning about the Holocaust from selected primary sources with historical context and reading diaries and documents in their original language with side-by-side translations.

Human Rights Studies Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Human Rights Studies Online provides comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event.
Archives Unbound - Holocaust Studies (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Multimedia collection of resources for Holocaust studies- documents, photographs, oral histories, transcripts, more.
Adam Matthew Explorer This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive resource for primary sources in history, global studies, American studies, Asian studies, gender studies, theatre, music, and much more.
WorldCat Classic (OCLC) This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Index Only
Worldcat holds the records of all materials cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Search for specific titles or authors or do general searches by subject or keyword. Results display formats, holding institutions, and links to full text if available.

Shoah by Lanzmann
Call Number: UMDVD 1059
ISBN: 9781567303179
Video DVD. Shoah features interviews with ordinary people speaking in ordinary voices of days that had become ordinary to them: Jewish survivors, former Nazis, Polish peasants, American scholars, and others. Each person describes details which are woven together to present a Holocaust much larger and much more complicated than a viewer could begin to imagine. It is not a documentary, not journalism, not propaganda, not political. It is an act of witness.

Anthropological Fieldwork Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Anthropological Fieldwork Online brings the fieldwork underpinning the great ethnographies of the early 20th century into the digital world. This primary source database unfolds the historical development of anthropology from a global perspective, bringing together the work of early scholars who shaped the theories and methods taught today.
Anthropology Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Anthropology Online brings together a wide range of written ethnographies, field notes, seminal texts, memoirs, and contemporary studies, covering human behavior the world over.
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online brings together over 2,000 hours of previously unpublished historic field recordings from around the world, alongside their supporting field notes and ethnographers’ metadata, opening new paths for the study of music in its cultural context.
Ethnographic Video Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Video Online collections contain over 1,300 hours of streaming video, including ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork. It’s also a resource for the study of the discipline; scholars, teachers and students of anthropology can gain a sense of the discipline’s history and of its future direction.
Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Video Online, Royal Anthropological Institute Teaching Edition is a collection of videos and segments curated to support the teaching of introductory anthropology courses. Each video and segment within this collection are accompanied by a teaching guide providing background information, lesson plans, and class room exercises and activities
Social Work Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Social Work Online pairs recently published social work textbooks, along with compelling documentaries, clinical demonstration videos, and engaging lectures that illustrate the complex and challenging realities social work students will face as practitioners.

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020 This link opens in a new window
American Prison Newspapers brings together hundreds of newspapers published within prisons by incarcerated people over the past 200 years. When complete, the collection will contain newspapers from prisons in every state, representing penal institutions of all kinds, including women-only institutions.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Proquest's new Black Freedom Struggle website, features selected open access primary source documents including historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
Human Rights Studies Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Human Rights Studies Online provides comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event.
JSTOR: Struggles for Freedom: Southern Africa This link opens in a new window
The liberation of Southern Africa and the dismantling of the Apartheid regime was one of the major political developments of the 20th century, with far-reaching consequences for people throughout Africa and around the globe. This collection focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
LGBT Thought and Culture (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
LGBT Thought and Culture is a resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection illuminates the lives of lesbians, gays, transgender, and bisexual individuals and the community
Radical Literature Collection at UMBC This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Late 19th - mid 20th cen
The Radical Literature Collection includes books, pamphlets, and other publications on and by Communist, Socialist, Labor and other left- and right-of-center political organizations and individuals.
The Sixties: Primary Sources and Personal Narratives 1960-1974 (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
The Sixties brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.
Student Activism This link opens in a new window
The Student Activism collection is intended to serve as a scholarly bridge from the extensive history of student protest in the United States to the study of today's vibrant, continually unfolding actions. The collection captures the voices of students across the great range of protest, political actions, and equal-rights advocacy from the 20th and early 21st century United States. The primary sources are broad-based across time, geography, and political viewpoint — from conservative to anarchist.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Coverage: 1600-2000
Database of books, documents, images, scholarly essays, commentaries and bibliographies of all aspects of American Women's public lives and political activities.

Asian American Drama (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Asian American Drama contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. Some 50% of these plays have never been published before.
Audio Drama- The L.A. Theatre Works Collection (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection delivers more than three hundred important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation’s premiere radio theatre company. The plays - which include some of the most significant dramatic literature of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries - are performed by leading actors from around the world and recorded specifically for online listening.
Black Drama- Third Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Black Drama, now in its expanded third edition, contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.
Black Thought and Culture (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Classical Scores Library (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Music Online: Classical Scores Library is a series of four volumes with a mission to provide a reliable and authoritative source for scores of the classical canon, as well as a resource for the discovery of lesser-known contemporary works. The collections encompass all major classical musical genres and time periods from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. With full, study, piano, and vocal scores, this comprehensive collection will enhance the study of music history, performance, composition and theory for a variety of scholars.
Contemporary World Drama (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Contemporary World Drama brings together new work from our existing playwright partners alongside work from up-and-coming playwrights from around the world, including recently produced world premieres, previously unpublished works, etc. from every continent.
Dance in Video (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Dance in Video contains five hundred hours of dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance.
Film Scripts Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Film Scripts Online Series contains over 1,100 scripts and makes available accurate and authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays. Now film scholars can compare the writer’s vision with the producer’s and director’s interpretations from page to screen. The collection was developed through arrangements with major film studios, independent rights holders, publishers, and authors.
Latin American Drama (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Latin American Drama is a database of plays written by Latin American playwrights in the 19th-21st centuries. Besides serving as a rich resource for literature scholars, the collection also supports the study of American history, ethnic diversity, immigrations issues, and political history.
National Theatre Collection (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Drawing on 10 years of NT Live broadcasts, alongside high-quality recordings never previously seen outside of the NT’s Archive, the National Theatre Collection makes this rich body of work available to students in schools, universities and libraries around the world.
North American Indian Drama: Second Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
North American Indian Drama contains 244 plays by 48 playwrights representing the stories and creative energies of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the twentieth century. Groups represented include Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others. Together, the plays demonstrate Native theater’s diversity of tribal traditions and approaches to drama
North American Indian Thought and Culture (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
North American Indian Thought and Culture integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files for a comprehensive representation of historical events as told by the individuals who lived through them. The database is an essential resource for all those interested in serious scholarly research into the history of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples
North American Women's Drama: Second Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights and brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada.
Performance Design Archive Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Performance Design Archive Online is the first comprehensive, international collection that covers all aspects of theater production design, from the 17th century through to the present day, including scenic and set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design, and makeup.
Royal Shakespeare Company Collection (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
These high-definition, surround-sound recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays featuring the world’s best Shakespearean actors, like David Tennant, Sir Antony Sher, Paapa Essiedu, and Simon Russell Beale, and directors like Robin Lough and Dewi Humphrey.
Theatre and Drama Premium (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Theatre and Drama Premium provides access to all the subscribed Alexander St. databases in a cross-searchable format. Individual collections may be listed separately for better focus in searching. Collections include Black Drama, Asian American Drama, Drama Texts, and many others. Resources include playscripts, filmed stage performances, images, interviews, training materials.
Theatre in Video (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
The collaborative elements of theatre in performance—the work of the actors, directors, and designers—have tremendous scholarly and educational value long after a production closes. With Alexander Street’s Theatre in Video, faculty, scholars, and patrons of the performing arts will be able to revisit great performances again and again, and these landmark events can become a permanent part of the curriculum.
Twentieth Century North American Drama: Second Edition (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Twentieth Century North American Drama (2nd ed) contains 1,905 plays by 419 playwrights, and more than 150 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors. This collection offers a unique window into the economic, historical, social, and political psyche of two countries.
Women Writers Online This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Full Text
Searchable, full-text digital archive of texts by pre-Victorian women writers (includes Renaissance Women Online).

World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

Ebony Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Ebony is one of the key Afro-American magazines of the 20th century. This archive provides access to its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
Harper's Bazaar Archive‎ 1867 - current (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
A searchable archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar, a fashion, arts, and culture authority from 1867 to the present. Scanned in full color, it features detailed indexing and searchable text.

V&A Fashion
Spanning four centuries, the V&A’s Fashion collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world. Key items in the collection include rare 17th-century gowns, 18th-century ‘mantua’ dresses, 1930s eveningwear, 1960s daywear and post-war couture. Plus a growing number of pieces from 21st-century designers.

Vanity Fair Archive This link opens in a new window
Complete archive of Vanity Fair magazine, including covers and advertisements, from 1913 to 1936 and 1983 to 2015.
Vogue Italia Archive‎, 1964 - current (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
A digital archive of Vogue Italia from its launch in 1964 to the present. Recognized as the least commercial and most artistic edition, it has a tradition of innovation and bold treatment of current issues and events.
Women's Magazine Archive‎ 1883 - 2005 (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period.
Women's Wear Daily Archive‎, 1910-recent (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
From the first issue in 1910 to the present year, Women's Wear Daily Archive preserves one of the industry's most influential reads, tracing day-to-day news, opinion, and socio-economic trends, from runway reports to beauty product reviews.

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020 This link opens in a new window
American Prison Newspapers brings together hundreds of newspapers published within prisons by incarcerated people over the past 200 years. When complete, the collection will contain newspapers from prisons in every state, representing penal institutions of all kinds, including women-only institutions.
Disability in the Modern World (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Disability in the Modern World includes primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video. The content is essential in the growing disciplines of disability history and disability studies, but also in history, media, the arts, political science, education, and other areas where the contributions of the disability community are typically overlooked.
Early Enccounters in North America - Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women
Food Studies Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Food Studies Online brings together rare and hard-to-find archival content with visual ephemera, text, and video. Food studies is a relatively new field of study, and its importance is felt in many major disciplines. It has social, historical, economic, cultural, religious, and political implications that reach far beyond what is consumed at the dinner table.

Food History: Printed and Manuscript Recipe Books, 1669-1990
This collection is part of the Archives Unbound Primary Source database from Gale. Food History shows the types of foods that were being eaten, different cultural cuisines, and the diversity of foodways. The books and manuscripts in the collection range in date from 1669 to the early to mid 20th century, with the majority centered in the 18th and 19th century.

Human Rights Studies Online (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Human Rights Studies Online provides comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event.
JSTOR Global Plants This link opens in a new window
A database of digitized herbarium specimens and related materials.

Mayis Indigenous Records: Maryland State Archives
"Mayis is a web resource created as a path to guide researchers to records in the Maryland State Archives (MSA) about the Indigenous peoples of the Chesapeake Bay region. Our team designed this site to help to shine a light on this significant and complicated history of colonization and conflict. It is our hope that American Indians of the twenty-first century and their allies will use this tool to better educate all of us about the first people living in the region (before the Europeans arrived)."

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
This collection includes 2,162 authors providing a personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines.

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