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Definition of Primary Sources
What are primary sources?
Often used in historical research, primary sources are oral or written accounts or objects directly connected to the topic. Primary sources are commonly first-hand accounts from individuals that provide further context for a topic or historical time period. However, primary sources can also include photographs, clothes, newspaper clippings, court case transcripts, etc.
How do primary sources relate to feminist research?
According to the CSU Fullerton's Pollack Library Women's and Gender Studies LibGuide, "Primary sources are a really important part of feminist research because they can often be used to incorporate the voices, ideas, and knowledge of those who are traditionally excluded from academic discourse. Primary sources are a way to move these perspectives (in the words of bell hooks) "from margin to center" by including a more diverse set of voices that are usually silenced by various forms of oppression."
Primary Sources via Copley
- 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, with special attention paid to women-only institutions.
- Everyday Life & Women in America, 1800-1920 This link opens in a new window
Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920 showcases unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Independent Voices is a digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals from the 1960s - 1980s. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, and activists from marginalized communities including African-Americans, Native Americans, Latino, LGBTQ and anti-war groups. In addition the collection contains a large number of alternative literary magazines where prominent authors today began publishing.
- LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
LGBTQ+ Source is the definitive database for LGBTQ+ studies. It provides scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications in full text, plus historically important primary sources, including monographs, magazines, newspapers and videos. It also includes a specialized LGBTQ+ thesaurus containing thousands of terms.
- Underground and Independent Comics This link opens in a new window
Primary source database focusing on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1960s to today along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines. At completion, this collection will include more than 100,000 pages of materials, including 75,000 pages of primary materials, and more than 25,000 pages of materials about comics--interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism--from The Comics Journal and other secondary sources
Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels is the first ever scholarly, primary-source database focused on adult comic books and graphic novels.
Primary Sources Online
- Digital Transgender ArchiveThe purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among dozens of colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections.
- Lesbian Herstory ArchiveThe Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather, preserve and provide access to records of Lesbian lives and activities to uncover and document herstories overlooked or denied by past historians.
- LGBTQ Oral History Digital CollaboratoryAs the largest LGBTQ oral history project in North American history, the Collaboratory connects archives across Canada and the U.S. to produce a digital history hub for the research and study of gay, lesbian, queer, and trans oral histories.
- Black Women's SuffrageThe content featured in this collection explores linkages between women’s suffrage and other social causes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (anti-slavery, anti-lynching, education reform and civil rights) as well as racism within the Suffrage Movement.
- Women’s Liberation Movement Print CultureManifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.