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HIST 316: European Politics and Society since 1789

Primary Source Examination

When examining a primary source, ask yourself the following questions:
  • Who is the author/creator and what was their relationship to the event or issue?
  • Why would the creator have produced the source in this way?
  • Was the source made for personal use only, so intended to be private?  Such as a diary. Or was it created for others to see? Such as a newspaper article, parliamentary debates.
  • What biases or interests might have influenced how the source was written?
  • Can the information conveyed in source be corroborated by other documents created for the same event or in the same period?

Primary Sources on the Web

General Collections

 
 
Provides access to printed documents (books, magazines and newspapers) from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
 
 
 
 

Other Collections of Note

 
 
 

 

 

Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848

 
 
 
 
Art History Resources (Christopher Witcombe)

Images for European History

British Library
Online gallery of virtual books and online exhibitions with objects from the British Library Collections.

Europeana
Is a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe.

Gallica Bibiotheque Nationale de France
Documents and images from the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline of Art History
Images of art and design throughout history, presented in timeline format.

Russian Posters Collection (Duke Univ.)
Russian political posters from 1920's forward.

World Images
A database of over 50,000 images including many areas of imagery (art, architecture, science, etc.).

Newspapers

ICON International Coalition on Newspapers
Various newspaper digitization projects from around the world. Free and fee-based. A-Z list by country

Historical Jewish Press
a collection of Jewish newspapers published in various countries, languages, and time periods.

Gallica, the digital library of the Bibliothéque nationale de France, hosts numerous newspaper titles from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
 
Notable titles include:
 
1854-1942 – some issues missing
 
1904-1933, 1944 published by the Communist Party of France
 
1836-1952
 
1861-1937
 
Le Monde
Microfilm AN20.P37 M65
1944-
 

 

What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources are original sources, in which its witnesses or first recorders describe a time, person or event.

Some types of primary sources include:

  • diaries and journals
  • speeches, interviews, letters
  • memoirs and autobiographies
  • government documents
  • published materials such as magazine and newspaper articles written at the particular time

For more information, check the following guide: Primary Sources

Featured Web Site

The Internet History Sourcebooks Project of Fordham University is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts. Includes:

Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Includes listings for the Reformation, Enlightenment, Scientific Revolution,  French Revolution, Napoleon, Industrial Revolution, 19th century ideologies. World War I, Russian Revolution, and World War II and more.