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HIST 330-002: Topics in European History: 1600-1850

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

 
 
 
 
 

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.

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

Gallica, the digital library of the Bibliothéque nationale de France, hosts numerous newspaper titles from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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.

Also check the section, Primary Sources: European History.

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.