Research Guides: HIST 217: US Leisure and Recreation: Primary Sources

Starting Places

Finding primary sources takes time!

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Look for materials created during your time period
Start broad, then use date filters
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Recommended Starting Places

Artstor

High-quality images of artworks and cultural objects you can use for class or research.
Historical Newspapers

Full-text content from U.S. & international newspapers from the 19th century to the late 20th century. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, cartoons, classifieds, and obituaries.

See title list of over 400 historical newspapers.

Recommended Resources

History Vault

Primary sources and documents on 19th and 20th-century American history. Sources include digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and more.

New York Public Library Digital Collections
Prints, photographs, manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, illustrated books, printed ephemera, streaming video, and more from the New York Public Library Collections.
Digital Public Library of America
Millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the content provider’s website.
Internet Archive
Open and permanent access to historical collections in digital format for researchers and the public.

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“Books in this collection may be borrowed by logged in patrons for a period of two weeks. You may read the books online in your browser, or download them into Adobe Digital Editions, a free piece of software used for managing loans.”

Historical Newspapers

Full-text content from U.S. & international newspapers from the 19th century to the late 20th century. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, cartoons, classifieds, and obituaries.

See title list of over 400 historical newspapers.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Digitized American newspapers, 1789 - 1963. From the Library of Congress.

African American Historical Newspapers (1893 - 2003)
African American published newspapers from the late 19th century through the 21st century. Click "more" to see titles and dates.

Afro-American, Baltimore; Apr 29, 1893 - Feb 06, 1988, some exceptions
Atlanta World; Dec 2, 1931 - Mar 17, 1932
Atlanta Daily World; Mar 18, 1932 - Dec 25, 2003, some exceptions
Cleveland Call and Post, Cleveland; Jan 6, 1934 - May 12, 1962
Call and Post, City edition, Cleveland ; May 19, 1962 - Jul 31, 1982
Call and Post, Cleveland; Aug 7, 1982 - Dec 26, 1991
The Chicago Defender (National edition); Apr 2, 1921 - Dec 23, 1967
The Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Jul 31, 1909 - Mar 26, 1921
Daily Defender, (Daily Edition), Chicago; Feb 6, 1956 - Nov 7, 1960
Chicago Daily Defender (Daily Edition); Nov 8, 1960 - Feb 15, 1973
Chicago Daily Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Jan 6, 1968 - Feb 17, 1973
Chicago Defender (Daily Edition); Feb 19, 1973 - Dec 31, 1975
Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Feb 24, 1973 - Dec 27, 1975
New Journal and Guide, Norfolk, VA.; Sep 30, 1916 - Dec 30, 2003, some exceptions
The New York Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Nov 29, 1922 - Aug 27, 1938, some exceptions
New York Amsterdam News, City edition, New York, N.Y.; Sep 3, 1938 - Jan 4, 1941
New York Star & Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Jan 11, 1941 - Feb 1, 1941
New York Amsterdam Star-News, New York, N.Y.; Feb 8, 1941 - Mar 27, 1943
New York Amsterdam News, City edition, New York, N.Y.; Apr 3, 1943 - Dec 30, 1961
New York Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Jan 6, 1962 - Dec 25, 1993
Philadelphia Tribune; Jan 6, 1912 - Dec 30, 2001, some exceptions
Courier, City Edition, Pittsburgh; Aug 19, 1950 - Dec 25, 1954
Pittsburgh Courier, City Edition; Jan 1, 1955 - Oct 29, 1966
New Pittsburgh Courier, City Edition; Nov 5, 1966 - Jun 27, 1981
New Pittsburgh Courier; Jul 4, 1981 - Dec 28, 2002
Accessible Archives

Primary sources from 18th & 19th century American newspapers, magazines, and books. Includes eyewitness accounts of historical events, descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, advertisements, and genealogical records.
Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1896)
Women's interest periodical published from 1830-1878; created to entertain, inform, and educate American women.

Articles on “hearth and home,” dating and marriage, fashion, entertainment, recipes, health and hygiene, remedies, morality, jewelry, handcrafts, education, suffrage, African American and immigrant women, the role of women in foreign countries, brief biographies of leading personalities, literature, recipes and remedies, and more. Includes full color plates as they originally appeared.Over time, the periodical matured into a literary magazine, with book reviews, essays, poetry, and short stories by celebrated 19th century authors.

North American Womens Letters and Diaries
Collection of women’s diaries letters, and correspondence spanning more than 300 years, covering the personal experiences of hundreds of North American women.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online
Search multiple collections of letters, diaries, private writings and personal narratives, correspondence, autobiographies, and interviews from the 16th century - present.

Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online allows cross-searching of several Alexander Street primary source collections:
• North American Women’s Letters and Diaries
• Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries (from the American Antiquarian Society)
• British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries
• The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
• Black Thought and Culture
North American Indian Thought and Culture
Collection of Native American autobiographies, biographies, publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files.

Detailed explanation of this resource.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974
Diaries, letters, video, autobiographies, memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary from and about the Sixties.

American Periodicals (1740-1940)
American magazines, newspapers, and journals in digitized page image format, published between 1740 and 1940.
Women's Magazine Archive
Archives of consumer magazines published for a female audience, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal. These magazines cover family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture, and provide canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. Each magazine contains volume 1, issue 1 through 2005. Publications are in high-resolution color.
Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)

Index to popular periodicals published in the U.S. and Canada. Includes Time, Newsweek, US & World News Report, National Geographic, Harpers, The New Yorker, and many more.

Life Magazine via Google
Magazine know for excellent photography. Digitized issues back to 1935

Vogue Archive (1892 - current)
Digital Archive of the US edition of Vogue Magazine, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month.

Searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Pages, advertisements, covers and fold-outs have been included, with rich indexing enabling researchers to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world's greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.
Esquire Magazine Archive (1933-2014)
Every issue, from the first issue in 1933 through March 2014, cover to cover. Popular American men's magazine covering politics, men’s fashion, entertainment, fiction and pop culture.

Library

HIST 217: US Leisure and Recreation

What is a Primary Source?

Starting Places

Finding primary sources takes time!

Be flexible with search terms

Look for materials created during your time period

Start broad, then use date filters

Ask a librarian for help!

Recommended Starting Places

Recommended Resources