Primary Sources are original sources: they were created by someone who participated in or observed an event. They include diaries, letters, newspapers, government documents, photographs, and other manuscripts.
This collection of pamphlets from the personal library of Brazilian diplomat, historian, and journalist Manoel de Oliveira Lima covers a wide range of topics: colonialism, the Brazilian independence period, slavery and abolition, the Catholic Church, indigenous peoples, immigration, ecology, agriculture, economic development, medicine and public health, international relations, and Brazilian and Portuguese literature. The works are primarily in Portuguese.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. It consists of books, serials, manuscript collections, supreme court records and briefs, reference articles, and encyclopedias.
The database is in four parts: Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: The Institution of Slavery and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.
These general collections include images and photographs, but most of the manuscripts are in Spanish.
Newspapers.com Library Edition offers full page newspaper images with searchable full-text of newspapers. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to both full runs and portions of runs of newspapers.
HeinOnline Foreign Relations of the United States presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which began in 1861 under President Abraham Lincoln, contains books and documents from various Presidential libraries as well as different governmental agencies.
Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Foreign Office documents from the British Government. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All were circulated around the highest offices of the British state.
Who created the image? Why was the image made? How was it created? Paint, sculpture, drawing, computer design? Why are certain characters, settings, lines, shapres, persepctives, and colors used? What do these elements communicate to the viewer? What was happening in history when the image was made? What do the pictures communicate about issues of gender, race, and class?
You will probably have to consult criticism--secondary articles and books about the image--to help you answer all of these questions.
For great ideas on interpreting images that you find, please see the History Matters page from Curtis, and this page from Library of Congress.
An increasing number of primary sources are available for free on the web. Here are some search strategies for finding them:
Strategy 1: To focus on primary sources, go to a search engine like Google, and combine your topic with terms designating primary sources such as memoirs, diaries, accounts, narratives, documents, autobiographies, online archives, correspondence, speeches. You can link synonyms together with a capitalized OR. Here are some examples:
"Pancho Villa" "primary sources"
"Mexican Revolution" accounts
Mexico "online archives"
Strategy 2: Another great way to find sources on the web is to think of a library, archives, or university that specializes in your topic, and pay them a "virtual visit" (check their web site for online collections).