Primary Sources in the Sweet Briar College Library

Primary Sources Guide

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ART -

ARTstor (image database) - Is a constantly expanding collection of digital images of works of art in all genres, styles and periods. It currently includes nearly one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences.

he first thing you need to know about ARTstor is that you must configure your browser so that it allows pop-up windows for the ARTstor site. To learn how to disable the pop-up blocker for the computer you plan to use when on ARTstor go to:

http://www.artstor.org/webhelp/Disable_Pop-up_Blocking_Software.htm

If you are using Explorer, your version should be 6.0.29 or later for best results.

Note that whenever you enter a search in ARTstor, you will have to click the Search button to enter the search. Just hitting Return will not begin your search!

To create Image Groups, register for an account. Then Login and click on My Image Groups on the Menu Bar at the very top of the screen. A pop-up box will load with two pull-down menus on it. Let the top pull-down menu say, "My Work Folder." Then click inside the lower box and it will allow you to type in a name of your choice. You can store as many images as you like here. After registration you can also add comments to the images in ARTstor for your own personal use. Use Boolean searching in Advanced Search. Double click on the image you wish to download. At the bottom right of the image you will see a floppy disc icon. Click there to save the image to your hard drive, then paste it into a PowerPoint presentation later. Images must not be used on websites or for any but educational purposes.

If your professor has saved images for you to use, they will be located under View Image Groups which is the middle choice of three on the ARTstor Image Search page. Just select a Course Folder and then Select an Image Group from the Course Folder. If you need to export citations from ARTstor to RefWorks, please click to the ARTstor to RefWorks tutorial.

HISTORY-

Aluka (full-text) - is an international, collaborative initiative building an online digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa. It includes interviews, art, photographs, drawings, maps and articles from collections all over the world.

Use the simple search box or the topics linked below it. The advanced search accepts Boolean operators. If you do not know how to do a Boolean search, see Search Techniques.

American Slavery - (full-text) This is a collection of nearly 4,000 interviews with former slaves in the United States. The interviews were mainly conducted in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration Writers' Project, though some were conducted in the 1920s. The print counterpart is titled The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography,

Browse this collection by Narrator, Subject Matter, Master, Interviewer and County where the former slave was held captive.

Black Thought and Culture (ASP) (full-text) contains 1297 sources with 1100 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.

The Advanced Search field allows searches by gender, age when writing, nationality, race, religion, historical events and several more. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (ASP) (full-text) British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters. The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years.

Use the searches under the heading Search Texts. These will allow you to search letters, or diaries only and it will allow you to limit you searches to material written by women according to age and maternal status. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Civil War Era and Reconstruction (HarpWeek) 1857-1912 (full-text) Harper’s Weekly was the definitive newspaper of record for the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th. It had broad distribution and a broad circulation and effective readership of at least half a million people. It includes cartoons, editorials, literature and coverage of world events.

Harper's Weekly newspaper articles from the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. You can search advertisements, articles, cartoons, editorials, travel narratives and many more. You can also Browse through individual newspapers. Each page was scanned from the original.

Civil War Letters and Diaries (ASP) (full-text) includes more than 400 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs. including 4,000 facsimile pages of previously unpublished manuscript material. Among the sources are writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, seamen, and spies. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving both the Northern and the Southern perspectives, along with that of foreign observers.

CQ Historical Documents Series Online (full-text) Thirty-two volumes of primary sources and growing. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Thirty-two volumes of primary sources and growing. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Dolley Madison Digital Edition Letters 1788 - 1836 (full-text) Dolley Payne Madison was the most important First Lady of the nineteenth century. The DMDE will be the first-ever complete edition of all of her known correspondence. It is currently complete through April 1837, with a total of 964 documents.

Searchable archive of letters to and from Dolley Madison, the fourth First Lady of the United States.

Early Encounters in North America (ASP) (full-text) ) documents the relationships among peoples from 1534 to 1850. The collection presents the perspectives of traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, officials, and others. It includes works by American Indians, Canadian First Peoples, and many European groups. The collection includes nearly 1,000 prints, drawings, paintings, maps, bibliographies, letters, photographs, and original facsimile pages.

Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online 1543 - 1945 - (full-text) In the late 1800's, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. The Gerritsen Collection has since become the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world.

Use the Quick Search instead of the Advanced Search, because the Advanced Search creates errors. In Quick Search you will have to use Boolean operators by typing them into the search box. For example: women and trance and religion. After you retrieve your document, you can increase the type size on the screen up to 400%. If you have a pop-up blocker, you will have to add "gerritsen.chadwyck.com" to your allowed sites before you can print or download citations to RefWorks. To print, click on View as PDF, and then on the next screen click the button marked "View as PDF." The PDF will load to a new window. From there, just click the Print button that is physically closest to the document you want to print. It will usually be located on the left, just above your document, next to an icon of a floppy disc.

In the First Person (ASP) - (full-text) In the First Person is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world.
It lets you search over 700,000 pages of full-text by more than 18,000 individuals. It also contains pointers to some 4,300 audio and video files and 30,000 bibliographic records. The index contains approximately 20,500 months of diary entries, 63,000 letter entries, and 17,000 oral history entries.

English language personal narratives, including letters, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies, and oral histories. Permits a wide variety of search options. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Making of America (full-text) - is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

Shows PDF images of the full-text book pages. Each image has a "Print" Button on the upper left side of the screen. In order to download images to a jumpdrive, right click (PC) and select "View Image." Right click again and "Save Image As." Remember to name the images in a way that will tell you which ones go together and in what order.

North American Immigrant Letters Diaries and Oral Histories (ASP) (full-text) includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives. In selected cases, users will be able to hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants.

North American Indian Thought and Culture (ASP) (full-text) Is a collection of sources, many of which are previously unpublished, rare, or hard to find. It integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files for the first time. The result is a comprehensive representation of historical events as told by the individuals who lived through them.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries (full-text) catalogs American and Canadian women's diaries and correspondence over centuries. Researchers will have access to 150,000 pages of materials, including more than 5,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts as facsimile images. Drawn from more than 1,000 sources and representing 1,500 women from all walks of life, the writings are extensively indexed. Databases of women, sources, personal events, historical events, a geographical table, and other features make the writings useful to researchers in history, sociology, literature, genealogy, women’s studies, and related fields.

Use the searches under the heading Search Texts. These will allow you to limit you searches to material written by women according to marital and maternal status. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Oral History Online (ASP) (full-text) is a landmark database of English language oral histories. It contains at present more than 34,000 pages of full-text This full-text material includes Ellis Island oral history narratives and rare Black Panther Party interviews.

Use the searches under the heading Search Texts. These will allow you to limit you searches to material written by straight or lesbian women. It also allows searches based on race and nationality. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online (ASP) (full-text) allows today’s readers to feel and understand what it was like to be a person of any time, race, ethnicity, or gender, experiencing the past viscerally—through personal and private writings presented as searchable full-text documents, audio files, images, and online videos. The most comprehensive archive of social memory yet created, Letters and Diaries Online is the ideal starting point for historians, sociologists, genealogists, linguists, and psychologists who want to explore and analyze human experiences.

Social Theory (ASP) (full-text) brings together an extensive range of influential writings representing the most important trends of sociological thought from the eighteenth century to the present day. Included in the more than 150,000 pages of searchable content are seminal works by such theorists as Harriet Martineau, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Jürgen Habermas, Talcott Parsons, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard.

Search by gender, age at writing, nationality, race, events discussed and more. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Tanner Ritchie Series: Sources for Medieval and Early Modern History (full-text) Download the PDF then search the PDF.

Women and Social Movements (full-text) The collection currently includes 87 document projects with almost 2700 documents and 150,000 pages of additional full-text documents, and more than 2,060 primary authors. It includes as well book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.

Women Working 1800-1930 (full-text) focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images.

Click "search the collection" on the left menu bar for an advanced search.

LITERATURE-

African-American Poetry 1760-1900 - (full-text) African-American Poetry, 1760-1900, is a collection of over 2,500 poems. It provides a survey of African American poetry from the earliest published African American poems to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar. The bibliographic basis is William French's bibliography, Afro-American Poetry and Drama 1760-1975.

You can Browse the collection or Search by subject, keyword, first line, gender of the author, city of publication and many more. Do not use quotation marks around phrase searches. The database will find your exact phrase without quotes.

American Film Scripts (ASP) (full-text) contains 823 scripts by 969 writers together with detailed, fielded information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. It also includes over 430 original images of previously unpublished screenplays.

Allows searches limited by Age When Writing, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Production Company, Theater Name and many others. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

American Poetry (Electronic Text Center) (full-text) American Poetry to 1900, includes 1,288 works by 209 poets, along with six landmark anthologies of American poetry. The database gathers the works of the most influential American poets, from the Colonial period to the early twentieth century. The bibliographic basis for American Poetry is the Bibliography of American Literature, Yale University Press, 1955-1991.

Allows searching within works according to the style of writing and the gender of the poet.

Asian American Drama (ASP) (full-text) Is a collection of 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. Some 50% of these plays have never been published before. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. The plays themselves have been selected using leading bibliographies.

Black Drama (ASP) (full-text) Consists of 1,200 plays, almost a quarter of which are previously unpublished. The collection includes the complete works of more than 300 playwrights from North America, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, and other locations. Starting with Victorian plays and working up to the present the collection also includes biographies, playbills, images, production notes, and performance information.

The multi-search field allows searches by gender, age when writing, nationality, race, genre, settings, performers, composers and several more. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Early English Books Online - (full-text) includes the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, and now contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. There are titles in many subject areas, including: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science.

The basic search allows you to search only the texts with images, if you like. Advanced search lets you search by languages and type of images, such as map, chart, plan or table, to name a few.

English Poetry 600 - 1900 (Electronic Text Center) (full-text) contains poems in English from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the nineteenth century by writers from the British Isles. It covers the works of 1,257 named poets and many items by different anonymous hands. In the pre-1500 period alone there are more than 2000 separate chronicles, romances, lyrics, and miscellaneous poems. The Tudor and Jacobean period are represented by over 35,000 different poems and from the nineteenth century there are 80,000 poems. Overall the collection contains over 165,000 poems which have been drawn from about 4,500 separate printed sources.

English Verse Drama contains more than 2,200 works by around 500 named and over 300 works by unknown authors. English Verse Drama includes masques and short dramatic pieces written primarily in verse, selected translations, works written for children, and numerous adaptations. It covers a period from the Shrewsbury Fragments of the late thirteenth century through the Elizabethan and Jacobean period to the end of the nineteenth century.

Latin American Women Writers (ASP) (full-text) Spanning 19 countries, this collection presents an electronic collection of literature by Latin American women from the colonial period in the 17th century forward to the present. The 100,000 pages of works in their original languages comprise literary works, memoirs, letters, and essays. In Spanish.

Latino Literature (ASP) (full-text) brings together more than 100,000 pages of poetry, fiction, and drama written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latin authors working in the United States Included in this collection are nearly 800 items (poems, novels, and plays) that have never been published before. There are also numerous Chicano folk tales and audio files of selected poems and plays. It currently contains over 106,000 pages of poetry. In English.

North American Indian Drama (ASP) (full-text) Is a collection of more than 200 plays representing the stories of American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the 20th century. Many of the plays are unpublished or hard to find, and they represent a wealth of dramatic material that is often overlooked or inaccessible.

Use the searches under the heading Search Texts. These will allow you to limit you searches to material written by age when writing, tribe, gender, genre, settings and more. It also allows searches based on race and nationality. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

North American Women's Drama (ASP) (full-text) delivers 1,500 plays by women from the United States and Canada, including the complete works of leading playwrights along with those of lesser-known but important writers. Many of the plays are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Relevant for the study of literature, women's studies, and the history of feminism.

Scottish Women Poets of the Romatic Period (ASP) (full-text) includes 60 volumes of poetry by 47 authors. Accompanying the texts are extensive bio-critical essays, specially written for the database by leading scholars in the field, as well as selected criticism from the critical bibliography compiled by the editors.

Use the searches under the heading Search Texts. These will allow you to limit you searches to material written by women according to ethnicity or occupation. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Theatre In Video (ASP) (full-text) contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video - more than 500 hours in all. This release contains 279 titles, representing hundreds of leading playwrights, actors and directors.

Twentieth Century North American Drama (ASP) (full-text) This edition of Twentieth Century North American Drama contains 1,530 plays by 223 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. More than 150 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.

Virginia Woolf Reading Notes for the Three Guineas The core of this archival project resides in the three volumes of news clipping scrapbooks, located in the manuscript collection at the University of Sussex, with entries dating from as early as 1927 to December, 1937. Specifically, the entries consist of several hundred items indexed by Woolf separately in each of the three scrapbooks.

Women Writers Online (some full-text) - Is a collection of writings by women of the Renaissance to the 19th century that are held at Brown University. The books cover a multitude of subject areas and can be searched by keyword or browsed.

The Advanced Search screen automatically loads. If you do no know how to do a Boolean search, see Search Techniques. The blue Start button is on the right. Below the Start button, notice the option to Limit to Full Text. You may also use Subject Area, to limit your search to a particular area if you get too many results by searching ALL.

MUSIC-

African American Song (ASP) (full-text) is a historical database that will contain 50,000 tracks of music from America's past. The database will includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.

The Advanced Search field allows searches by keyword, track, genre, instrument, period, artist and several more. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Classical Music Library (ASP) (full-text) Classical Music Library is an ever-growing, fully searchable classical music resource—a includes tens of thousands of licensed recordings that users can listen to on the Internet.. There are many recordings licensed from major labels. Users browse, search then listen to the music over the Internet through their headphones.

The Advanced Search field allows searches by keyword, track, genre, instrument, period, composer and several more. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Classical Scores Library (ASP) (full-text) Classical Scores Library will contain 400,000 pages of classical music scores, manuscripts, and previously unpublished material. Many items have associated audio tracks in Classical Music Library making it possible to listen and read a score simutaneaously.

Contemporary World Music (ASP) (full-text) Is a collection of a diverse variety of recordings from contemporary reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres. Traditional music such as Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer to name a few.

The Advanced Search field allows searches by album title, instrument, date of recording and cultural group. The search options are unusually varied. HELP is available at all times on the upper right side of the screen.

Smithsonian Global Sound (ASP) (full-text) Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries® is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical traditions. The database is a collection of online resources that support the creation, continuity, and preservation of diverse musical forms. The collection includes over 35,000 individual tracks of music, spoken word, as well as natural and human-made sounds.

RELIGION-

Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation (ASP) (full-text) Comprising more than 150 topics, the collection includes topics such as Church Authority, Free Will, Justification, Prayer & Meditation, Purgatory, The Arts, Attitudes towards Jews, Education & Learning, Religious Freedom, and the Religious and Social Role of Women.

Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts (ASP) (full-text) includes not only the principal works of the most eminent writers of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, but also those of lesser-known authors of the period The collection features biblical commentaries, catechisms, treatises, pastoral writings, sermons, church histories, disputations, and personal letters by Protestant writers, representing diverse theological perspectives.

Online Journals

Journal Finder is a list of all of the journals SBC has in full text through database subscriptions. Type in your journal title and the finder will locate the journal you need. For more journal subscriptions that are in print or on microform, connect to LION to check the SBC Library catalog for holdings information on the journals you need. If the journal is NOT held by the SBC Library, request the articles you need on Interlibrary Loan. The form is here.

Books in the Sweet Briar College Library

To find books on your topic, connect to LION and use the Subject Keyword search field. We can order books on Interlibrary Loan (ILL) from all area libraries. Please check LION before requesting an ILL book. If we have the book on campus your ILL request will not be filled. Check both LION and Journal Finder before requesting an ILL journal article. If the article is on campus or is available to you electronically through Journal Finder your ILL request will not be filled.

RefWorks

RefWorks is a database that organizes your "works cited" to create quick bibliographies for your papers. It allows you to change your entire bibliography from APA to MLA style (or many other styles) in a snap, without fussing with formats or punctuation.

Just go to RefWorks. The first time you go there you will have to "Sign up for an individual account." Once you sign up and login, click on the References tab in the upper left corner of the screen.

On the drop-down menu tool bar choose "Add New Reference." On the following screen, start by selecting your prefered bibliographic style (e.g. APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.) Then designate the type of reference you are entering (e.g. journal, book or dissertation, etc.) under Ref Type. Field names marked with a red asterisk indicate required information needed to produce an accurate bibliography for the selected output style and reference type. Click "Save" when finished.

You can Import references from selected databases. Importing allows you to bring in multiple references at one time. Check the RefWorks list of Supported Databases to see which products will allow you to export multiple references to RefWorks.

If you have any problems using RefWorks you can check out their helpful online tutorials or download the SBC Library RefWorks Handout. Please call a librarian at x6307, x6306 or x6315 for a one-on-one training session.

Primary Sources On the Web

Civil War Primary Sources on the Internet
Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Primary Sources on the Web
Letters Written by the Women of Goucher College: Class of 1903
New South Voices - Oral history from Catawba county North Carolina
Primary Sources links from CalState
Primary Sources on the Web from UC Berkeley
Women of the Irene Mound - Fourty-five African American women helped excavate a Native American archeological site in 1937 near Savannah Georgia. This archive is photographic and includes interviews with one of the workers.
Women's Education Evolves, 1790-1890: Selected Primary Sources From the William L. Clements Library
World Digital Library

If you have comments, questions, or would like to add a site, write to me.
Lisa N. Johnston (email: lnjohnston at sbc dot edu), Associate Director/ Head of Public Services, Sweet Briar College Library. Revised 8/09.

Send comments, suggestions or questions
about this web site to: lkent@nospam.sbc.edu