Historical newspapers can be a rich resource for primary source information. Looking in small, local papers can often help with personal accounts. Search a particular name and limit by date in some of these databases:
Provides online access to historical newspapers, dating from the early 1700s into the early 2000s. Contains full runs and portions of runs of well-known regional and state titles to small local newspapers in the United States and other countries, including Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Panama.
Full-text and full-image articles from old editions of major American newspapers, and some Canadian. Dates vary based upon title, but most range from 19th-late 20th centuries. Titles can be searched individually under "Change Databases."
This is a primary source-centric database that covers American history from the 19th century through the early 20th century. Search for newspapers, eyewitness accounts, and more for events such as the Civil War, women's suffrage, and the abolitionist movement. It also contains a collection of African American newspapers from 1827-1909
Provides access to Scientific American from its inception in 1845 through the present, including Special Issues, Supplement Issues, and Builders Edition Issues.
You can often find letters, diaries, and first-person accounts within books. Search the catalog for a topic or name and add the term "diaries" or "letters" or "oral histories" or "interviews," for example.
Some databases contain mostly letters and diaries:
Think about what kind of document you want, and what department it could be. You can also find a lot of government documents through Google. Try adding site:.gov to your search in Google to have it search only US government websites.
Worldcat is a comprehensive catalog of books and other materials held in libraries throughout the United States and even some international libraries. The Center for Research libraries' catalog contains more than 500,000 monographs in all formats and subject areas.The European Library searches European national libraries.
Access to millions of primary source, cross-searchable, full-text/full-image documents on the most widely studied topics in 19th and 20th-century American history. Search or browse digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials. Includes the “Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, 1960–1969, Europe and Latin America” Collection Database Guide
