CMU LibGuides: Primary Sources for 79-314: Books, Documents, Essays

Books, Documents, Essays

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.

18th Century Collections Online
Full text of 150,000 18th century books. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
20th Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family
(Carnegie Mellon users only)
Search the full text of handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books describing American attitudes towards family dynamics, gender roles, sexual relationships, and race relations.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
15th to early 20th century primary sources on gender such as Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity and Family, the Body, etc. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment
Narratives, diaries, journals, and letters of traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
Early English Books Online
Over 100,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the English language in any country from 1475 through 1700. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
Empire Online
15th-20th century. Essays and original documents relating to Empire Studies, race, class, imperialism, and colonialism, sourced from libraries and archives around the world. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
HathiTrust
The HathiTrust a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. There are more than sixty partners in HathiTrust (including CMU), and membership is open to institutions worldwide. While full access may not be available for all materials due to copyright limitations, you can use this to help identify relevant works, and use ILL to get the materials if full text is not available. UPDATE: We now have access to 8.25% additional items (32.17% of our print collection). It will last as long as the current emergency prisists

Legal Classics This link opens in a new window
1,800 works from some of the greatest legal minds in history (Carnegie Mellon users only)

Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature
1460-1850. Over 62,400 titles (11.73 million pages) -the most comprehensive collection in existence for the study of early economic, political, business and social history and for researching the literature of economics from this period. (Carnegie Mellon users only)

Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
Medieval manuscripts of travelers' accounts between the13 and 16th centuries. (Carnegie Mellon users only)

Perdita Manuscripts
1500-1700. Manuscripts that were written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the 16th and 17th centuries.(Carnegie Mellon users only)

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Works about the North, Central & South America, the Arctic & Antarctica and the West Indies. (Carnegie Mellon users only)

Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice
Original materials related to slavery, abolition, and social justice ranging from 1490-2007 century. (Carnegie Mellon users only)
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
States , 1600-2000
Documents, sources, and other material related the history of women in social movements. Scholar's Edition. (Carnegie Mellon users only)

Searching Catalogs

The resources listed here are not the only ones available. Many others are in print or microform and can be found by searching library catalogs, like CMU's library catalog, or Worldcat, a database of library holding thoughout the world (though mainly U. S.). Use some of these terms combined with your topic:

personal narratives
diaries
sources
correspondence
interviews
pamphlets
speeches
early works to 1800

For example:

"civil rights" and correspondence
slavery and "personal narratives"
Holocaust and "diaries"
"race relations" and interviews

History Librarian

Charlotte Kiger Price

she/her

Contact:

Hunt Library 109E
Pittsburgh, PA

Subjects: Education, First Year Writing, History, Language & Linguistics, Reference, Religion, Women's Studies