LibGuides: Primary Sources for History: 79-297: Technology and Work: Books, Documents, Essays

Books, Documents, Essays

See History: Primary Sources for a more complete list of available resources.

Defining Gender, 1450-1910 This link opens in a new window
15th to early 20th century primary sources on gender such as Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity and Family, the Body, etc.
Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new window
Narratives, diaries, journals, and letters of traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
Over 100,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the English language in any country from 1475 through 1700. Database Guide
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue, includes over 136,000 titles (155,000 volumes) works published in the UK during the 18th century plus thousands from elsewhere. Items are primarily in English - though other languages are included.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Essays and original documents relating to Empire Studies, race, class, imperialism, and colonialism, sourced from libraries and archives around the world.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized books, journals, and government documents from all countries and time periods.
Text-mine (full text search) over 17 million digitized works and create customized collections. HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries. Offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.
History Vault This link opens in a new window
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. Database Guide
Legal Classics This link opens in a new window
1,800 works from some of the greatest legal minds in history.
Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature (1460-1914) This link opens in a new window
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. CMU has access to Part I (1450-1850), Part II (1851-1914), Part III (1890-1945), and Part IV (the "Age of Capital").
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
Medieval manuscripts of travelers' accounts between the 13th and 16th centuries.
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.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Thousands of original materials related to slavery, abolition, and social justice ranging from 1490-2007.
Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Gender, Sex, and the Family This link opens in a new window
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.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Documents, sources, and other material related the history of women in social movements. Scholar's Edition.

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 & Modern Languages Librarian

Charlotte Kiger Price

she/her

Contact:

On leave until Dec. 2023. For assistance in History, contact CMU Librarian Ashley Werlinich, liaison librarian for English, Drama, and temporary liaison for History. For assistance in Modern Languages, use our general feedback forms.

Subjects: History, Language & Linguistics