Emerson College Library: Archives & Primary Sources: Primary Sources

Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sources

What Are Primary Sources?

A primary source is a reliable first-hand account of a topic or event usually created at or near the time the event occurred or the topic was relevant. There are many different types of primary sources, including:

Speeches, diaries, letters, and interviews;
Event programs, posters, and television advertisements;
Survey data, such as census or economic statistics; and
Photographs, videos, or audio recordings capturing events.

What Are Secondary Sources?

On the other hand, a secondary source is an account created later by someone who did not personally experience the topic or event being discussed. In most cases, secondary resources are created by researching primary sources and then using that evidence to analyze and summarize the topic or event. Examples of secondary sources are:

Scholarly books and articles;
Genealogies;
Data analyses; and
Documentaries.

What are Tertiary Sources?

A tertiary source summarizes and collects primary sources and secondary sources.

Examples of tertiary sources include:

Encyclopedias
Handbooks
Companions
Indexes
Online encyclopedias or indexes also count as tertiary sources.

When Does a Primary Source Become a Secondary Source?

There are times when a secondary source can be used as a primary source. For example, an acting textbook used in a theatre class is generally considered to be a secondary source. Why? Because the textbook looks at the general trends and first-hand accounts in the field of acting, and summarizes that information for students. The textbook can still be used as a primary source by students trying to determine how acting was viewed during the time period in which the textbook was written.

Newspapers: Electronic Access

Includes both news aggregator databases (collections of electronic newspapers), and subscriptions to individual electronic newspapers.

Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new window
A bibliographic database of journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from hundreds of international alternative, radical, and left periodicals. API coverage is both international and interdisciplinary. 1969-present
American Indian Histories and Cultures This link opens in a new window
Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps, images, and travel journals. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection.

Bay Windows
New England's largest publication for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender readers. Award-winning articles and editorials on everything from the AIDS crisis to Vermont civil unions and Massachusetts marriage battles. Distributed to the New England area.
Print issues of Bay Windows available at Iwasaki Library.

Boston Globe This link opens in a new window
Full-text searchable articles from The Boston Globe, including articles from today's paper. 1980-present. Library holdings
Boston Globe Historical This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles and images from 1872-1979. Local, Massachusetts, and national history primary source.

Chronicle of Higher Education - Expanded Access for Emerson College (beginning Summer 2020)
Create free CHE account to save articles and searches. Free account creation is not necessary to read and browse articles.

Ethnic News Watch This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. (1959-present)
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
GenderWatch is a repository of scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and NGO, government and special reports on the evolution of the women's movement and the changes in gender roles.
Global Issues in Context This link opens in a new window
Offers international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events. Featured are hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together a variety of specially selected, highly relevant sources for analysis of social, political, military, economic, environmental, health, and cultural issues. Includes access to several international news sources.
Nexis Uni (previously Lexis Nexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Newspaper articles, wire services, legal, broadcast, and business news. Includes Company Info Search with financials (for publically traded companies), executives, current company news, SEC filings, mergers and acquisitions. Complementary with Proquest News database.
Los Angeles Times This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles for the L.A. Times from 1996 to present day.
New York Times Historic & Today This link opens in a new window
Full access to the print edition of the New York Times, 1980-present. Excludes photos, infographics and advertisements from the newspaper. For access to nytimes.com see this guide on how to create an account.
New York Times Digital - NYTimes.com This link opens in a new window
To use: see the guide on how to create an account. You will need to create an Emerson account with your Emerson email at Accessnyt.com before reading the NYTimes. After creating an account, you can register for access to Games and Cooking.
ProQuest News This link opens in a new window
Full-text of newspapers and transcripts from the following Proquest databases: Black Newspapers, Ethnic Newswatch, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest National Newspapers.
Vanderbilt Television News Archive This link opens in a new window
Index of more than 900,000 evening news broadcasts from the major U.S. national broadcast networks, and more than 9,000 hours of special news-related programming including ABC's Nightline since 1989. NBC Evening News since 1968 and CNN broadcasts from October 1995 can be viewed online.
Wall Street Journal This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles of the Wall Street Journal from 1984 to the present.
Wall Street Journal - wsj.com This link opens in a new window
To create an account using your Emerson email address: Create your account on this Emerson page and register your email and create a unique password. Select your role at Emerson (student/faculty). You should receive an account authentication email within 10 minutes of submitting from WallStreetJournal@t.dowjones.com.
Washington Post This link opens in a new window
Access the the Washington Post is available at this link. You may, when accessing here, create a personal account using your @emerson.edu address.

Looking for online library access to specific newspaper? Type newspaper name into Publications A-Z (prev. Full Text Finder).

Select Online Collections of Primary Resources

AAS Historical Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Compiled by the American Antiquarian Society, this collection of historic news sources covers a wide range of topics including agriculture, art, business, industry, education, entertainment, science and medicine, religion, family life, literature, politics, and women’s studies. 1684-1912
Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
A collection of American newspapers, magazines, and other primary source materials, mostly from the 19th century, but with some 18th century items. Newspapers and magazines include The Liberator, the Virginia Gazette, Pennsylvania Gazette, Godey's Lady's Book, and a selection of African American newspapers. Books include a collection of county histories, Civil War memoirs and regimental histories, and more.

American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
Contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later. Provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Avalon Project at Yale Law School
Primary source materials in the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government

Black Freedom Struggle in the US This link opens in a new window
Provides a collection of selected primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history. These sources document the foundation of ongoing racial injustice in the U.S. – and the fights against it. Provided freely by ProQuest.

Digital Collections - Library of Congress (LoC)
From the historical collections of the Library of Congress. Find primary documents about military history, presidential letters and speeches, films, photographs and posters. Also see what happened on any day in history.
Digital Schomburg
From The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, this project makes available images, finding aids, and special collections.
Federal Depository Library Program Guides
Subject guides for various topics, including U.S. wars, art, architecture, U.S. treaties, etc. Each guide includes links to original U.S. documents and other related resources.
Foreign Relations of the United States - Univ. of Wisconsin
The official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication.

Daily Life Through History This link opens in a new window
Descriptions of daily life in different cultures from prehistory to the present. Choose era, geography, or event. Includes primary source documents.

In The First Person
Indexing of more than 2,500 collections of oral history from around the world, including more than 260,000 pages of full text. Covers 20th Century.
LIFE Photo Archive
"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."
Making of America - Cornell
"....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."
Making of America - University of Michigan
"At the University of Michigan, approximately 1,600 books and ten journals with imprints primarily between 1850 - 1877 were selected, scanned, and made available through the present system."
National Security Archive
An independent non-governmental research institute and library, the Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records.
NYPL Digital Gallery
"Provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more."