Research Guides: Primary Sources: What They Are and Where to Find Them: Finding Primary Sources in the UWRF Library

Books in Library

Search@UW provides access to Primary Sources in several ways.

Limiting by scopes will focus on results.

--Everything is the most general search. This option searches all of the databases UWRF subscribes to. It includes Articles, Digital Objects, Ebooks, Digital Collections (Minds@UW, UWDC, and UW Milwaukee ), and materials housed in UW libraries.

--Books and Media@

UWRF - Limits search to UWRF materials
UW Libraries - search all the libraries in the UW System. Select a resource to be sent to UWRF.

--Digital Collections Contains: Minds@UW, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections, and UW Milwaukee's Digital Collections

--Archives and Special Collections will search the collections housed in the UWRF Archives and Area Research Center

Search Tip: Use keywords such as "letters," "diary," "narratives" and "manuscripts" will focus the search toward historical documents or first-person accounts.

University Archives and Area Research Center

The University Archives and Area Research Center (ARC) houses the permanent, historical records of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The ARC provides students, faculty, and the general public regional access to historical materials, local government records, manuscripts, and special collections from four northwestern Wisconsin counties: Burnett, Pierce, Polk, and Saint Croix.

Geneology

Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new window
Ancestor search and genealogical information from census records, historical maps, and more.
HeritageQuest Online This link opens in a new window
Includes American genealogical sources, such as primary sources, local and family histories, and finding aids. Provides genealogical and historical sources for more than 60 countries, with coverage dating back as early as the 1700s.

Databases that Contain Primary Sources

Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
Contains 19th and 20th century primary material found in leading historic periodicals and books. Eyewitness accounts of historical events, descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements.

Consider these lists as a starting point, not a comprehensive list of primary source databases. Every item in these databases is not necessarily a primary source.

Avalon Project
Provides access to primary source materials in the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Most primary sources are linked to other documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.
British & 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: primary materials spanning more than 300 years.

Congressional Hearings & Serial Set This link opens in a new window
Congressional Hearings & Serial Set provides access to a comprehensive collection of historic and current congressional documents. This collection includes the full text of congressional publications, finding aids, a bill tracking service, and the full text of public laws. Because Congress studies public policy, social, and economic issues, the database is an effective source for general research in many academic disciplines, in addition to research related to specific legislative proposals and laws.

Early Encounters in North America
Early Encounters in North America contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters.

Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, letters, public documents, almanacs, calendars, manuscripts, and other primary sources.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online
A comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century, the world’s largest library of the printed book on microfilm. Every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the eighteenth century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.
European Views of the Americas (1493-1750)
This bibliographic database is a valuable index for libraries, scholars and individuals interested in European works that relate to the Americas. EBSCO Publishing, in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, has created this resource from “European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750,” the authoritative bibliography that is well-known and respected by scholars worldwide. The database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a
Gerritsen Collection--Women's History Online, 1543-1945
This database is the definitive cross-cultural resource for information on women's history. It spans more than four centuries and 15 languages and includes over two million pages in full image. Users can trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of that country's feminist movement on other countries and their movements. The Gerritsen Collection also provides immediate access to many primary sources from around the world that were previously available only in
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
Includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.
North American Women's Letters & Diaries
Includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
The Gilded Age
Spanning from 1865 to 1902, The Gilded Age provides insight into the key issues that shaped America in the late nineteenth century, including race and ethnicity, immigration, labor, women's rights, American Indians, political corruption, and monetary policy. The Gilded Age brings together primary documents and scholarly commentary into a searchable collection that is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history.
Wisconsin Pioneer Experience
A digital collection of diaries, letters, reminiscences, speeches and other writings of people who settled and built Wisconsin during the 19th century. The historic papers included in the Wisconsin Pioneer Experience were drawn from the collections of the Area Research Centers (ARC), as well as the headquarters, of the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Newspapers

America's Historical Newspapers
Allows users to search more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922.
The Lily
The Lily, the first newspaper for women, was issued from 1849 until 1856). In was published in Seneca Falls, New York as a temperance journal.

Wisconsin Newspapers Digital Research This link opens in a new window
Wisconsin Newspapers Digital Research Site provides access to over 200 daily and weekly member-newspapers. Each edition is covered cover to cover in a searchable PDF.
Coverage: From April 2005 with a two month embargo period. State wide coverage includes the Eau Claire Leader Telegram, La Cross Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, and the Capital Times.

Western Wisconsin coverage for St Croix County includes: Baldwin Bulletin, Central St Croix News, Hudson Star Observer, New Richmond News, River Falls Journal, Tribune Press Reporter and the Woodville Leader. For Pierce County it includes: Pierce County Herald, Prescott Journal and the River Falls Journal.

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