Primary Sources
In these databases you'll find a wide range of published primary sources.
Historic Newspaper, Magazine, Journal, & Image Databases
- American Periodicals Scanned and searchable full-text images from over 1,000 American magazines and journals, including 89 journals published between 1740 and 1800 and 118 periodicals published during the Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction (1865-1877) eras. Coverage includes popular and scholarly as well as regional and niche publications.
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers Access to scanned newspaper pages from 1690-present and information about other American newspapers published between 1690-present. Sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
- Kentucky Digital Newspapers Program Kentucky's National Digital Newspaper Program (KY-NDNP) website offers comprehensive lists of the University of Kentucky's digitized historic newspapers available in both the Kentucky Digital Library and the Library of Congress' Chronicling America. The website also provides an extensive "how-to" on historic newspaper digitization per the NDNP specifications.
- Lexington Herald-Leader Digital Archive Digital archives (with PDFs) dating back to 1888 (for the Lexington Leader) and 1896 (for the Morning Herald) to present day as the Lexington Herald-Leader. Text archives back to 1983.
- Lexington Herald-Leader Photographs Consists of more than 2 million unique photographic negatives. The collection also contains associated newspaper clippings, job sheets, and hand-written photographers' notes. The LHL photographs are a source of photographic evidence of the many historical, cultural, and industrial changes that have shaped Lexington and the surrounding region.
- Newspaper Source Newspaper Source provides selected full-text for nearly 35 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times (London), and The Toronto Star. Also contains selected full-text for more than 375 regional (U.S.) newspapers, including The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit Free Press, The Miami Herald, The New York Daily News, and The San Jose Mercury News. In addition, full-text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, FOX News, NPR, and other sources.
- New York Times Historical Edition Searchable full-text from ProQuest, with keyword searching and date limiting. This title is part of Proquest Historical Newspapers.
- UK Libraries Microfilm Holdings Database This database provides access to the University of Kentucky's holdings of microfilm masters, including newspapers as well as other primary sources. Not all Kentucky newspapers available for viewing are included in this database (e.g., The Lexington Herald-Leader and The Courier-Journal). To find other available Kentucky newspapers, search the InfoKat Discovery Library Catalog or consult the librarians at the Reference Desk.
Subject-Specific Primary Source Databases
- American Women: A Guide to Women's History Resources at the Library of Congress The Library's unique and diverse collections are rich with resources for the study of women's history. This research guide gathers together a collection of topical guides and essays that tell the stories of women in America.
- Defining Gender, 1450-1910 "Advice Literature for men and women." Access to approximately 50,000 images of original manuscript and printed material, including a strong core of documents from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Ephemeral material such as ballads, cartoons and pamphlets are featured alongside diaries, advice literature, medical journals, conduct books and periodicals.
- Digital Transgender Archive The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. The DTA uses the term transgender to refer to a broad and inclusive range of non-normative gender practices. We treat transgender as a practice rather than an identity category in order to bring together a trans-historical and trans-cultural collection of materials related to trans-ing gender. We collect materials from anywhere in the world with a focus on materials created before the year 2000.
- Discovering American Women's History Online This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
- Alt-Press Watch Full-text database of approximately 190 newspapers, magazines and journals from alternative and independent presses. Coverage varies (oldest 1970; most publications 1995 - present)
- Ethnic NewsWatch Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW) is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals created by and for ethnic and minority communities, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The complete collection also includes the module Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.
- Everyday Life and Women in America, c. 1800-1920 This digital collection explores American social, cultural, and popular history, providing access to primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It is made up of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.
- GenderWatch Repository of historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgender community and the changes in gender roles over the years. Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books and NGO, government and special reports. Archival material dates back to 1970 in some cases.
- Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine In Philadelphia in 1830 Louis Antoine Godey (1804-1878) commenced the publication of Godey’s Lady’s Book which he designed specifically to attract the growing audience of American women. The magazine was intended to entertain, inform and educate the women of America. In addition to extensive fashion descriptions and plates, the early issues included biographical sketches, articles about mineralogy, handcrafts, female costume, the dance, equestrienne procedures, health and hygiene, recipes and remedies and the like.
- Independent Voices Digital resources covering mid-20th century social movements. Contains near or complete runs of 750 alternative press newspapers and magazines published by activists driving the major social movements of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, activists that include feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press, as well as alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century. Also contains a very large digital aggregation of “little magazines” content, especially useful in contemporary poetry and the early works of well-known literary figures of today.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950 Includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women as revealed in approximately 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Also includes biographies and an annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
- Vogue Archive Contains the full run of Vogue Magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the present, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with indexing that enables researchers to find images by garment type, designer, and brand names as well as other keywords. Easily download and save images and PDFs of articles and advertisements.
- Women's Liberation Movement Print Culture Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement) Searchable database of full-text items from the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States taken from the archival collection of Duke University. The collection focuses primarily on the radical origins of the movement, the second wave of feminism, in the 1960s and 1970s. Items can be searched for by keyword, by selecting one of the provided subject categories, or with multiple criteria by selecting advanced search.
- Women's Suffrage Collection Covers 80 years of the struggle for equal voting rights for women that culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The coverage starts in 1840, at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were refused seats on the floor by male abolitionists because of their gender, leading to the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. Includes newspapers that had some overlap between the temperance and women's rights movements, as well as an anti-suffrage paper (The Lily 1849-1856, National Citizen and Ballot Box 1878-1881, The Revolution 1868-1872, The New Citizen 1909-1912, The Western Woman Voter 1911-1913, and The Remonstrance 1890-1913). New Collections added March 31, 2020: The National Standard 1870-1872 19th Amendment Victory: A Newspapers History 1760-1922 19th Amendment Victory: Books, 1812-1923
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 Brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies to document the multiplicity of women's reform movements.
General Primary Source Databases & Websites
- American Memory Archival collections from Library of Congress. Browse and search. Topics: Advertising, African American History, Architecture/Landscape, Cities/Towns, Culture/Folklife, Environment/Conservation, Government/Law, Immigration/American Expansion, Literature, Maps, Native American History, Performing Arts/Music, Presidents, Religion, Sports/Recreation, Technology/Industry, War/Military, and Women's History.
- Archives Unbound Presents digital collections of historical documents. Collections are chosen based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.
- HathiTrust Digital Library Our membership in HathiTrust provides UK affiliates the benefit of being able to download the full-text PDF of public domain titles. (Without a membership you are limited to a page.) To do so, users must log-in at the HathiTrust site with current linkblue credentials. UK affiliates can also search copyrighted works, but the full-text of the work is not available for full-text viewing. However, the ability to search over 16.8 million volumes will allow you to identify useful titles.
- Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.