1950s

 For more general information on searching QuickSearch, click the QuickSearch tab. The search below will help you find mostly books in the catalog with primary sources.

First, from the Libraries homepage, click ADVANCED SEARCH to the left of the QuickSearch search box. Then click the drop-down next to Any Field and select Subject.

Subject terms to search for:
There are a number of subject heading terms in QuickSearch, which, when they appear at the end of a subject heading, tell you that a book or other source you've found is a primary source. The most generic and widely use is "sources." For example: African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.--History--20th century--Sources. Most of the others refer to specific types of primary sources, "diaries" for example.

Here's a reasonably complete list of these terms: sources or archives or diaries or correspondence or speeches or interviews or "personal narratives" or "oral history" or newspapers or pictorial             
Type or paste these terms in "Enter a search term" to the right of where you've selected Subject from the drop-down. This will limit the results of your search just to primary sources. Then simply type in the search boxes below additional keywords or subject terms that relate to your topic.

Some additional tips. Results in QuickSearch appear in "relevance" order; QuickSearch tries to place the most important relevant titles at the top of the list of results. If you click, on the left, the drop-down next to Sort by Relevance, you can select Date- Oldest and see the reults in chronological oder. Also on the left, you can to a particular time period with the Creation Date limit.

Unless noted, all of the following are fulltext databases. If the full text is not available, click Get@R. Some of them default to searching in fulltext. Unless you're looking for something very specific, searching in fulltext can produce an overwhelming and not very useful search result. If this happens, try limiting by date, using additional keywords, or searching just in the records, rather than in fulltext.

Most will allow you to limit by date of publication. Depending on the chronological coverage, some will provide secondary as well as primary sources.

For the complete list of primary sources in American history, see that tab in the research guide for History- North America. For additional search tips, see the tips on Find Articles tab.

American History in Video: Mostly films from PBS, etc. but includes early newsreels and other primary sources

ArchiveGrid: Fulltext finding aids from US archives

Archives Unbound: Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984: FBI Files. Fulltext. Cross searchable with Federal Response to Radicalism.

Black Thought and Culture: Books, newspapers, speeches, correspondence, etc.

Communication & Mass Media Complete: Communication, media, journalism periodicals

Declassified Documents Reference System: Declassified federal government documents

Digital Sanborn Maps: New Jersey: Original maps of NJ communities, 1884-1950

GenderWatch (1970-present): Articles relating to gender across the disciplines. From scholarly was well as advocacy and community publications. Mostly fulltext.

HathiTrust Digital Library: A large, fulltext library. Bigger than Google Books, better search options. Login as an RU user in the upper right to take advantage of all features, including creating personal, shareable collections.

HeinOnline: North American law journals from as early as 1852; other legal and legislative material legal material

iPoll- Polling data from Gallup, Associated Press, and a variety of other organizations

JSTOR: Scholarly journals back to the first issue

Making of the Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978

Medline (EBSCO): the standard database for medical journals

PAIS Archive: Public policy articles and essays from 1915 to 1976; no fulltext

Periodical Index Online: Mostly humanities, social science journals; mostly in English; predominately twentieth century; mostly records, little fulltext

ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Search any of the titles separately: the Chicago Defender (1909-1975), New York Times (1851+), the Philadelphia Inquirer (1860-2001), the Pittsburgh Gazette (1786-2003), the Wall Street Journal (1889-1993), and the Washington Post (1877-1993). Or search all six using the Combined Search option.

Reader' Guide Retrospective: Popular US magazines, 1890-1984; no full text, click Get@R

Social & Cultural History: Suite of cross searchable databases. Includes: Black Thought and Culture; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories; Oral History Online

Social Explorer (1790 to present): Lets you browse or produce maps and reports from Census Bureau data and religious data from the Religious Congregations and Membership Study.

Sociological Abstracts: the standard database for sociology, 1952 to present

U.S. Congressional Publications, 1824-2003: includes hearings.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980: All types of Congressional documents except hearings; executive branch documents if reported to or printed by the Congress

Women and Social Movements International (1840-present): Letters, diaries, memoirs of activists; publications of women's organizations, etc. Fulltext.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000: Books, articles, pamphlets, posters, interviews, etc.

 

 

All of the strategies described above can be used in Advanced Search in WorldCat. Except for "sort by"; you can only sort from newest to oldest here, using the "date" option at the bottom of the page.

An additional, very useful feature here is the "Archival Materials" option under "Limit Type to." This will limit your search to unique primary sources, to material found in libraries' archives.

For more general information on searching WorldCat, click the "Find Books" tab.