Guides: HU 3900: Oceans: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

On this page, you will find:

Finding Primary Sources

Primary sources are materials that provide firsthand testimony to a subject under investigation. Researchers often use these firsthand accounts of specific events to understand events from the viewpoint of people living during that time period. Primary sources include documents and artifacts from the time period under study, such as letters, diaries, photographs, newspaper articles, pamphlets, government records, songs, poems, and videos. Primary sources also include writings and recordings by witnesses who experienced the events or conditions being documented. For example, oral histories, autobiographies, and memoirs are primary sources.

Library Databases with Primary Sources

New York Times (Historical): 1851-2020 This link opens in a new window
Search full text and images 1851-2020 including news, illustrations, editorials, and advertisements.
Coverage: 1851-2020
Full Text: Yes
Search Tips
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Online archive of eBooks and complete backruns of scholarly journals in a variety of academic fields. Publication dates on JSTOR range from 1665 to the present. Use the date range filter to find documents from the time that you are studying.
Coverage: 1800s-
Full Text: Yes
Titles Included | Search Tips
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online (EEBO) is the definitive online collection of early printed works in English. With over 125,000 titles from before 1700, the EEBO contains virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.

Examples of Websites with Primary Sources

To find primary sources via Google, try adding keywords like journals, papers, letters, documents, primary sources, or documentary history to your search terms. Primary sources can often be found on library, museum, and government websites.

Here are some examples of websites that can help you find primary sources for ocean and maritime history:

Historical Map & Chart Collection (NOAA)
Office of Coast Survey's Historical Map & Chart Collection covers the land and waters of the United States of America, including territories and possessions (past and present).
Journal of the H.M.S. ENDEAVOR, 1768-1771
Digitized journal of the voyage of H.M.S. ENDEAVOR, during which Cook discovered Eastern Australia and circumnavigated New Zealand.
Maritime History Archive: Virtual Exhibits and Digital Collections
The Maritime History Archive collects and preserves documents relating to the history of maritime activities in Newfoundland and Labrador and throughout the North Atlantic world.
Mystic Seaport Museum: Digital Items
The Collections Research Center at Mystic Seaport houses one of the premier maritime collections in the United States
Naval History and Heritage Command: Photography: Digital Exhibits
The mission of the Naval History and Heritage Command is to preserve and present the history of the U.S. Navy.
New Bedford Whaling Museum: Logbooks and Journals
A selection of the logbooks have been digitized and are available on the Internet Archive.
Nimitz Library Digital Collection (United States Naval Academy)
Collections include USNA History, Midshipman Manuscripts, War of 1812, the Civil War, World War II, Polar Exploration, and John Paul Jones.
On the Water: Stories from Maritime America (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
This exhibition explores life and work on the nation’s waterways, discovering the stories of whaling crews, fishermen, shipbuilders, merchant mariners, passengers, and many others.
RMS Titanic Resource Guide (Nova Scotia Archives)
Includes a virtual exhibit, news-magazines, and passenger lists.
Seamen's Church Institute Digital Archives
More than 12,500 digitized items documenting the history of the Seamen's Church Institute, North America's largest mariners' service agency.
SUNY Maritime Digital Collections
Digitized selections from the SUNY Maritime's archives and special collections.
U.S. Navy Ships (National Archives)
Historical photographs of US Navy ships.
US Coast Guard Historian's Office
The Coast Guard Historian's Office is responsible for collecting, preserving and promoting the history and heritage of the national government's oldest continuously-serving sea service.
Voyages: the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Contains over 35,000 records from 1514-1866.
Whaling History
This data-driven site will be useful to a wide range of people, from family historians searching for ancestors, to scholars of the whaling industry, to teachers and their students.

Additional websites for finding primary sources (these collections are broader than those listed above but may still have relevant documents for your research):

American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Discover historic programs of publicly funded radio and television across America.
British History Online
British History Online is a collection of nearly 1300 volumes of primary and secondary content relating to British and Irish history, and histories of empire and the British world. BHO also provides access to 40,000 images and 10,000 tiles of historic maps of the British Isles. Because of the UK lockdown, BHO is making all of their transcribed content free until 30 April.
British Library: Digital Collections
Explore digital collections from the British Library, including digitized manuscripts, maps, and sound recordings.
The British Museum: Collection Online
The British Museum's online collection provides access to almost four and a half million objects in more than two million records.
Colonial North America at Harvard Library
Colonial North America at Harvard Library provides access to remarkable and wide-ranging materials digitized as part of an ongoing, multi-year project. When complete, the project will make available to the world approximately 650,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.
Digital Commonwealth
Explore historical collections from libraries, museums, and archives across Massachusetts.
Digital Public Library of America
Discover 42,424,112 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States
Europeana
Europeana works with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research. This website gives you access to millions of books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for.
European History Primary Sources (EHPS)
The purpose of EHPS is to provide an easily searchable index of scholarly digital repositories that contain primary sources for the history of Europe. As the number of digital archives on the internet continues to grow, finding and selecting digital repositories becomes increasingly difficult. EHPS strives to fill that gap by listing the most important collections of digital primary sources for the history of Europe, either as a whole or for single countries.
Fordham University: Internet History Sourcebooks Project
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts. Browse by time period or geographic region.
Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963.
Library of Congress: Digital Collections
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library preserves and provides access to a rich, diverse and enduring source of knowledge to inform, inspire and engage you in your intellectual and creative endeavors.
UK National Archives: Online Collections
Over 5% of The National Archives' records have so far been digitized.
World Digital Library
Search 19,147 items about 193 countries between 8000 BCE and 2000.