Where Do I Find Historical Documents?
- The first thing to note is that a historical document may be found in a variety of formats. For example, the original of a handwritten letter by George Washington might be available to researchers at the Library of Congress, but a copy of that letter might be available elsewhere as microfilm, in a published collection of documents, or in electronic form online.
- Secondly, one of the main challenges of dealing with primary sources is locating them. Many historical documents have never been published, and they may only be available in archives.
Moreover, depending on the topic and time period that you are studying, you will have to look for different kinds of primary sources. For example, if you are interested in the issue of birth control in 20th century America, you can expect to find many primary sources, including:
- court cases
- legislative documents
- newspaper articles
- and letters
If you are interested in a topic from a more distant historical time period, such as the status of Jews during the Renaissance, you may have to look harder, but you can still find documents such as:
- laws
- novels
- and pamphlets
If you’re interested in first-person accounts, you’ll want to take a look at sources like:
- letters
- diaries
- autobiographies
- oral histories
- literary works
- or polemical writings
In other cases, you will want to think about what kinds of organizations might have created records related to your topic. You might be able to find:
- statistics
- government reports
- legislative documents
- court records
- transactions of an association
- annual reports and financial records
- or reports of non-governmental organizations.
Visual material can also provide a powerful window into the time period you are studying. For instance, maps not only reveal contemporary political boundaries, but also how people thought of them. Other visual sources include:
- photographs
- posters
- advertisements
- illustrations
- cartoons
- travel narratives
- and motion pictures
Keep in mind that primary sources can have multiple meanings. For example, an 1854 map of the cholera outbreak in London can provide a new understanding of how the disease spread and why people were concern with the illness as a social problem.