Find Primary Sources - UGS 302: Utopia and Dystopia in American Lit - Murphy - LibGuides at University of Texas at Austin

What is a Primary Source?

Primary sources are produced by participants or direct observers of an issue, event or time period. These sources may be recorded during the event or later on, by a participant reflecting upon the event.

Aside from newspapers, some other examples of primary sources include:

Speeches
Government documents
Legal documents
Public opinion polls
Personal materials, including letters, diaries, interviews, memoirs, autobiographies, and oral histories
Images
Works of art (novels, plays, paintings, etc.)

Find Primary Sources by Type

Guide to Finding Speeches
Guide to finding speeches, created by the Communications Librarian.

Avalon Project
A project out of Yale Law School, "digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government," with supporting documentation.
FindLaw
Legal news and cases, including from the Supreme Court
National Archive
Legal and historical documents and materials from the National Archives and Records Administration

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
1789 - present. Unlimited users.
Updated daily. Provides indexing of many Congressional publications from 1789 to the present, including Hearings, Committee Prints, Reports, Documents and Congressional Research Service Reports.
House and Senate Reports and Documents indexed in ProQuest Congressional (1817-1969) are available in full text in the Serial Set database. Our subscription to ProQuest Congressional does not include full text of the Serial Set.
Congressional Hearings after 2013 and House and Senate Documents and Reports indexed in ProQuest Congressional (1995 to present) are available in full text on Govinfo.gov site from the Government Printing Office.

USA.gov
Official guide to government information and services

American Memory
"A digital record of American history and creativity" from the Library of Congress.
Avalon Project
A project out of Yale Law School, "digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government," with supporting documentation.
FindLaw
Legal news and cases, including from the Supreme Court

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
Updated continually. Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an interface that offers discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Effective January 1, 2018, Nexis Uni™ replaces LexisNexis Academic.

American National Elections Study Guide
The Guide provides immediate access to tables and graphs that display the ebb and flow of public opinion, electoral behavior, and choice in American politics over time. It serves as a resource for political observers, policy makers, and journalists, teachers, students, and social scientists. It currently contains data from 1948 through 2012.
Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
Public Agenda Online
Public Agenda is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps diverse leaders and citizens navigate divisive, complex issues and work together to find solutions.

Polling the Nations This link opens in a new window
1986 - present. 4 users.
Updated monthly. A comprehensive compilation of public opinion surveys, containing the full text of more than 350,000 questions and responses from 14,000 surveys conducted by 700 polling organizations in the United States and more than 80 other countries.

PollingReport.com
An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion.

American Memory
"A digital record of American history and creativity" from the Library of Congress.
National Archive
Legal and historical documents and materials from the National Archives and Records Administration.
Teaching American History
Historical documents and materials.

American Memory
"A digital record of American history and creativity" from the Library of Congress.
National Archive
Legal and historical documents and materials from the National Archives and Records Administration
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Search in the advertisement and advertising collection genres.

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