Literature
Historical Newspapers
Newspapers are invaluable for their immediacy, recording history as it happened. The following are a few of the databases that provide historical newspaper access (other available titles can be found by searching the Library's Databases A-Z list):
- 17th and 18th century Burney newspapers collection This link opens in a new windowThe largest collection from British news media from these centuries.
- 19th Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new windowProvides access to primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.
- African American newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new windowSearch the full text of eight African American newspapers with coverage from 1827 to 1902. Frederick Douglass' Paper is among the included titles
- America's historical newspapers. Kansas newspapers This link opens in a new windowProvides access to Kansas titles from African American newspapers, 1827-1998 and another thirteen papers. Content covers from 1851 to 1909 and includes the Emporia Gazette.
- Harper's weekly This link opens in a new windowProvides access to Harper's Weekly, the illustrated 19th and early 20th century "national newspaper," an important resource for examining America on a cumulative week-to-week basis from 1857-1912. Through this database one can discover news stories, illustrations, cartoons, editorials, biographies, literature, and advertisements that shaped and reflected public opinion of the times.
- Lily: a temperance and feminist newspaper, 1849-1856 This link opens in a new windowThe Lily, the first newspaper for women, was issued from 1849 until 1853 under the editorship of Amelia Bloomer.
Historical Magazines & Periodicals
The following are examples of historical popular magazines and periodical literature (other than newspapers) accessible through KU collections:
- American periodicals series online This link opens in a new windowDigitized images of the pages of over 1,100 American magazines and journals published from 1741 through 1940
- Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950 This link opens in a new windowProvides cover-to-cover access to Liberty Magazine, an illustrated weekly magazine covering middle America from 1924 to 1950. Includes illustrations, fiction, nonfiction articles, and advertisements that captured middle America’s attitudes, lifestyles, interests, values, and fads.
- Life Magazine Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowAccess to articles and images from one of the most influential popular magazines of all time.
- Times Literary supplement historical archive, 1902-2019 This link opens in a new windowCovers 1902 to 5 years ago with access to book reviews, film reviews, play reviews and more.
- Vogue archive This link opens in a new windowContains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day. Vogue is a unique record of American and international popular culture that extends beyond fashion.
Find Original Prose, Poetry & Drama
The following databases may be useful in finding primary source literature, including novels, stories, pamphlets, broadsides and more:
- Literature online This link opens in a new windowLiterature Online (LION) provides searchable full-text of more than 350,000 literary works in the English language--poetry, drama, and prose. Literary works range from Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature (600-1500) to 20th-Century Literature. The geographical span includes England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the West Indies, Africa, and South Asia.
- Early English books online This link opens in a new windowEarly English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Contains over 125,000 titles with full-text searching.
- Eighteenth Century collections online This link opens in a new windowEighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) contains over 200,000 printed volumes. It includes every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom in the 18th century, thousands of important works from the Americas produced in the same period, along with contemporary titles that debate and analyze those works.
- Columbia Granger's World of Poetry This link opens in a new windowIndexes poetry in anthologies. Some poems are full-text, others are excerpts. Also includes short biographies of selected poets, comments on poems and poets by well-respected scholars, and a poetry glossary.
- Early American imprints. Series 1, Evans, 1639-1800 and supplement This link opens in a new windowThe Evans collection covers virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America from 1639-1800. Digitized from one of the most important collections ever produced on microform, Early American Imprints, Series I is based on Charles Evans' renowned American Bibliography and Roger Bristol's supplement. Includes more than 36,000 printed works and 2.3 million pages.
- Early American imprints. Series 2, Shaw--Shoemaker, 1801-1819, and supplement This link opens in a new windowProvides a comprehensive set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century. Based on the noted American Bibliography, 1801-1819 by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, this database includes more than four million pages from over 36,000 items.
- Black Short Fiction and Folklore This link opens in a new windowAccess over 82,000 pages and an estimated 11,000 works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present.
Historical Ephemera & More
The following collections include diaries, letters, and various ephemera including posters, maps, advertisements, trade cards, programs, and more:
- American Civil War: letters and diaries This link opens in a new windowPresents a collection of American Civil War (1861-1865) letters, diaries, memoirs and biographies written between 1855 and 1875. Covers the military, social, economic, and political aspects of the war.
- American West This link opens in a new windowThis digital collection of primary sources from the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library contains over 300 manuscripts, broadsides, maps, and rare printed works. Material in the collection ranges from 1722 to 1939, with the majority covering 1830 to 1839.
- London Low Life This link opens in a new windowThis collection brings its users to the teeming streets of 19th century London through posters, penny fiction, chapbooks, maps, cartoons, song sheets, and more.
- North American immigrant letters & diaries This link opens in a new windowProvides a personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada. Included are primary sources such as letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, political cartoons, and oral histories. Materials included cover a period from approximately 1840 to the present, with most of the focus on the period from 1890 to 1920.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new windowIncludes printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera, and video clips.
- The Sixties This link opens in a new windowLetters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories; accounts from official, radical, and alternative organizations; posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and rare materials; and Universal newsreel footage of the times.
- Victorian popular culture This link opens in a new windowContains a wide range of material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain, and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930.
Primary vs. Secondary
Primary sources are firsthand accounts of an event - or original records created during a particular time period - which do not contain any outside interpretation. Examples include:
- letters, diaries, interviews
- historical news reportage
- original works of fiction, art, or music
- original research or data
- testimony or speeches
Primary sources are useful because they give researchers a better understanding of an event since they are written by someone who experienced or witnessed the event in question.
Secondary sources are one step removed from the original event. They provide criticism or interpretation of a primary source.