Research Guides: History: HIST 510

HIST 510: Graduate Research Seminar

This seminar focuses on the use of primary sources in cultural, social, technological, intellectual, and institutional history.

Primary and Secondary Resources

Primary-Source Materials at Local Institutions

As a student at Loyola, you have access to a wide range of wonderful library and archival collections in Chicago. These catalogs allow you to search across institutions to locate primary-source materials:

These local research institutions have strong collections of materials on Chicago history and more:

Let me know if you have questions, and enjoy exploring the rare and unique materials at these institutions!

Primary Sources - Archival Collections

Newspaper Research

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Full-text newspapers, magazines, web-only content from U.S. and international news sources. Coverage: 1978 - present.
African American Newspapers 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Full-text content from African American newspapers published nationwide. Coverage: 1827 - 1998.
African American Periodicals 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
Full-text content from African American magazines and journals published nationwide. Coverage: 1825 - 1995.
Alternative Press Index Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-text bibliographic containing journal, newspaper, and magazine articles from alternative, radical, and left sources with focus on socialism and revolution, ecology, democracy and anarchism, feminism and organized labor, indigenous peoples, and gays/lesbians. Coverage: 1969 - 1990.
America's News Magazines This link opens in a new window
Full-text magazines covering popular news and culture, including Fortune, People, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and Parenting. Coverage 1991-present.
Chicago Daily News (1875-1978) This link opens in a new window
Primary source information to examine events, issues and daily life in the context of the historical period, featuring archived full newspaper pages. Coverage:1875-1978.
Chicago Defender This link opens in a new window
Full-text historical newspaper covering African American life, civil rights, segregation, radicalism, and anti-lynching legislation. Coverage: 1909-2010.
Chicago Tribune Historical This link opens in a new window
Digitized images and full-text articles related to Chicago news, history, and advertising. Coverage: 1849-2012.
Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full-text historical newspaper articles from the Chicago Tribune (1905 - 1975), the New York Times (1850 - 2001), the Los Angeles Times (1881-1987), and the American Periodical Series I, II & III (1741-1900).
LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles devoted to LGBT+ interests, including the history and evolution of LGBT culture, including legal contexts, health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, activism, gay rights, and arts/literature. Coverage: 1950s - recent years.

Historical newspapers and magazine databases
Browse a list of databases for historical newspapers and magazines.

Digital Collections

Archives of Sexuality & Gender Part 3: Sex and Sexuality in the 16th through 20th Centuries This link opens in a new window
Full-text primary sources related to gender studies, LGBTQ+, women's studies, and feminism. Coverage: 1600 - 1940.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
This resource contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey
The purpose of the project was to translate and classify selected news articles that appeared in the foreign language press from 1855 to 1938. The project consists of 120,000 typewritten pages translated from newspapers of 22 different foreign language communities of Chicago.
The Cornell University Witchcraft Collection
Cornell’s Witchcraft Collection contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe.
Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters
Epistolæ is a collection of medieval Latin letters to and from women. The letters collected here date from the 4th to the 13th centuries, and they are presented in their original Latin as well as in English translation.
Europeana
Europeana is a web portal created by the European Union containing digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe.
Feeding America: the Historic American Cookbook Project
Feeding America is an online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The digital archive includes 76 cookbooks from the MSU Libraries' collection as well as searchable full-text transcriptions.
Fordham University: Internet Medieval Sourcebook Saints' Lives Fordham University Internet Medieval Sourcebook on Saints' Lives. This page's goal is to present ancient, Byzantine, and medieval hagiographic original texts - in translation and otherwise - along with basic data on the cult of saints. Modern Christians, especially Orthodox Christians, still read such lives for their religious value. They will find some of these texts profitable for that goal. But the emphasis here is on the historical understanding of the texts and the cult of saints.
The France and England Project: Medieval Manuscripts between 700 and 1200
A collection of 800 medieval manuscripts produced between the 8th and 12th centuries.
Gay Peoples Union Collection
The Gay Peoples Union Collection presents digital copies of primary source materials documenting GPU and Milwaukee's gay liberation movement. Materials were selected from the following collections held by the Division of Archives and Special Collections of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries: the Gay Peoples Union Records, GPU News, and the Eldon Murray Papers.
Hanover Historical Texts Collection - Early Modern Europe
The Hanover Historical Texts Collection makes available digital versions of historical texts for use in history and humanities courses.
Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use. Primary sources are available here mainly for use in high-school and university/college courses.
Medieval History Texts in Translation
A selection of medieval primary texts, translated into English by Graham A. Loud (Professor of Medieval History, University of Leeds).
Medieval Sourcebook: Witchcraft Documents (15th Century)
Milwaukee Gay Lesbian Cable Network Programs
Select video produced by the Milwaukee Gay/Lesbian Cable Network (MGLCN) from 1987 to 1994.
Milwaukee LGBT Oral History Project
Collection consists of oral history interviews conducted by the Milwaukee LGBT History Project with members of Milwaukee's LGBT community.
Monastic Matrix
A scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 CE
Southern Foodways Alliance - Oral Histories
The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies, and explores the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
Reading access is available to the fullest extent available under US copyright law, with additional access available to members. Computational access to the entire collection is also available. Log in to ensure you have complete access to available items.
Guide for faculty/researchers (PDF)
Guide for students (PDF)
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Full-text of historical and government documents in a searchable, image-based format. Includes law journals and historical collections of U.S. federal government documents. Coverage: 1925 - present.

Loyola University Chicago Libraries

History

Archives and Special Collections at Loyola University Chicago

Links to Other Research Guides

HIST 510: Graduate Research Seminar

Primary-Source Materials at Local Institutions

Newspaper Research

Digital Collections