HIST 4347 - Century of Revolution: Stuart Britain, 1603-1714
What are primary and secondary sources?
Primary sources in historical research are original works that were created contemporaneously with the event, object, or time period being studied. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- Original manuscripts
- Newspapers
- Letters
- Historical government records
Primary sources can provide first-hand information about the object or event being studied, and can help you interpret a work in new ways. For example, scholars may look to personal correspondence (such as letters) or diaries to explore questions about why an artist made decisions about the creation of a particular work of art or literature. Or, scholars may look to historical newspapers to think about how public events may have influenced an author or shaped the creation of a particular work or even an author’s entire body of work.
Primary sources are often contrasted with secondary sources, which analyze, evaluate, or interpret primary sources. Examples include critical works like scholarly journal articles and academic books.
Learn more by watching the following video:
Find Primary Sources
For your bibliography and research paper assignments, you will need to incorporate primary sources into your research. For this class, you will be meeting with Special Collections librarians at UH Libraries, who can discuss how to find and use primary sources in physical formats. You can also access scans of many primary sources online, and occasionally copies of original primary sources will be published as books. The following resources provide access to relevant primary sources for this class:
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new windowEarly English Books Online contains over 100,000 English texts first published in the 15th through 17th centuries. Topical coverage varies widely and full-text searching is available in a minority of titles.
- Hathi Trust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowAs a digital repository for the nation's great research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the immense collections of partner institutions. It was initially conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the University of California system, and the University of Virginia to establish a repository for those universities to archive and share their digitized collections, and quickly expanded to include additional partners with fast growing treasure of digitized collections.
- British Periodicals This link opens in a new windowBritish Periodicals (Collections I and II) provide access to the searchable full text of more than 460 British periodicals from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The database includes high-resolution facsimile page images, and all illustrations and advertisements from the printed source are scanned and indexed. Subject areas covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology, and architecture.
- Connected HistoriesBrings together links to a variety of databases where you can find British history primary sources, 1500-1900.
- Early Modern Britain Primary SourcesThis guide on the Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Library website provides links to many sources in British history 1500-1800.
- Early Modern ResourcesLinks to Early Modern resources of various sorts, including many British ones. Click the Primary Sources tab for a list (with links) to many primary source databases and digital documents from the period.
- The English Experience SeriesSeries of facsimile reprints of books originally published in England between 1475 and 1640, published by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, and available in UH Libraries.
- Records of an English Village 1375-1854Records of Earls Colne.
- Devon and Cornwall Record Society PublicationsSeries of facsimile reprints of primary sources from and about the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England, and available in UH Libraries. Check the dates of the original materials to confirm they are from the Stuart period.
- Wiltshire Record Society PublicationsSeries of facsimile reprints of primary sources from and about the county of Wiltshire in England, and available in UH Libraries. Check the dates of the original materials to confirm they are from the Stuart period.
If you want to learn more about primary sources and where to find them, check out the Primary Sources research guide.
Find Secondary Sources
For your bibliography and research paper assignments, you may also need to refer to secondary sources to support your findings. The following resources provide access to relevant secondary sources for this class:
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowArts and humanities database on language and literature, music, film studies, folklore, performing arts, religion, and the study of art and architecture.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowCovers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. Contains current full text scholarly journals which cover these fields and a significant collection of recent scholarly books.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowHistorical Abstracts covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. It provides indexing to more than 2,300 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955.