Primary Sources - Love, Power, and Authority in the Enlightenment's Revolutions - Pittsburgh Campus

Primary Sources online

Identifying and accessing primary sources online has never been easier.

Eurodocs
These European historical documents are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. Select the time period and geographical location and look through the chronologically arranged results list. Primary sources include a range of political, economic, social and cultural history documents.
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
REWRITEThe Burney Collection Newspapers is a full-text, fully searchable digital archive of nearly 1,270 17th and 18th century newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom. Collected by the Reverend Charles Burney, this unique collection represents the largest single archive of 17th and 18th century news media available from the British Library.
The Reverand Charles Burney (1757-1817) collection represents the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media. Collection includes newspapers, pamphlets and books of approximately 1,270 titles.
EEBO (Early English Books Online)
You have fulltext access to 125,000+ titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). Although published in England, EEBO includes materials in languages other than English.
ECCO (18th Century Collections Online)
ECCO provides full-text access to resources included in the English Short Title Catalogue, a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private and public libraries worldwide.
Past masters
Past Masters encompasses the history of political thought and theory, classics, and philosophy in full-text format. It includes such resources as the Works of Charles Darwin, the complete works of Plato and Thomas Aquinas, Kant: Gesammelte Schriften, and political theory from Machiavelli to Mill. Past Masters allows full-text searching of seminal works in the fields of Philosophy, Social Science, the History of Science, and Letters from the Classical era to the twentieth century.
Female Spectator
The author Eliza Haywood edited the magazine, The Female Spectator, for women readers beginning in 1744. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, it was quite successful and lasted longer tham many other magazines of the time. This is available via the Defining Gender 1450-1910 database--connect to the database and search by title. This is also available via ECCO--connect to the database, select Browse Works, and search by title.
Spectator
This is a reprint of the periodical which was edited and largely written by Sir Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. It was published six times a week from March 1711 to December 1712 and June to December 1714. This is available via ECCO--connect to the database, select Browse Works, and search by title.
Tatler
A reprint of an earlier periodical edited by Steele with contributors including Jonathan Swift, attracted by Steele's essay format and Whig politics. It ran from April 1709 through January 1711. Available through ECCO--connect to the database, select Browse Work, and search by title.
London Lives
REWRITE London Lives makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners. This resource includes over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages from eight London archives and is supplemented by fifteen datasets created by other projects. It provides access to historical records containing over 3.35 million name instances. Facilities are provided to allow users to link together records relating to the same individual, and to compile biographies of the best documented individuals.

What are Primary Sources?

In the humanities, an original account of an event or time period or an original work of art or literature are considered primary sources. So are firsthand accounts written close to the time of the event. Interviews of participants or witnesses to the event are also primary sources. Additional examples include:

diaries
journal entries
correspondence/letters
photos
maps
factual newspaper or magazine articles produced close tot he time of the event
speeches (transcribed or recorded)
government records such as marriage or census or military

Not sure whether something is a primary or secondary source? Check with your instructor or Ask a Librarian.

A Chapbook Image from the Nesbitt Collection

For more information on access to this and other items,

please see the Elizabeth Nesbitt Collection @ PITT Course Guide

University of Pittsburgh Library System

Course & Subject Guides

Love, Power, and Authority in the Enlightenment's Revolutions - Pittsburgh Campus: Primary Sources

Primary Sources online

What are Primary Sources?

A Chapbook Image from the Nesbitt Collection