LibGuides: English Language and Literature: Primary Sources

Letters and Diaries

Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954
Based on a variety of original manuscript collections from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, digitized and organized into six major collections and twenty-four collections of personal papers.
Latin American Women Writers
A collection of prose, poetry, memoirs, essays, plays, and other materials by Latin American women writers.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters, spanning more than 300 years.
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
From the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society, bringing together 100,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives. In selected cases, users will be able to hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974
Brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.
Black Short Fiction and Folklore from Africa and the African Diaspora
A comprehensive collection of stories from Africa and the African Diaspora, offering short stories, folktales, and other oral traditions.

Newspapers

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998
Includes more than 270 African American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries, chronicling over a century of the African American experience.
Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876
Includes more than 66 newspaper titles from 22 Caribbean islands, published in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Latin American Newspapers
Provides more than 35 fully searchable key Latin American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries, featuring titles from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and elsewhere.

General

Chicano Database
Includes newspapers, books, and book chapters, giving researchers targeted access to the broad dimensions of class, race, and gender of the Chicano and Latino U.S. experience.
Gilded Age
Brings primary documents and scholarly commentary together into a searchable collection.
Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO)
Provides access to a large and growing resource of essential medieval and early modern sources online. Heavy on primary sources.
Past Masters
Includes works by 18th-century women playwrights.

First draft of Langston Hughes's
poem "Ballad of Booker T."

from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection