Research Guides: ECON 101: Did Economics Win Two World Wars? (Gordon): Finding Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary Sources are materials from the time period that provide insight into historical information. This provides meaningful context to our understanding of the study of history and the narratives we have learned through culture, education, and experience. These are a few examples of resources that may be helpful for this course.

Online Collections of Historical Documents

Avalon Project
An extensive collection of digital documents at the Yale Law School Library relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government covering time periods from pre-18th century to the 21st century. Documents include charters, constitutions, declarations, diplomatic documents, papers, speeches and treaties. Click here to access their World War II collection. This timeline arranges documents by date.

Guide to World War II Materials
This site compiles links to resources from the Library of Congress and external Web sites focusing on the Second World War.
Historic Government Publications from World War II: A Digital Library
From the Central University Libraries at Southern Methodist University, this is a collection of reproductions of several hundred government documents from World War II.
World War II Poster Collection
The 338 items, primarily World War II-era posters, featured in this site's database were collected and preserved by the Northwestern University Government and Geographic Information and Data Services Department. Issued by various U.S. government agencies, these posters represent the government's effort, through art, illustration, and photographs, to pull the American people together in a time of adversity for the country and its population.

Wartime News Sources

News stories written at the time events took place are generally considered to be primary sources. The resources below will help you find wartime news coverage. Popular articles and editorials of the time can also help illustrate public attitudes during the wars.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Provides full-text PDF articles from several major U.S. newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many others.
Readers' Guide Retrospective 1890-1982
Indexes articles published in the most important popular magazines published in the United States from 1890 until 1982.Provides some links to full text. A key resource for identifying what was published in the popular press during this era.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1941 - 1996
Created by the U.S. intelligence community to benefit policy makers and analysts, FBIS Daily Reports offer foreign views and perspectives on historical events from thousands of monitored broadcasts and publications. These comprehensive media reports from around the globe include news, interviews, speeches and editorial commentary.
Times Digital Archive
Full text of the Times of London from 1785 to 2011.

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