LibGuides: HIST 120: Course Guide: Find Primary Sources

Primary Sources

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
Contains over 6,500 historical periodical titles dating from 1693 to 1877, including a large number of newspapers.
This is a great resource for finding historical newspaper articles to use as primary sources.
Canadian Major Dailies This link opens in a new window
Historical coverage in this news database varies by newspaper. While the emphasis is on current news, back files of some newspapers begin as early as 1985.
BC Points to the Past This link opens in a new window
Searchable primary source material: maps, photos, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, portraits, sermons, poems, and more.

BC Historical Newspapers
The BC Historical Newspapers project features digitized versions of historical papers from around the province. The titles, which range from the Abbotsford Post to the Ymir Miner, date from 1865 to 1994.

British Columbia Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Digital news archives of The Vancouver Sun (1912-2010), The Times Colonist (1884-2010), and the Province (1894-2010). Contains nearly 5 million digitized pages of news, ads, images from British Columbia and the Yukon.

The British Colonist
This website contains all the issues of the British Colonist (also called The Daily British Colonist, the Daily Colonist, and other variants) from its first issue in 1858 to December 1980.
Peel's Prairie Provinces
This collection contains approximately 7,500 digitized books, over 66,000 newspaper issues (4.8 million articles!), 16,000 postcards, and 1,000 maps. Many of the items date back to the earliest days of exploration in the region.
Google News Archive
Includes many Canadian newspapers. Date coverage is indicated for each newspaper.

British Columbia Archives
Use this database to find descriptions and select digitized versions of archival records held at the BC Archives.
Heritage BC
Select the Resources or Cultural Maps tabs. Includes maps of war monuments and memorials, Chinese Canadian historic places, and historic places identified through the South Asian Canadian Historic Places Recognition Project.
This Vancouver
The Vancouver Public Library created This Vancouver to share the stories of Vancouverites and the history of Vancouver communities through images, audio clips, and videos. Many of the collections are the result of VPL collaborating with community members on community-based digital projects.
Vancouver Public Library Local History Collection
Scroll to bottom of page for online collections.
BC Points to the Past
Searchable primary source material: maps, photos, newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, portraits, sermons, poems, and more.
SFU Digitized Collections
Contains digitized political cartoon, photographs, newspapers and more.

Frontier Life This link opens in a new window
The settling of vast areas of the world by Europeans has left a particular and lasting influence on history. Frontier Life captures the experiences of people living on the edge of European settlement across the frontiers of North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Through a huge array of digitised primary source materials, it documents the relationships and interaction between new arrivals and indigenous peoples, and the results of these encounters: the creation of new states and trade networks, internal migration, and the marginalisation and decline of indigenous peoples.

Canadiana
Search the digital collections of libraries, archives and museums from across Canada.
Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre
Select the Records tab for primary sources and the Learn tab for background and overview information.
Canadian Letters and Images Project
The Canadian Letters and Images Project is an online archive of the Canadian war experience, from any war, as told through the letters and images of Canadians themselves.
CBC Archives
Television and radio clips from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Nova Scotia Archives
Contains digitized news articles, letters, documents, and more, organized around topics such as African Nova Scotians, Acadians, and World War II.

Canada Commons: Books and Documents This link opens in a new window
Rare, hard-to-find content from Canada that’s relevant to a wide range of studies including sociology, anthropology, business and economics. Find over 22,000 e-books from scholarly and independent publishers and 250,000 public policy papers from think tanks and other policy organizations.
Canada Commons: Government This link opens in a new window
A collection of over 1 million publications from more than 500 unique government sources. Federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal reports of research value—as well as literature from major political parties—are made discoverable in a single site.
The Canada Commons platform provides access to a few collections. Click "Modules" to select and search either Books & Documents or the Government collection.