Primary Sources

My class load has been light recently, but I have been helping a lot of students with their research on U.S. Supreme Court Cases. One student came in the other day looking for primary sources relating to the case Osborn v. Bank of the United States, from 1824.

ProQuest Historical only goes back to 1851 for the New York Times. The other library databases, which are so useful for obtaining scholarly sources, did not have much to offer in the way of primary sources.

So, I decided to peruse the Internet. A great site for primary source documents on a variety of topics is the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History: http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/modules.html This site is nice because it is well organized by era and it allows the user to search the primary source documents in an easy to use interface. A search of this website yielded a letter written by John Marshall to Henry Clay discussing the case Marbury v. Madison. This letter is a fantastic resource, and I know I showed it to the student who was working on that particular case. However, no such luck for the Osborn student.

Now, before I go too far, I just want to mention that I am aware of the fact that primary sources (or any source, for that matter) do not have to directly mention the topic at hand. For example, the student could potentially use the Marshall letter in his discussion of the Osborn case as a an example of Marshall's active involvement in shaping the Supreme Court into the powerful institution that it is today.

That is beside the point. What I want to emphasize instead is the issue of finding primary sources that predate the Civil War Era. Gilder Lehrman is an excellent resource, and there are many others, including the University of Idaho's repository of primary sources related to the history of the Western U.S. and Canada-http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/west.html
(makes me want to do a project on history of the American West!!) and
the Alex Catalogue of Electronic texts featuring about 14,000 "classic" public domain documents from American and English literature and Western philosophy-http://www.infomotions.com/alex/

However, these websites are rather confusing to search unless you know exactly what you are looking for, and while they are reliable sites, you never know when it might just disappear....

In lieu of referring students to a list of primary source websites, I would like to have a database that includes primary sources, perhaps in addition to scholarly sources. When I suggested this idea to TeachingLibby, she recommended that I take a look at Thomson Gale's History Resource Center. Our library already has Biography Resource Center, Literature Resource Center, both of which I have used extensively in my work with undergraduate students. (We also have Science Resource Center, but I have not used that database as much as the others)

History Resource Center seems like it has everything that I would like in a history based database. It has reference encyclopedias, scholarly articles, links to digitized special collections, numerous search options, and of course, extensive primary source documents. This database is focused on U.S. History, which is fine with me, because most of the upper level research is done by U.S. History classes. I am currently looking into possibilities with this database. I realize that no database is perfect, and one resource will not have everything, but I think that this might be very useful for students struggling to find primary source documents.

Oh, and the fate of the student who needed primary sources relating to Osborn? A search of "Early American Newspapers Series I (1690-1876)" was very helpful. Another database that might be worth purchasing...

On another note, I was considering purchasing a volume of the Papers of John Marshall, but I realized that it is a 12 volume set, and at $80 a volume, it is probably best suited for an academic library with cash to spare! I wish there was an abridged version of what seems to be an excellent resource. I suppose that's what interlibrary loan is for, but that is a whole other discussion all together!