HIST 202: Making History: The 1960s: Part 3
Part Three: Finding Primary Sources
Historians almost always use primary sources in their research. These can be written or non-written, but they must have been produced by a participant or witness to a historical event. You’ll likely identify additional sources as you learn more about your topic.
Historic New York Times
Access the New York Times Historical Database
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. The Historical New York Times with Index (1851-1993) provides search capability using subject terms and topics for focused and targeted results in combination with searchable full text, full page, and article-level images from the Historical New York Times.
Using the limiters on the left side of your search results screen can help you locate the articles that are most relevant to your research.
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Publication date Publication date can limit your search results to just articles found during a particular date range. |
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Document Type Editorials and letters to the Editor are good sources to find the mood of the day on a subject. Front page articles indicate the importance of a story. More options include reviews and tables of contents that can further inform on the subject. |
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Subject Subjects are more than keywords. Keywords are words that researchers use to define their topic. Subjects are words defined in a "controlled vocabulary" to represent those topics. Moreover, they are hot links to connect to more like articles. |
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Location Location can limit your results to just articles that pertain to a particular geographic region. |
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Presidential Papers
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The Public Papers of both President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are on course reserve at the library's front desk. These public papers contain the public messages, speeches, and statements of the presidents. All course reserves are checked out for 2-hours at a time and must remain in the library. You will need to surrender your Mount ID while you have the book checked out. We recommend that you first check out the Index volume for the President you are researching, so you can determine which volume will be most helpful for your research. |
Online Primary Sources
- Presidential Papers of Lyndon B. JohnsonCollections from the LBJ Presidential Library
- Presidential Papers of John F. KennedyDigitized Collections from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford UniversityA collection of King's most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts.
- The Pentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers, officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. The complete Report is now available with no redactions compared to previous releases. The Report is presented as Leslie Gelb presented it to then Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford on January 15, 1969. All the supplemental back-documentation is included. In the Gravel Edition, 80% of the documents in Part V.B. were not included. This release includes the complete account of peace negotiations, significant portions of which were not previously available either in the House Armed Services Committee redacted copy of the Report or in the Gravel Edition.
- Vietnam War Collection -- Central Intelligence AgencyIncludes two sets of declassified documents by the Central Intelligence Agency exclusively on the Vietnam war.
- 1960s TV ArchiveClassic Television from the 1960s.
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