Primary sources in social sciences are predominantly reports of original, qualitative research and controlled experiments. The reports are typically found in scholarly articles.
Relevant scholarly articles in the social sciences may be found using our library databases. To select a database, there is a filter (look for the drop-down arrow) for relevant subject areas such as:
Controversial & Contemporary Issues
Criminal Justice & Legal Issues
If in a hurry or in doubt, try Academic Search Premier database - known as the "Swiss Army knife" of academic research - - - it covers everything!
NOTE: Many databases let you limit to scholarly (or peer reviewed) articles. Some databases only have scholarly articles.
Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery Collection
The cataloging and digitization of these items has been made possible through the generous support of the Associates of the Boston Public Library and The Boston Foundation.
Freedom Journal
Freedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States starting in 1827.
National Archives
Access to US Federal records and documents that capture the sweep of the past, including slave ship manifests, journals of polar expeditions, and photographs of Dust Bowl farmers.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (Voyages)
Collection of manuscript materials documenting American slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world. Including diaries, account books, letter books, ships logs, indentures, bills of sale, personal papers, and records of institutions.
Sophia Smith Collection - Digital Collections
Digitized images and documents from the Sophia Smith Collection are displayed throughout this site, in digital projects on other Web sites, and in Smith College's Luna image database. Full text transcripts of oral history projects are also available online.
Suffragist Oral History Project
Collected interviews with leaders and participants in the woman's suffrage movement.
Women's History Sourcebook
From Fordham University
Working Women, 1800 -1930
Digitized historical, manuscript, and image collections related to women's roles in the US economy between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Includes books and pamphlets, photographs and manuscripts.
Immigration to the United States, 1789 to 1930
Historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression.
Digitized Immigration Letters
From the Immigration History Research Center, This project aims to make available on-line digitized letters from the IHRC Archives and other collections (private individuals, partner institutions) that were written between 1850 and 1970 both by immigrants (the so-called “America letters”) and to immigrants (“homeland letters”).