LGBTQIA+ History and Literature: Primary Source Databases

Temple is less than an hour's drive from the TCNJ campus, so if your project could benefit from access to the primary sources described then I would highly recommend a visit!

"During the summer, undergraduate and graduate students interview lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) alumni and current and former LGBTQIA staff and faculty to learn about their lives, particularly their experiences being LGBTQIA (out and not out) at Princeton, and their perceptions of the climate for LGBTQIA people at Princeton at different points in time."

"Chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience, African American Newspapers, Series 1, features 280 newspapers from 35 states, including many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles. These titles published for or by African Americans constitute valuable primary sources for researchers exploring such diverse disciplines as cultural, literary and social history; ethnic studies and more. Beginning with Freedom’s Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States—the titles in this groundbreaking series include The Colored Citizen (KS), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, L'Union (LA), Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate (NY), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN) and hundreds of others."

"Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity: LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 brings together approximately 1.5 million pages of primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world. Rare and unique content from microfilm, newsletters, organizational papers, government documents, manuscripts, pamphlets, and other types of primary sources sheds light on the gay rights movement, activism, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and more" (publisher description).

A collection of primary source documents from a wide range of archival repositories. “Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records” is a module within the ProQuest History Vault collection. Covering 1901 to 1993, the focus of this module is on the political side of the freedom movement, the role of civil rights organizations in pushing for civil rights legislation, and the interaction between African Americans and the federal government in the 20th Century. Major topics covered: peonage, lynching, civil rights demonstrations, civil rights legislation, riots, and Black Power. Collections include “Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1929” and “Centers of the Southern Struggle: FBI Files on Montgomery, Albany, St. Augustine, Selma, and Memphis.

FBIS Daily Reports, 1941-1996 offers researchers primary source accounts of international economic, environmental, military, political, and social events. It contains first-hand news coverage translated by experts from the original language (e.g., Arabic, Chinese, Polish, Russian and many others) into English. Media represented include foreign radio and television news broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements. These are the reports American diplomats and other U.S. decision makers relied on to understand major events as they unfolded around the globe.

Several of the innumerable topics covered by FBIS include World War II and the Axis powers; the final stages of European colonialism in sub-Saharan Africa; the first decades of apartheid in South Africa; the emergence of postcolonial Arab countries; the creation of Israel; the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall (including its fall); the superpowers’ Space Race; the Suez and Cuban Missile crises; the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts; the Iranian Revolution; Lech Walesa and Poland's Solidarity movement; the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan; Mikhail Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Soviet Union; and Chinese students’ takeover of Tiananmen Square.

FBIS is the premier TCNJ Library database for researchers looking to find primary sources about the Cold War from a non-U.S. perspective.

This database constitutes a tremendous collection for the study of women's history around the world including in Europe and the United States. It contains both books and periodicals spanning roughly the first 400 years of the Modern Era. In the late 1800s, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, The Gerritsen Collection had become the greatest single source for the study of women's history anywhere in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and fifteen languages.

(1851-2008) Provides full text access to the New York Times up to three years ago. Historical New York Times provides information on a wide variety of topics including national and international news, biographies, social and economic issues, the arts, literature, music, the sciences, business, and much more. The database may be searched by author, dates, keywords, and title. Editorials, reviews, obituaries, photos, illustrations, and ads are included. Individual articles or the whole page may be viewed.

Primary source material about personal and historical events written by women who lived in North America from 1675 to 1950. Materials include letters and diaries previously published in other sources as well as materials from unpublished manuscript sources. The collection includes approximately 150,000 pages of letters including 7,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts, from more than 1,000 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, Represented are all age groups and life stages, a wide range of ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous, and the not-so-famous. More than 1,500 biographies enhance the use of the database.

(1890 – 1982) Readers’ Guide Retrospective is a database containing comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. Subjects covered include Aeronautics, African-Americans, Aging, Archeology, Astronomy, Automobiles, Biographies, Business, Children, Education, Environment, Fashion, Film, Fine Arts, Food, Foreign Affairs, Gardening, Health, History, Hobbies, Home, Journalism, Leisure Activities, Literature, Medicine, Music, News, Nutrition, Photography, Politics, Popular Culture, Radio, Religion, Science, Sports, Technology, Television, Travel.

(1600 – 2000) This database in American women’s history includes more than 70 document projects, each of which poses a topic and provides a collection of documents, images and links to websites to address the topic. About 5000 pages are added annually to the present database of nearly 30,000 pages of primary and secondary documents. Nearly 600 publications from the Women’s Commission Reports are also being added. Other features are a chronology of U.S. women’s history and a dictionary of social movements and organizations.