Primary sources (Salem)

Primary sources (beyond Salem)

Secondary sources (Salem and beyond)

Reference books

Style and other miscellaneous issues

Historians distinguish between primary vs. secondary sources. "Secondary" is easier to define: what historians write about past phenomena. Primary sources, however, take many forms--correspondence, diaries, personal narratives, official government records, news reports, advertisements and other kinds of popular expressions. Primary sources are usually contemporary with the past phenomena under study. A source is still primary though it is no longer in its “original format”: a letter written by Lincoln to his cabinet may be more widely found because it has been published in a book as part of a collection of such letters or digitized on a web-site.

The best known examples of secondary sources are books and journal articles. But actual searching usually turns up other formats: papers in collected volumes, chapters, dissertations, and others.

Why are the primary/secondary distinction and publication format important? The primary source and the secondary source differ in what we learn from them.  But there are at least three other practical reasons to understand the distinction:

• finding the source (physically),

• citing it correctly, and

• shaping your search strategy to find more.

Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
The University of Virginia's website found at http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/home.html

Famous American Trials: Salem Witchcraft Trials, 1692
Part of a suite of websites on historically famous trials; sponsored by a member of the faculty at the law school of the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Salem Witchcraft Papers, by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum (1977). At Schaffer Library, call number: KFM2478.8.W5 S24. Also full-text at the above website, where you click on Documents and Transcriptions>>More.

Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, edited by Bernard Rosenthal (2008). Call number: [q] KFM2478.8.W5 R43 2009.

Checklist of Primary Sources for Early American History (c. 1492-1815) in Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, NY. Compiled by Robert V. Wells, Department of History, 2002.

Using the Schaffer Library Catalog

Try the keyword search method in Schaffer's online catalog using this pattern.

Any Field: AUTHOR: TITLE: SUBJECT: Note: And And not Or Near Before After     [topic] Any Field: AUTHOR: TITLE: SUBJECT: Note: And And not Or Near Before After     [type of source] Any Field: AUTHOR: TITLE: SUBJECT: Note: And And not Or Near Before After     [geographic term]

Hints:
-The * is a wild-card symbol that executes the search on all endings of the stem, including singulars, plurals, adjectival endings...

-"Or" links alternatives or synonyms to be searched.

-You could try any number of other topics in line 1,
--or types of primary sources (e.g., papers or source* or archiv* or narrative* ...) in line 2,
--or geographic terms in line 3.

-When see your search results, expect some irrelevant listings, but "eyeballing" such a list is often more productive than trying to score a perfect search.

-Execute the same searches in the ConnectNY site. CAUTION: The sources listed by the Center for Research Libraries ("Ctr Resrch Lib") are NOT available to us, even though Connect NY screen says "available".  However, all other ConnectNY participating libraries do lend their books.

Finding primary source materials in Schaffer Library databases

Here are selected online sources to which Union College subscribes.  They are searchable by topic, name, place, and date, and they provide the full text of the material to which their titles refer.  Note: the links take you to the Library's databases page, where the title of the database is listed along with others starting with the same letter of the alphabet.

Early English Books Online (EEBO)

Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO)

Accessible Archives

Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

In the First Person: Index to Letters, Diaries, Oral Histories, and Other Personal Narratives 

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories

North American Women's Letters 

Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online 

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

Websites with applicable full-text primary source historical documents

Here is a selected list of free and public websites with primary sources from the era of the Salem witch trials:

American Beginnings: the European Presence in North America, 1492-1690 (and Beyond)
"a collection of primary resources--historical documents, literary texts, and works of art" 

An American Time Capsule: Broadsides and Printed Ephemera ~ ca. 1600-2000
Part of the Library of Congress’ vast database of digital images entitled American Memory. Search either or both.

Web Resources for Early American Literature: a Beginning 
See in particular the links under "Puritanism."

Important: The above are academically sound.  They have been produced by the National Humanities Center, Rutgers, and Lehigh respectively.  However, out on the Web one rapidly moves to less academically sound sites.  Evaluating Web-sites before you "trust" them is the point of several guidelines found on Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask, a page provided by the library of UC Berkeley. More detail on Web-site evaluation follows below under "Should you 'google'?" The reference librarians at Schaffer Library would be happy to assist you in this as well.

 

Secondary sources (Salem and beyond)

Using the Schaffer Library Catalog by SUBJECT,
         try these or your own subject headings in subject-search mode:

*Demonology
*Persecution
*Puritans
*Trials (witchcraft)
*Witchcraft

*The above and other topical headings may/should be narrowed by adding salem or massachusetts or united states on the end, for a more focused search.  Example: puritans--massachusetts (the dashes are optional)

Geography can be the subject too:

Massachusetts--social conditions
Massachusetts--social life and customs

Salem (Mass.)--history--colonial period
etc., as in Massachusetts above)

United States--history--colonial period
etc., as in Massachusetts above)

Using the Schaffer Library Catalog by KEYWORD,
         try the keyword search mode with your own terms:

Any Field: AUTHOR: TITLE: SUBJECT: Note: And And not Or Near Before After Any Field: AUTHOR: TITLE: SUBJECT: Note: And And not Or Near Before After

(REMEMBER about the * and the “or”?)

Advice: Check the reference lists in every text you find.  Generally, more sources will be revealed. Look at the books on the same shelf!  Frequently, they will also be relevant. Parts of books--essays, chapters, even just paragraphs--are worthwhile seeking. There's more...use ConnectNY (mentioned above) and perform the same Subject and/or Keyword searches in a "universe" of 3,000,000 volumes (beyond Union's 600,000).

Using Databases (Union subscriptions)

Please note: Clicking on either of the first two listings below takes you to the Library's Databases and Indexes page under the "History" category.

JSTOR
Full-text coverage of hundreds of academic journals, from their inception to (typically) three years ago.

Choose "Advanced Search" mode. Use pull-down labeled "Article Language." To avoid overload, try selecting "Article" type on first pass.

Narrow by choosing "item title" instead of "full text" in pull-downs to the right of your search terms.

 

America: History and Life
Covers a vast array of professional journals and books in history, with links to full text where available.>

Use chronological limiting feature, among others.

Each listing is noted for being on Schaffer Library (i.e., in paper format) or not. 

Use "360 Link to Full Text" to find full text in the Library.

Some listings will not be available except through ILLiad (Union's interlibrary loan service).  Time needed!

 

Google Scholar
The link takes you directly to Google Scholar. Use the advanced search engine and experiment with keywords as you did in the library catalog. Some full text is available but, where barred by copyright or subscription, links transferring you to the Library's full-text are given. (Look for "Full Text @ my Library")

 

Other
There are many options at the Library's home page page.  To choose productively, consider how your topic connects to the spectrum of subject categories on this page. Then, for example, click on the "Subjects & Databases" tab and choose a discipline (e.g, Film Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies, English & American Literature) to see databases to be explored.

One tool to aid you in this is the database WebFeat, which ascertains the presence of any topic in a great number of Schaffer's subscription databases.

 

More Websites
Those primary-source websites listed above will likely also lead to some secondary sources, but here are some others to try:

American Studies Recommendations
Richard Horwitz, Professor of American Studies at the University of Iowa, brings to the Web this wide-ranging page with links to primary sources in history, literature, popular culture, demography, material culture, the arts, religion, government, and society.

Common-Place: a Common Place, an Uncommon Voice
A web magazine "for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine."

Intute: United States Studies
A consortium of British universities, Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol, and Manchester among them, has created this site dedicated to "discovering, evaluating, and cataloguing" online resources in several fields of the humanities, and this link leads to its American Studies component.

Should you "google"? Of course, but not as a substitute for all of the above.  To comply with Professor Wells' requirements, here are some ways to root out Websites of questionable authority before you seek his approval. Open "About" links to clarify the site's origins and sponsorship (or "Home", "Disclaimer", etc.) Check "Officers" or "Directors" (etc.) links to reveal the credentials of the creators or sponsors Consider the domain name for a very rough indication of bias or viewpoint (.edu/.gov/.com/.org) [Note, in Advanced Google you can search by .edu, etc.] Examine the root address to reveal a site's parent site If trying the above steps gets you no clearer understanding of the website's identity and authority, you should not assume that it is reliable (or trustworthy).

Reference books

Why would you need a reference book or two to get you started when you could just use Wikipedia?

The following examples are authoritative and substantive but concise. Of those three, authoritative counts the most.

• Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History--Ref E 169.1 .E624 2001
• Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America--Ref E 188 .E63 1990
• Encyclopedia of Religion--Ref BL .E46 1986
• Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion--Ref BL 65 .P7 E53 2007
• Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies--Ref E 45 .E53 1993
• International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences--Ref H 41 .I58 2001
• Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature--Ref PS 21 .E537 2004

Style and other miscellaneous issues

Follow Professor Wells' guidelines, and for further help in this area look at

Citation Guides (http://www.bucknell.edu/x11812.xml), Bucknell's excellent Website for finding citation style examples easily from many of the commonly used formats (Chicago, APA, Turabian, etc.)

Other libraries (besides what ConnectNY and ILLiad offer): see Schaffer Library>How do I...>Use local libraries>Hours/direction: other libraries

Reference help -- you are very welcome to ask...

• any professional reference librarian, at Schaffer Library daily during term until 10pm, or
• me (David Gerhan) in particular, when I'm on duty at the Reference Desk, by email at gerhand@union.edu , or by telephone to the Reference Desk at 388-6281 or my office at 388-6614.

Created by: Professor David Gerhan, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Union College Library