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Many primary source databases cover a long period of history, so you can really improve your searching by knowing how to search only the dates you need.
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How to Understand and Find Primary Sources
What Did They Call...?
Language changes constantly over time. For example, African American is common today, but historically people have used Afro-American, black, colored, Negro, African, slave, etc. How do you know what word historical people used for an idea?
Search the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (or find it in the library in the 2nd floor Reference section, call number PE1591 .H55 2009, volumes 1-2).
Find more by searching for the subject "Slaves United States Biography."
Often a variety of primary documents are collected together into a book (usually related to a time period, topic, or theme).
Below are just a few broad collections in the Library; each book contains many original documents.
(Note: many of these books will contain both primary and secondary content, so use your judgement or ask a librarian for help in distinguishing the two).
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