Remember that primary sources are first-hand accounts during a particular time period, often recorded by participants or observers. Types of primary sources include:
How do I Search in the Myrin Catalog for Primary Sources?
Keyword Searching
For primary sources, these terms can be useful:
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Try entering terms your terms along with words like "correspondence," "diary" or
"diaries," "records" and "documents," "sources," "papers," “interviews,” and "letters".
Example: women and work and interviews.
When you find a record that you like, check the SUBJECT HEADINGS. If you find a phrase that looks particularly interesting there, click it to see if there are other works that have the same subject heading.
Online Primary Sources:
Going Solo, Jean Renvoize, 1985, 2nd Floor, Call #306.856R298
-In this text, thirty-one mothers and mothers-to-be comment on their experiences as single mothers and use their stories for the author’s study.
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Books in the library:
Notes from an Incomplete Revolution by
Notes From an Incomplete Revolutiondefies political correctness and anti-feminist pieties to reveal just how far we have come--and how far we have to go--since "women's lib" upended our culture a quarter-century ago. "I'd marched for reproductive rights, but I still mourned the baby I aborted when I was twenty. I'd been in a lesbian relationship for eleven years, but when my car broke down I still longed for a husband. I'd picketed beauty pageants, but I'd been secretly dieting for fifteen years...." Through the intimate eye of her own experience, Maran speaks to the passionate concerns of women today: from breast cancer and sexual abuse to the challenge of raising children in a violent world. But she also finds much reason for rejoicing. And whether she's reminiscing about "free love" in the '60's, talking shoe styles with a transvestite, or learning how not to play racquetball "like a girl," this is writing to celebrate: alive with feeling and deeply engaged with the life of our times.
Our Mothers, Our Selves by
Finally, we have an inclusive collection that brings motherhood into the fold of feminism. As we accede to our universal origins in the mother, we witness the infinite variety of experiences awarded the offspring. Spectrums of gender, race, age, religion, class, and nation give voice in Donnelly and Bernstein's anthology as more than 80 writers contribute poetry, essays, memoirs, and short fiction. Some of the artists are well-known, including Maya Angelou, Galway Kinnell, Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, and Robert Bly, while others are less known. All attest to the experience of motherhood as primal. Writing as mothers, as children to their mothers, and as close observers, women and men create selections that fall into three trimesters of involvement: the experiences of going beyond the self, beyond reflection, and, finally, beyond the whole. The many shades of emotional experience, from ecstasy to horror and all points in between, are portrayed in words and photographs. As images take shape, nightmares are relived, emotions flow abundantly, and details come into focus as the cathartic effect of the writing builds. Painting motherhood as much more than just a pretty picture, the editors' purpose is clearly to bring us all together under a multi-faceted umbrella of empathy and to unite us in the diversity of the experience of motherhood.
Mommy Wars by
As an executive at The Washington Post and mother of three, Steiner has lived every side of the mommy wars. In this new book, she commissions 26 outspoken mothers to write about their lives, their families, and the choices that have worked for them. The result is a frank, surprising, and utterly refreshing look at American motherhood.
Single Mother's Companion by
Portrays the experiences of single mothers of various backgrounds, explaininghe guilt, self-doubt, societal censure and joy and satisfaction that comeith raising children alone.
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Books in the library:
A Diary from Dixie by
This original diary of the wife of Confederate General James Chestnut, Jr., who was also an aide to President Jefferson Davis, provides an eyewitness narrative of all the years of the war. Period photographs illustrate this you-are-there account of the daily lives and tribulations of all who suffered through the war, from ordinary people to the Confederacy's generals and political figures.
A Confederate Nurse by
A young widow's account of caring for wounded Confederates.
The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan by Links:
Books in the library:
Virtuous Lives by
"These women were passionate, dynamic, and full of conviction...Engaging and quick reading that should appeal to students in women's studies, Quakerism, and New England history". -- Library Journal
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Print periodicals in the library:
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Historical Statistics of Black America by
Nearly 2000 tables of statistical information on blacks in North America from colonial times until 1975. Subject-specific chapters are chronologically arranged and reflect developments in black history. Subjects include slavery, and the migration of blacks into the south between 1870 and 1910.
Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War, by a Lady of Virginia by
"War seems inevitable," wrote Judith W. McGuire in her diary on 10 May 1861, shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter. Fervently loyal to the South, she was packing up valuables at her home in Alexandria, Virginia, where the Confederate flag already waved. With her family she fled the city, and for the next four years she would be a refugee in her own land. Literate and newsy, shrewdly detailed and extremely moving, Diary of a Southern Refugee during the War is one of the best civilian records of the Civil War. Judith McGuire, the wife of an Episcopal minister, follows the newspapers assiduously, taking heart from good reports out of Bull Run and Shiloh and fighting despair when the tide turns against the Rebels. She sews for the soldiers, nurses them in hospitals, and notes the deaths of friends in battle: "Thus we bury, one by one, the dearest, the brightest." Steeling herself, she sees humor in desperate situations. McGuire shares common hardships, struggling to obtain food and lodging, but her position permits a glimpse of wartime Richmond society and meetings with General and Mrs. Robert E. Lee. Always up and doing, scorning slackers and defeatists, she confides to her diary on a dark day, "I wish I could sleep until the war is over."
Mississippi Harmony by
In 1963, Winson Hudson finally registered to vote in Leake County, Mississippi, when she interpreted part of the state constitution by saying, “It meant what it said and it said what it meant.” Her first attempt had been in 1937. A lifelong native of the rural, all-black community of Harmony, Winson has lived through some of the most racially oppressive periods in her state’s history--and has devoted her life to combatting discrimination. With her sister Dovie, Winson filed the first lawsuit to desegregate the public schools in a rural county. Helping to establish the county NAACP chapter in 1961, Winson served as its president for 38 years. Her work has included voting rights, school desegregation, health care, government loans, telephone service, good roads, housing, and childcare--issues that were intertwined with the black freedom struggle. Winson’s narrative, presented in her own words with historical background from noted author and activist Constance Curry, is both triumphant and tragic, inspiring and disturbing. It illustrates the virtually untold story of the role that African American women played in the civil rights movement at the local level in black communities throughout the South.
Books in the library:
Tell This Silence by
"Tell This Silence" by Patti Duncan explores multiple meanings of speech and silence in Asian American women's writings in order to explore relationships among race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. Duncan argues that contemporary definitions of U.S. feminism must be expanded to recognize the ways in which Asian American women have resisted and continue to challenge the various forms of oppression in their lives. There has not yet been adequate discussion of the multiple meanings of silence and speech, especially in relation to activism and social-justice movements in the U.S. In particular, the very notion of silence continues to invoke assumptions of passivity, submissiveness, and avoidance, while speech is equated with action and empowerment. However, as the writers discussed in "Tell This Silence" suggest, silence too has multiple meanings especially in contexts like the U.S., where speech has never been a guaranteed right for all citizens. Duncan argues that writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Mitsuye Yamada, Joy Kogawa, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Nora Okja Keller, and Anchee Min deploy silence as a means of resistance. Juxtaposing their OC unofficial narrativesOCO against other historiesOCoofficial U.S. histories that have excluded them and American feminist narratives that have stereotyped them or distorted their participationOCothey argue for recognition of their cultural participation and offer analyses of the intersections among gender, race, nation, and sexuality. "Tell This Silence" offers innovative ways to consider Asian American gender politics, feminism, and issues of immigration and language. This exciting new study will be of interest to literary theorists and scholars in women's, American, and Asian American studies."
Onoto Watanna by
In 1901, the young Winnifred Eaton arrived in New York City with literary ambitions, journalistic experience, and the manuscript for A Japanese Nightingale, the novel that would sell many thousands of copies and make her famous. Hers is a real Horatio Alger story, with fascinating added dimensions of race and gender.While commercially successful women writers were uncommon a century ago, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) cultivated a particular persona to set herself apart even within this rare breed. Born to a British father and a Chinese mother, Winnifred decided to capitalize on her exotic appearance while protecting herself from Americans' scorn of Chinese: she "became" Japanese, assuming the pen name Onoto Watanna. While her eldest sister, Edith Maude Eaton (now acknowledged as the mother of Asian American fiction), was writing stories of downtrodden Chinese immigrants under the name Sui Sin Far, Winnifred's Japanese romance novels and stories became all the rage, thrusting her into the glittering world of New York literati.Diana Birchall chronicles the sometimes desperate, sometimes canny, always bold life of her "bad grandmother," about whom she knew almost nothing until her own adulthood. Here are the details of an amazing professional career as a journalist, a bestselling novelist, and a Hollywood scriptwriting protge of Carl Laemmle at Universal Studios. Here, too, is the personal saga of a woman who bore "a book and a baby a year" during her troubled first marriage--and who, at the age of fifty-six, wooed back her estranged second husband when her Hollywood career hit the skids during the Great Depression. Having achieved early fame as a Japanese romance writer, Winnifred later jettisoned the kimono and wrote books (including one entitled Cattle) set on the plains of Alberta, where her husband owned a ranch.A chameleon? A desperate poseur? A shrewd businesswoman? She was all that, and much more, as Diana Birchall demonstrates. Navigating the shifting boundary between life and art, Birchall probes Winnifred's conflicting stories, personal tempests, and remarkable accomplishments, presenting a woman whose career was "sensational" in every sense.
Making Waves by
Includes excerpts from Asian American women.
Unbroken Thread by
This book contains plays by Genny Lim (Paper Angels,) Wakako Yamauchi (The Music Lessons,) Momoko Iko (Gold Watch,) Velina Hasu Houston (Tea,) Jeannie Barroga (Walls,) and Elizabeth Wong (Letters to a Student Revolutionary.) The volume includes an extended introduction, a profile of each playwright, and an appendix. The six plays of this anthology represent some of the best dramatic literature written by Asian American women since the 1970s. Each is a groundbreaking work and addresses in its own way the experiences of Asians in America. All six playwrights are American-born daughters of Asian immigrants, and their voices span the genres of naturalism, impressionism, ritual drama, postmodern collage, and media-influenced episodic drama.
Chinese American Voices by
Described by others as quaint and exotic, or as depraved and threatening, and, more recently, as successful and exemplary, the Chinese in America have rarely been asked to describe themselves in their own words. This superb anthology, a diverse and illuminating collection of primary documents and stories by Chinese Americans, provides an intimate and textured history of the Chinese in America from their arrival during the California Gold Rush to the present. Among the documents are letters, speeches, testimonies, oral histories, personal memoirs, poems, essays, and folksongs; many have never been published before or have been translated into English for the first time. They bring to life the diverse voices of immigrants and American-born; laborers, merchants, and professionals; ministers and students; housewives and prostitutes; and community leaders and activists. Together, they provide insight into immigration, work, family and social life, and the longstanding fight for equality and inclusion. Featuring photographs and extensive introductions to the documents written by three leading Chinese American scholars, this compelling volume offers a panoramic perspective on the Chinese American experience and opens new vistas on American social, cultural, and political history.
Our Feet Walk the Sky by
The first anthology of its kind: includes essays, memoir, and fiction.
Books available through Interlibrary Loan:
Pictures of Old Chinatown by 
Voices of the Heart by 
Me: A book of Remembrance by 
Spices in the Melting Pot by 