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Global Women's Studies: Primary Sources

Your guide to Global Women's Studies research: Find journal articles, books, primary sources, film, and more.

What is a Primary Source?

A primary source is [an] immediate, first-hand account of a topic from people who had a direct connection with it.

Primary sources can include:

  • Texts of laws and other original documents.
  • Newspaper reports, by reporters who witnessed an event or who quote people who did.
  • Speeches, diaries, letters, and interviews - what the people involved said or wrote.
  • Original research.
  • Datasets, survey data, such as census or economic statistics.
  • Photographs, videos, or audio that capture an event.

("Primary Sources: A Research Guide," Healey Library at University of Massachusetts Boston)

Primary Sources

C.R. Savage portrait of Elizabeth A. S. Whitney, Emmeline B. Wells, and Eliza R. Snow, c. 1876. Call number: PH 892. Public Domain; Courtesy Church History Collections, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Intellectual Reserves, Inc.

Emmeline B. Wells diary, vol. 1; Vault MSS 510; Emmeline B. Wells diaries; L. Tom Perry Special Collections; 19th Century Western & Mormon Manuscripts; 1130 Harold B. Lee Library; Brigham Young University; Provo, Utah 84602; http://sc.lib.byu.edu

The BYU Historical Clothing Collection online is organized by period as well as gender, and other identification. Visual images, accompanied by written descriptions, have been electronically archived under five main categories: WomenMenChildrenIntimate Clothing, and Accessories. The dates of clothing artifacts are registered from the late eighteenth century through the 1990s. 

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