Earlham Libraries Home: POLS 359 : African Democracy and Dictatorship: Primary Document Sources

Sources for Primary Documents

Library of Congress World Digital Library
The Library of Congress's collection of digitized world materials. Searchable by time period and location.
Africa Online Digital Library
A portal to multimedia collections about Africa. MATRIX, working in cooperation with the African Studies Center at Michigan State University, is partnering with universities and cultural heritage organizations in Africa to build this resource. Plans are underway to add digital tools in order to enable scholars to work with and add to these materials.
British Documents on the End of Empire
Full-text PDFs, organized by country or region, that contain primary source documents chronicling the end of British colonial rule in those areas.
South African History Online (SAHO)
Established in June 2000 to address the biased way in which South Africa’s history and heritage, as well as the history and heritage of Africa in general, was being represented in existing educational and cultural institutions, SAHO is a non-profit and "non-partisan people's history institution," focused on presenting public history in freely available digital format for educational purposes.
African National Congress Documents
South African political party originally founded in 1912. Click on the Documents tab on the top to see Speeches, Manifestos, Resolutions, Declarations, and more.
Further Resources: University of Washington Primary Resource Guide
Includes links to many more primary source archives, organized by region. Links with the lock symbol beside them will not be accessible to Earlham students.

Historical Newspapers

Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
Journal articles and magazines in the humanities and social sciences. Coverage ends at 2000.
Full text of 425 journals and magazines covering all topics dating back to the 1800s. Coverage ends at 2000.
Times (London) Digital Archives This link opens in a new window
Full-text page images of the newspaper, including advertisements, editorial cartoons, etc. Coverage is from 1785-1985.
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
British journals and magazines published from 1680-1940.
Full text of over 70 magazines published in Britain from the 1680s to the 1930s. The material herein can usually be considered "primary documents."
Illustrated London News Historical Archive: 1842-2003 This link opens in a new window
Full-text page images of the world's first completely-illustrated newspaper.
Full-text page images of the complete run of the newspaper, including all content originally published. Covers social, political and cultural history, including fashion, theatre, media, literature, advertising and graphic design, and genealogy.