LibGuides: HIST 404: Topic: History of Popular Culture in the United States: Finding Primary Sources

Primary sources for pop culture

Lyrics - draft or published
Scores - draft or published
Interviews with artists
Cover art
Music videos
Social media posts by artists
Memoirs
Correspondence
Diaries
Instruments
Concert programs, posters, tickets, etc.
Newspaper accounts of performances
Contemporary reviews of performances
Recordings
Advertisements

Encompasses a variety of popular live performance types such as theatre, vaudeville, minstrel, circus, reenactments, burlesque, etc.

Programs, posters, tickets, etc.
Costumes
Sets
Props
Recordings of performances
Personal accounts from attendees
Interviews with crew and performers
Scripts - drafts or final versions
Choreography
Photographs of performances or performers
Artwork of performances or performers
Music and lyrics - draft or final versions
Letters of crew or performers
Diaries of crew or performers
Newspaper accounts of performances
Contemporary reviews of performances
Source material for storylines
Social media posts by crew or performers
Recordings
Advertisements

Similar material would work for genre fiction such as romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, horror, etc.

Cover art
Magazines they were published in if serialized
Published novels
Source material for storylines
Drafts
Correspondence of authors
Diaries of authors
Contemporary reviews
Contemporary articles referencing content
Contemporary reader responses in diaries or letters
Legal paperwork if legal action taken
Advertisements

Could refer to comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, manga, or other modes of published visual storytelling.

Published versions
Draft versions
Storyboards
Planning documents
Artist and/or author correspondence
Artist and/or author diaries
Contemporary reviews of the work
Contemporary commentary on the work
Source material for the storylines

Storyboards
Versions of games
Scripts
Contemporary reviews
Contemporary reactions
Social media posts by creators or modders
Game play
Mods
Code
Legal documents
Advertisements
Instruction booklets
Game play guides
Drafts
Cover art
Recorded game play
Commentary by players

Board games
Game play
Instructions
Storyboards
Draft versions
Planning documents
Versions of games
Creator correspondence
Creator diaries
Contemporary reviews
Contemporary commentary
Advertisements
Recorded game play
Commentary by players

Scripts
Drafts
Lines
Call sheets
Costumes
Sets
Props
Recordings
Versions of recordings
Source material for storylines
Correspondence of cast or crew
Diaries of cast or crew
Advertisements
Contemporary reviews
Contemporary commentary
TV Guide
Movie posters
Ticket sales data
Viewership data
Social media posts by cast or crew

Scripts
Draft scripts
Advertisements
Recorded versions
Foley artist tools and techniques
Sponsorship contracts
Source material for storylines
Diaries of cast or crew
Correspondence of cast or crew
Contemporary reviews
Contemporary commentary

This could mean scripted or unscripted sports competitions such as wrestling, American football, soccer, the Olympics, etc.

Advertisements
Costumes
Uniforms
Mascots
Scripts
Recordings
Strategies
Contemporary newspaper articles
Ticket sale data
Viewership data
Correspondence of athletes
Diaries of athletes
Social media posts by athletes
Sponsorship agreements
Legal documents
Websites for teams

Blog posts by authors and artists
Social media posts by authors and artists
Drafts
Versions of completed works
Website appearance
Viewership
Reviews
Media mentions
Responses to content
Source material

Primary Source Collections in the Wild Web

P. T. Barnum Digital Collection
"The P. T. Barnum Digital Collection draws from the holdings of the Barnum Museum and the Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library, both located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The 1000+ archival items and artifacts selected for this collection pertain to the world-famous showman, Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891), and many of his associates, such as Charles S. Stratton (“Gen. Tom Thumb”), Jenny Lind, and Jumbo the Elephant, as well as his American Museum in New York City, circuses, four homes in Bridgeport, and other career, civic-life, and family-life topics."
The American Vaudeville Museum Archive
"The American Vaudeville Museum Digital Archive contains over 4,321 items, from various vaudeville collections which are housed at the University of Arizona’s Special Collections. Presented in the digital archive are original materials comprised of theatre programs and postcards, sheet music, magazines, playbills, photographs and posters, stage scripts and other manuscripts, clippings and scrapbooks, films, miscellaneous papers."
The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library
"...one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public. "
Harry Ransom Center Digital Collections
"These collections represent just a sample of the Ransom Center's diverse holdings in literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts. New materials are added regularly."
The Blues, Black Vaudeville, and the Silver Screen, 1912-1930s: Selections from the Records of Macon's Douglass Theatre
"Records of Macon's African American theater, the Douglass Theatre, from 1912 to the 1930s from the Middle Georgia Archives"
American Variety Stage from the Library of Congress
"The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920. Included are 334 English- and Yiddish-language playscripts, 146 theater playbills and programs, 61 motion pictures, 10 sound recordings and 143 photographs and 29 memorabilia items documenting the life and career of Harry Houdini."
Armstrong Family Papers, 1900-1930
"This collection of photographs, newspaper clippings and various manuscripts documents one of America’s foremost early twentieth-century African-American magic acts."
The Digger Archives
"The Digger Archives is an ongoing Web project to preserve and present the history of the anarchist guerrilla street theater group that challenged the emerging Counterculture of the Sixties and whose actions and ideals inspired (and continue to inspire) a generation (of all ages) to create models of Free Association."
Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Contains numerous collections relevant to the West but also specifically Buffalo Bill and his traveling show through the Papers of William F. Cody collection.

Music and Entertainment History at Briscoe Center for American History
"The Briscoe Center has long emphasized the development of its music resources as an integral part of its mission to document the historical experience of the American people. Since 1980, the center has built extensive research collections of folk and popular music from Texas and the greater South and Southwest in an effort to document the development of not only different musical styles but also the music industry itself. "
Music Division of the New York Public Library
"The Music Division is one of the world's preeminent music collections—documenting the art of music in all its diversity—classical and opera as well as the whole spectrum of popular music including spirituals, ragtime, jazz, musical theater, film, rock and world music. While the division contains many scores and manuscripts from centuries past, its curatorial mandate is an activist one, placing major emphasis on capturing the creative output of contemporary composers."
National Jukebox at the Library of Congress
"The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and other contributing libraries and archives. Recordings in the Jukebox were issued on record labels now owned by Sony Music Entertainment, which has granted the Library of Congress a gratis license to stream acoustical recordings."
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Digital Archive
"Through its Digital Archive, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is dedicated to preserving its unparalleled collection of historically and culturally unique resources, as well as making them publicly accessible for educational purposes."
Cornell Hip Hop Collection
"Established in 2007, the Cornell Hip Hop Collection preserves more than 250,000 items across dozens of archives documenting the origins of Hip Hop culture and its spread around the globe."
78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings through the Internet Archive
"The Great 78 Project! Listen to this collection of 78rpm records, cylinder recordings, and other recordings from the early 20th century. These recordings were contributed to the Archive by users through the Open Source Audio collection."
Representations of Blackness in Music of the United States (1830-1920)
"This collection is a grouping of approximately 1,400 items dating from the 1830s to the 1920s. The contents of the collection depict representations of Black diasporic people and cultures through close to a century of illustrations and musical and lyrical compositions found in sheet music publications. The collection depicts representations of Blackness during an era dominated by the sheet music publishing industry and prior to the recording industry’s eventual domination over the commercial market which began in the 1920s."
The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991
"650 tapes · 1,000 hours · 1,378 WAV files · 637 GB · 691 JPEG scans of cassette liner cards & literature. Meticulously Collected, Compiled, and Narrated by David W. Niven, 1930-1993. Generously Donated by David W. Niven to the Foxborough High School Jazz Program, Stephen C. Massey, Director, 2010. Archived to CD-Quality Digital Audio by Kevin J. Powers, 2010-2011."
Punk Flyers via JSTOR
You may need to be logged into MavZone to access this collection. "The Cornell University Rare and Manuscript Division offers deep collections on modern music, including a growing number of archives on punk and post-punk music and culture."

Sports at the National Archives
A selection of records from the National Archives and Records Administration pertaining primarily to baseball.
SportsArchive
An independent effort to document the history of various sports teams. "SportsArchive is the place to find old media guides, rule books, game notes, programs, headshots, brand books, and more."
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Digital Collections
"Welcome to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's updated digital collections portal. We are in the process of moving from the system we launched in 2016 to a new system which will dramatically improve the overall user experience. During the beta testing phase of the project, only a small selection of our overall digital collections will be available. Over the coming weeks and months, we will begin to transfer additional items as well as add new items. Thank you for your patience and support as we launch our new digital collections platform."
WWE Network Archive
It's possible to view past WWE Raw and Wrestlemania shows from the WWE Network website. YouTube is also an option for viewing past shows.
The Daily Racing Form Historical Archive from the Internet Archive
"The Daily Racing Form began publishing as a 4-page newspaper in 1894 in Chicago. Originally, the Form reported the results or "form charts" of horse racing at major tracks in the United States, Cuba, and Mexico. In 1971, the Daily Racing Form absorbed the entertainment broadsheet, The Morning Telegraph, to become the Eastern Edition of the Daily Racing Form. The Western Edition emerged in 1984. Today, the DRF publishes over 2,000 pages of editorial and statistical content 364 days a year."
Baseball Cards at the Library of Congress
"This collection presents a Library of Congress treasure—2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914. The cards show such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base for Detroit, Tris Speaker batting for Boston, and pitcher Cy Young posing formally in his Cleveland uniform. Other notable players include Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, King Kelly, and Christy Mathewson."
Northwestern University Football Films
"This collection of Northwestern University football films dates between 1929 and 1984 with a gap for the period 1932–1934. The films record actual intercollegiate games although for many seasons not all contests are represented. The films are most complete for football seasons from the 1950s through the 1980s; beginning in the late 1950s, practice, junior varsity, and freshman team game films often are included. Northwestern team and Big Ten Conference football highlight films are scattered across the collection from the 1930s through the 1970s."
All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews
Video interviews with members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Sports Illustrated Archives
Browse past issues of Sports Illustrated. A certain number can be viewed without a subscription.
Past Olympic Games
Scroll down the page to access the archive of past Olympic Games going back to 1896.

UCLA Library Film & Television Archive
"With over 350,000 motion pictures and 170,000 television programs, and 27 million feet of newsreel footage, the UCLA Film & Television Archive is the largest university-held collection of motion pictures and broadcast programming." Only a small selection can be accessed online due to rights and licensing.
Silent Films from the Internet Archive
"A collection of feature or short silent films uploaded by archive users."
Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
"This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles."
AdViews Digital Collection
"The AdViews digital collection provides access to thousands of historic commercials created for clients or acquired by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency or its predecessor during the 1950s - 1980s."
Prelinger Archive of Ephemeral Films
"Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division."
The Interviews from the Television Academy Foundation
"Welcome to the online home of The Interviews: An Oral History of Television! We record in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera."
Movies Online through Open Culture
"Watch 4,000+ movies free online. Includes classics, indies, film noir, documentaries and other films, created by some of our greatest actors, actresses and directors."

Old Time Radio from the Internet Archive
"Throughout the 20th century, one of the dominant forms of mass media and entertainment was Radio Shows: Drama, Comedy, Mystery and Horror, as well as news and information, all presented in a purely audio format. Contained in these archives are thousands of hours recorded from these well-funded and talent-filled works.
Some items are entire collections within themselves of many-episode runs of famous shows. Many date from the "Golden Age" of Radio, the early half of the 20th century, while some are remixes or recreations of these works for modern audiences. A percentage are modern(ish) productions utilizing the best of what improved technology and hopes to capture the radio magic could offer."
The Goldbergs radio program
"A hallmark of the golden age of radio, The Goldbergs (1929-1946) was not only the first serialized Jewish-American radio comedy-drama, but also one of the earliest entertainment programs to authentically explore Jewish life in America and to incorporate themes relevant to World War II and the Holocaust. Under the close supervision of series creator, producer, writer, star and frequent director Gertrude Berg, The Goldbergs became one of the most beloved programs of its era, inspiring laughs and occasional tears, all while serving as an invaluable bridge to cultural tolerance."
Radio Days
"The mission of this site is to be both an educational tool as well as a historical reference for the various aspects of Old Time Radio including drama, comedy, mystery, and news." It includes linked audio of representative radio shows in each genre.

Beat Movement - Poetry and Broadsides
"The Beat Movement broadsides and posters in this collection document the poetic and aesthetic revolution in literature and arts in the 1950s, challenging the repressive and even censorial nature of U.S. society. Diverse in size, quality, and quantity – from mimeographs to fine letterpress print – broadsides have been important vehicles for political, social, and cultural commentary on a profusion of subjects including such diverse topics as politics, free love, the anti-war movement, environmental consciousness, civil rights, and free speech. The broadsides in this collection are critical primary research materials, artfully revealing the dynamic social movements of the 1950s and 1960s."
Independent Voices through JSTOR
You will need to log into your MavZone to access this collection. "Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century."
The Pulp Magazines Project
"The Pulp Magazines Project is an open-access archive and digital research initiative for the study and preservation of one of the twentieth century's most influential print culture forms: the all-fiction pulpwood magazine. The Project also provides information and resources on publishing history, multiple search and discovery platforms, and an expanding library of high-quality, cover-to-cover digital facsimiles."
The Pulp Magazine Archive
"Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps"), also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long. Pulps were printed on cheap paper with ragged, untrimmed edges. "
Zines via the Internet Archive
"This is a collection of zines that can be found on the Archive. Zines are self-published, non-commercial publications with typically small circulations. They cover a wide range of topics with many focused on politics, art, creative writing, and personal theory."
Digital Zine Libraries
Barnard College has created a listing of zine libraries around the world. On the left, you can click on Digital Libraries and then look for ones based in the US.

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Use either the Art Database or the Digital Collections links to access images of materials from the collections. "The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum houses the world’s largest collection of materials related to cartoons and comics, including original art, books, magazines, journals, comic books, archival materials, and newspaper comic strip pages and clippings."
Comic Books and Graphic Novels via the Internet Archive
A collection of comic books and graphic novels accessible through the Internet Archive.
Digital Comic Museum
"We are the best site for downloading FREE public domain Golden Age Comics. All files here have been researched by our staff and users to make sure they are copyright free and in the public domain. To start downloading just register an account and enjoy these great comic books. We do not charge per download and the goal of the project is to archive these comic books online and make them widely available."
Newspaper Comic Strips
The Digital Comic Museum also contains numerous public domain comic strips published in newspapers and magazines.

the strong National Museum of Play
"The Strong owns and cares for the world's most comprehensive collection of toys, dolls, board games, video games, other electronic games, books, documents, and other historical materials related to play. This unprecedented assemblage offers a unique interpretive and educational window into the critical role of play in human physical, social, and intellectual development and the ways in which play reflects cultural history."
Gaming in the UNLV Digital Collections
A selection of digitized material from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives related to one of Las Vegas' most famous past times.
Board Game Geek
Not an institutional archive, but a fan archive of physical board games. "BoardGameGeek is a website dedicated to physical board games, with an extensive database of more than 120,000 board games (as of October 2020) as well as an active community of users who discuss, argue, buy, sell, trade and play board games. Each game has its own game entry with information about a game, user ratings, forums for discussion, and a great deal more."
RPG Geek
A fan archive of table-top role-playing games.
Video Game Geek
A fan archive devoted to video games.
Living Computers Museum
Use online emulators to play retro computer games like Oregon Trail or access vintage computers online.

Hathi-Trust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Subjects: Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Health Sciences, Business,
Education, Literature Open Access Resource HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Titles out of copyright and in public domain are viewable.

Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA includes archival material and rare publications digitized by archives and libraries across the US to increase access. For your assignment use keywords like composition, writing, rhetoric, grammar, or syllabi and select one of the subjects on the left-hand side of the results list to focus your results.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Online access to materials held by the Library of Congress. You may also see much of this material in the Digital Public Library of American (DPLA).
New York Public Library Digital Collections
NYPL holds numerous collections related to popular culture in the United States.
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
"The Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston have embarked on a project to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 60 years."
Studs Terkel Radio Archive
"In his 45 years on WFMT radio, Studs Terkel talked to the 20th century’s most interesting people. Browse our growing archive of more than 2,000 programs."
Media History Digital Library
"A free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound."
LIFE Magazine Photo Archive hosted by Google
"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."
American Masters Digital Archive
"Explore unreleased interviews filmed for past American Masters documentaries: 1000+ records and counting from more than 40 episodes in the series' history. Browse now for rare interviews with musicians, filmmakers, artists, historians, writers, comedians, journalists and more. Some figures in the collection include David Bowie, Patti Smith, Herbie Hancock, Gloria Steinem, Mike Nichols, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Walter Cronkite, Don Rickles and Maya Angelou."
Entertainment from UNLV Digital Collections
Digitized material related to various types of Las Vegas entertainment from the University of Nevada Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives.

How to find primary sources online

The tools you use to find primary sources will be individual to your topic. You can ask questions like where, when, why, how to brainstorm digital collections that may exist for your topic. Keep these especially in mind:

Is your topic associated with a particular place (state, house, university, town, etc.)? Does that place have an archive or history museum?
- An example is the Sierra Club archives, which are held at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley because the Sierra Club's roots are in San Francisco, California.
Is your topic a particular movement or ideology? Does that movement have a digital collection or museum? Is the movement associated with a place (state, university, town, etc.)? Does that place have an archive or history museum?
- Take Quakerism as an example. Haverford College in Pennsylvania has an extensive digital collection of documents that document Quaker life and theology.
Do a quick Google or other web search for a person's name plus "papers" or "collection" or "archives." This can sometimes lead you to the institution that holds the materials, but beware that the materials might not be digitized and readily available to you.
If it's an organization or institution that you're researching to find more about the context of your subject's life, search for the name of the organization plus "records."

You can also use your secondary sources to get an idea of where primary sources might exist. Take a look at the references in the bibliography and see where the author(s) found their primary sources.

Want to know more?

Advanced Primary Source Search Strategies
by Amber D'Ambrosio Last Updated Sep 23, 2021 53 views this year

HIST 404: Topic: History of Popular Culture in the United States

Finding Primary Sources at the Library!

Online archival research tips

Primary sources for pop culture

Primary Source Collections in the Wild Web

How to find primary sources online