African History
What are primary sources?
Primary sources are first-hand testimonies from sources who witnessed or experienced an event firsthand (examples can include a letter, newspaper article, a photograph, a diary, etc). Primary sources are an attempt to get as close to the events being studied as possible. So, while certain primary sources may be recorded after the fact, such as oral histories, they still capture someone’s first-hand experiences from the past, and are therefore primary sources.
If you can access an original primary source in person, great! If you can’t, primary source materials of all kinds are available in reproduction. Primary sources are characterized by their content, regardless of whether they are available in the original format, in digital format, or published on paper. You can find them in books, journals, and magazines, as well as in online databases.
Primary Sources
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Africa Commons: History and Culture
A finding aid, directory, and indexing tool for African organizations, collections, and documents that links to 500,000 items from archives around the world, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Center for Research Libraries CollectionsCRL’s collection of African-related resources contains a wide variety of newspapers, monographs, archival collections, serials, government publications, and dissertations, spanning four centuries and covering virtually every country in Africa. Significant country strengths include South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Materials found here must be requested via Interlibrary Loan
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Center for Research Libraries' Newspaper CollectionsCRL's collection of rare, historical newspapers from across the globe, available on microfilm or digitized. Inquire with librarians for more information.
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World Digital LibraryContains primary source materials (books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films) from around the world presented in a highly searchable manner.
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EuropeanaThis site allows you to search across the digital archives and holdings of many significant European galleries, archives, libraries, and museums, including Judaica Europeana, Bodleian Libraries, EuroPhoto, the Natural Europe Project, and Museo Galileo.
Newspapers and News Sources
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News sources in and about Africa from Access World NewsContemporary and recent history news sources originating in Africa. Dates for individual publications vary, but some go back into the 1990s. Most dates start from mid-2000s and later.
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The Times Historical Archive, 1785–2019 (Gale Primary Sources)
Full-text and full-image archive to the Times of London for the years 1785-2019.
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East African NewspapersDigital archive of three East African newspapers: Daily Nation (Kenya), The Ethiopian Herald, and The Monitor (Uganda). Coverage from the 1940s to the early 2000s. Part of the Global Press Archive.
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Middle Eastern and North African NewspapersDigital archive of newspapers published in the Middle East and North Africa, with coverage from 1870 to 2021. Content is predominantly in Arabic, but also includes key titles in English and French. Part of the Global Press Archive.
