Ask us!
U.S. History: 1877 to present - HIST202 - Primary Sources
Resources in Library Catalog
eBooks on this list are only available to RVCC students, faculty, and staff and require a login with your G# and password.
Black protest and the great migration : a brief history with documents
Documents taken from newspapers, periodicals, journals, and trade publications that highlight a variety of perspectives related to the Great Migration of African Americans from southern to northern states during the World War I era.
The diaries of Frank Hurley, 1912-1941
This is the first illustrated edition of the diaries kept by Australian-born photographer and film maker Frank Hurley about his work on the Mawson and Shackleton Antarctic Expeditions, his two expeditions to Papua in the 1920s, and his experiences during the First and Second World Wars.
Goodbye, Antoura : a memoir of the Armenian genocide
Panian's memoir is a full-throated story of loss, resistance, and survival, but told without bitterness or sentimentality. He paints a painfully rich and detailed picture of the lives and agency of Armenian orphans during the darkest days of World War I.
A good idea of hell : letters from a chasseur à pied
Echoing from the mountainous Vosges front of World War I come the rare accounts of an elite French foot soldier—a chasseur à pied. Pellissier’s diary and his letters to relatives in America show a panorama of this ghastly war: from the horror of being under fire with three thousand German shells falling on the French troops every day to the monotony of long quiet hours spent in cold, wet trenches (eBook).
Lines of fire : women writers of World War I
From incisive political treatises to gripping medical accounts, diary entries, poetry, and stunning visual art, Lines of Fire vividly captures the spirit and passion of the women who lived through this divisive time in our history, and enriches our understanding of the twentieth century's Great War.
Meuse-Argonne diary : a division commander in World War I
During America's participation in World War I, only a single commander of a division, William M. Wright, is known to have kept a diary. In it, General Wright relates his two-month experience at St. Mihiel and especially the Meuse-Argonne, the largest and most costly battle in American history (eBook).
No place to run : the Canadian Corps and gas warfare in the First Wold War
Tim Cook uses diaries, letters, reminiscences, published memoirs, and the official archival record to illustrate vividly the grim reality of gas warfare for the average trench soldier. In response, the Canadian Corps had to develop a disciplined anti-gas doctrine, a process that Cook describes in full (eBook).
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker was one of the earliest race car drivers on the national circuit, and running the Indianapolis Speedway. During World War I, he joined up and finally worked his way into the Air Services. He became America's Ace of Aces-earning nineteen decorations for bravery in action and was universally known as "Captain Eddie."
Turbulent era; a diplomatic record of forty years, 1904-1945
Joseph Clark Grew (May 27, 1880 – May 25, 1965) was an American career diplomat and Foreign Service officer. His memoirs span a period including World War I and World War II.
The World War I reader : primary and secondary sources
100 years after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, World War I continues to be badly understood and greatly oversimplified. Its enormous impact on the world in terms of international diplomacy and politics, and the ways in which future military engagements would evolve, be fought, and ultimately get resolved have been ignored. With this reader of primary and secondary documents, students can gain an extensive yet accessible understanding of this conflict (eBook).
Resources in Library Databases
Off campus, these resources are available only to RVCC students, staff, and faculty and require a login with your G# and password.
- American History Online This link opens in a new windowAn online resource that provides an overview of historical US events of the last 500 years with timelines, videos of newsreels, photographic documentation, biographies, statistics on historic US expeditions and exploration, immigration maps and charts plus links to many primary source documents.
Perform a keyword search, then select Primary Sources from the tabbed results.
To browse, select Primary Sources and then The Progressive Era and World War I: 1890-1920
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary, scholarly database containing digitized back issues of academic journals, books, primary sources, and current issues of journals.
Resources on the Internet
- The Deadly Virus: the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 (National Archives)Photos and documents from the influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 and killed an estimated 50 million people.
- World War I collections (Library of Congress)This page provides access to collections like World War I Sheet Music, Newspaper Pictorials, World War I Posters, and George S. Patton Papers: Diaries, 1910 to 1945.
- World War I Document Archive (Brigham Young University Libraries)Contains links to diaries, images, official papers and more, plus links to related websites.
- World War I: Primary Sources (National Archives)See the list of Primary Source categories on the lower left, such as photographs, posters, and info on soldiers, women, airplanes, the homefront, and more.
- World War I: Primary Source Collections Online (Sam Houston State University Libraries)This site contains links to many resources; be sure the document you use is a primary source or transcription of one, and not a secondary explanation.