Research Guides: UWS 67B: Music, Protests, and Social Change of the Sixties: Digital Collections of Primary Sources

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Think about what terms that might have been used to describe your topic during the time period. For example: the name of a specific person or organization or even a term that wouldn't be used today.

In addition to searching, try browsing these collections to learn about sources that you wouldn't have necessarily thought of searching for.

Suggested resources

Newspapers

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Coverage includes the 1960s.
Ethnic NewsWatch
Newspapers, magazines, and journals from American ethnic and native communities, covering 1960 to the present.

More Primary Sources

HistoryMakers Digital Archive
An African American video oral history archive. Provides access to oral history interviews with historically significant African Americans.

Digital Public Library of America
Digitized materials from libraries, archives and museums around the country. Includes historical advertisements.

Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
Includes records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle, as well as federal government records.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960-1974
Includes diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, newspapers, press, underground press, alternative publications, and scholarly commentary. This collection includes materials digitized from collections in Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections, including materials on student activism and radical politics.
Archives of Sexuality and Gender
Digitized primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. Find a wide range of materials, such as: oral histories from the African Women's Life History Project; declassified FBI files detailing surveillance of gays and lesbians in the U.S. from 1950 to 1982; and erotica from the "Private Case" of the British Museum Library.

Our access includes: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Parts I and II; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Community and Identity in North America.
NAACP Papers

See Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive

Provides access to primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. Includes US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting, video gaming, and theater, along with film fan magazines and music press titles. Coverage varies, with a focus on 20th Century material.
Digital National Security Archive
Includes more than 60,000 of the most important declassified documents regarding critical U.S. policy decisions post WWII.
Women and Social Movements in the United States (1600-2000)
A collection of document projects--comprised of essays with supporting documents, images, and web links--focused on the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000