Historical Objects

Personal Documents

Offering an overview of finding and using Primary Sources.

Under Construction

This page is currently under construction and far from complete. If you notice broken links or have suggestions, please write the subject liaison e-mail.

What's on This Page

This page has a lot on it. You can use the following anchors (links down the page) to jump straight to a relevant box.

Techniques for Searching

Use the following search in order to help limit your results to diaries, memoirs, and other personal-documents. This search will work in the BC Libraries' catalog as well as in several databases.

(memoir* OR diary OR diaries OR correspondence OR letters OR "personal narratives") AND ([country OR city]) AND ([event or time marker]))

Change out the highlighted words to hit your project.

Sample Search for Memoirs, Diaries, and More in BC Libraries
Search for:
(memoir* OR diary OR diaries OR correspondence OR letters OR "personal narratives")
AND
"cultural revolution"
AND
china OR beijing

Collections

American Civil War Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
First-person accounts by over 2000 authors, both famous and obscure, of events in the U.S. Civil War.
American Civil War Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
First-person accounts by over 2000 authors, both famous and obscure, of events in the U.S. Civil War.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
A database of primary documents that includes the diaries and letters of women from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Access writings by full text searching (simple or advanced) or by exploring the tables of contents.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window
Letters and diaries by U.S. and Canadian immigrants from 1800-1950.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Collection of women's diaries and letters covering colonial times to 1950.

Broad Digital Collections

HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
A digital repository for the nation's research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the digitized book and serial collections of major universities and other partner institutions, a significant portion of which is in the public domain and available full text. Boston College's status as a partner makes it possible for members of the Boston College community to download any of the out-of-copyright items as PDFs.

O'Neill Library

Bapst Library

Burns Library

Educational Resource Center

Law Library

Social Work Library

Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

Historical Objects

Personal Documents

Under Construction

What's on This Page

Techniques for Searching

Collections

Broad Digital Collections