LibGuides: History: Petersburg's Primary Sources

Assignment Description

In this semester-long project, students will be utilizing different databases available through RBC’s library and public databases to contextualize the experience of late nineteenth and twentieth century Petersburg residents. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop a public database that provides snapshots of everyday life in Petersburg. In accordance with this mission, students will be required to write a contextual analysis of Petersburg as their final project.

Locating Resources

Based on your assigned chronological time span, you will need to search a database to locate at least two primary sources related to Petersburg, Virginia. The table below explains which databases contain primary sources related to specific chronological time spans.

	Nineteenth Century US Newspapers	American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals	Chronicling America	Virginia Chronicle
1815-1844	♦	♦	♦	♦
1845-1854	♦	♦	♦	♦
1855-1860	♦	♦	♦	♦
1861-1865	♦	♦	♦	♦
1865-1877	♦	♦	♦	♦
1878-1929	♦	♦	♦	♦
1930-1960			♦	♦
1961-1989			♦	♦

Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
A full-text searchable, facsimile-image database which provides an as-it-happened window on events, culture, and daily life in nineteenth-century America. The collection features publications of all kinds, from the political party newspapers at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the mammoth dailies that shaped the nation at the century’s end. Includes major newspapers as well as those published by African Americans, Native Americans, women’s rights groups, labor groups, the Confederacy, and other groups and interests. Also included are illustrated papers that bring the nineteenth century to life through the drawings of many artists.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals This link opens in a new window
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) collection contains the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912. Specialized collections cover advertising, health, women’s issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more.

Chronicling America
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Virginia Chronicle
Virginia Chronicle is a historical archive of Virginia newspapers, providing free access to full text searching and digitized images of over a million newspaper pages.

Google Site Edits

Once you have located your two primary sources, you will need to add them to the course Google site. You can access the course site through the link in your Canvas course. Use the instructions in the file below to add your content.

How to Edit a Google Site
This file contains instructions on how to make edits to the course Google Site. In order to do so, you must first access the edit link, which can be found in your Canvas Course.

NOTE: In order to make edits to the course Google Site, you must be using the Google Chrome browser. If you do not have this browser on your device, please visit this site to download.