Primary Source Analysis
Audio Recordings as Primary Sources
News Collections
- ProQuest Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Searches all ProQuest newspapers to which UCLA subscribes, both current and historical newspapers from major U.S. cities (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal), international news sources, and alternative press.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Complete text of articles from 1959 to the present from publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press. Covers news, culture, and history, and is searchable in both English and Spanish.
- Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new window
A full text database comprising more than 200 newspapers, magazines, and journals of the alternative and independent press, providing an alternative perspective to the coverage of mainstream media. Coverage is from 1970--present.
- AP Newsroom This link opens in a new windowAP Newsroom (formerly AP Images) contains millions of photographs dating from 1826 to present day from the Associated Press. Includes thousands of graphics, audio files dating from the 1920s, and news stories and headlines from 1997 to the present.
- Time Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
The Time Magazine Archive presents an extensive collection of the prominent weekly news magazine dating back to its first issue in March 1923 through December 2000, presented in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format.
- The Daily Bruin ArchiveOnline versions of microfilm reels; search term: UCLA Daily Bruin. Keyword searching is available within each reel
- Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains historical backfiles of several leading consumer magazines: Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Parents, Redbook, Seventeen, Town and Country, Woman's Day, and Women's International Network News. UCLA has access to collections 1 and 2 of this database.
Oral Histories
- Oral History Online This link opens in a new windowIndexes more than 2,700 collections of oral history in English from around the world. Provides keyword searching of full-text transcripts when available, plus links to audio and video files.
- Historical VoicesA searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century - the first large-scale repository of its kind.
Image and Moving Image
- Museum of the Moving ImageThe Museum's collection catalog contains images from a large range of ephemera, including action figures, magazine covers, camera technology, and more.
- LIFE Photo ArchiveGrowing historical photo archive for LIFE magazine, hosted by Google.
- UCLA Film and Television ArchiveSome of the collections are digitally available, including the UCLA KTLA News Project and the LA Rebellion Films.
- Vogue Archive This link opens in a new windowContains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present day.
Other Primary Source Collections
- The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives This link opens in a new window
This searchable database brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new windowThese periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, and activists from anti-war, Native American, Black Power, Latino and LGBT movements, as well as extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
- Calisphere This link opens in a new windowOver one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more from the collections digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
- Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new windowFull text collection of non-fiction published prose and oratory by leading African Americans. Writing is focused on research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
- U.S. Declassified Documents (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new windowCollection of over 70,000 primary source government documents, from the post-WWII period through the 1970's. Contains declassified documents from presidential libraries, the CIA, the FBI and a host of other agencies concerning major domestic and international events of the post-World War II era. Formerly known as Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS).
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest This link opens in a new windowThis online portal explores the period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. It includes color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, historical news video, ephemera and memorabilia.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowA collection of books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities.
- Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle (via History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Includes NAACP Papers, federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the 20th Century Black Freedom Struggle. The collections in this category include documentation on the major events of the civil rights era, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Selma to Montgomery March, and other events spanning the full 20th Century.
- American Politics and Society (via History Vault) This link opens in a new window
A wide range of 19th and 20th century material, including immigration records, papers of major historical figures (Thomas A. Edison, Robert La Follette, Supreme Court justices), major organizations (Vietnam War, Japanese American War Relocation Authority, Students for a Democratic Society) and much more.
