LibGuides: Economics: Primary Sources

Featured Resources

cover page showing type setting from 1696 publication of Devanant's called An Essay on the East India Trade

The Making of the Modern World, Image: Devanant, Charles. An Essay on the East-India-Trade. By the author of The essay upon ways and means. London, 1696.

Making of the Modern World
Online primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world. Full-text searching across 12 million pages of works published 1450-1914. Great starting place for primary source material from this period.

Making of America (Michigan)
A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. (Collaborative effort with Cornell University; see above.)

Images of America: A History of American Life in Images
Features images and texts assembled by local community experts that attempts to portray everyday people, places and events in American local history. Drawn from the award-winning print series by Arcadia Publishing.

Historical Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal (ProQuest)
This ProQuest site includes coverage of WSJ Eastern Edition, 1984-present; WSJ Online, 2010-present; and WSJ: The Magazine, 2011-present. This PQ version has a powerful and precise search engine for finding specific items or topics.

WSJ Historical
1889-2012. Search and browse full text and display images of both articles and complete newspaper pages.

ProQuest U.S. Major Dailies
Provides access to the five most respected U.S. national and regional newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal; offers users thorough and timely coverage of local, national, and global events. Current content is available each day with archives that stretch as far back as 1980.

Full Suite of ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Cover to cover article text & page images of Chicago Tribune (1849-1986), Los Angeles Times (1881-1986), New York Times (1851-2006), New York Tribune (1844-1922), San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922), Washington Post (1877-1992), Wall Street Journal (1889-1991) Use Publications tab to browse/search individual papers.
Newspapers Research Guide

Highlights of Economics Primary Source Collections

American History in Video
Coverage of historic events through documentaries, commercial and government newsreels, and archival and public affairs footage. When finished, will include 1200 titles, 2000 hours of video.

Applied Science & Technology & Applied Science & Business Periodicals Retrospective
AST covers 1983-present; AS&BP Index covers 1913-1983. This resource indexes almost 400 science and technology periodicals. This database is great for historical coverage of how a company, product or industry was covered in the popular business and technical press over time.

Charles Booth and the Survey into Life and Labour in London (1886-1903)
An index to the original records of the Survey, an extensive study of working-class life in late Victorian London. Also includes police notebooks, descriptive maps of London poverty, and other digitized texts.
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The Charles Booth Online Archive is a searchable resource giving access to archive material from the Booth collections of the Archives Division of the Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE Archives) and the Senate House Library. The Booth collection at LSE Archives contains the original records from Booth's survey into life and labour in London, dating from 1886 to 1903. The archives of the Senate House Library contain Booth family papers from 1799 to 1967.

Congressional Research Service Reports from the UNT Digital Library
Searchable database with more than 8,000 reports released by members of Congress (CRS reports are not otherwise made public). From the Center for Democracy and Technology.
The Economist Historical Archive
The EHA provides a completely searchable copy of every issue of The Economist published from 1843 to 2015. Features include full-color images, multiple search indexes, and the facility to browse each issue - all combine to offer a unique primary source.

Financial Times historical archive 1888-2010
Delivers the complete searchable run of the world’s most authoritative daily business newspaper. Every item ever printed in the paper, from 1888-2010, can be searched and browsed article by article and page by page.

Founded to serve the immediate needs of the City of London, the Financial Times quickly broadened its coverage, recognising that global financial and economic issues were to become the predominant forces of the twentieth century. Incorporated its rival the Financial News in 1945.
Labour & Business History
This site is designed for labor and business historians, political and social scientists, economists and others with a historical interest. Among its many links include sites that contain primary resources and images.
Making of the Modern World
Provides primary source documents on topics of banking, economics, finance, transportation and manufacturing. Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books from the 1460-1850 period, and pre-1906 serials.
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It focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University.

Mergent Archives
Search here for historical annual reports (starting from 1925), business ratios (starting from 1979) and the company and industry report publications known as the Moody's/Mergent's manuals (starting from 1909, including the industrial, public utilities, transportation, banking, OTC, banking & finance, and international publications and statistical data). For current company information, use Mergent Online, and for current ratios, use Key Business Ratios.

March of Time
Streaming video of Time Inc.'s unique and controversial newsreel series, airing between 1935-1967. Covers a wide range of topics and geographic areas.
Online Library of Liberty
Full texts of almost 1500 classic works on art, economics, history, law, literature, music, philosophy, political theory, religion, science, sociology, war and peace.
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This site is sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. As a tax-exempt, private operating foundation, Liberty Fund's purposes are educational and intellectual. It does not, therefore, engage in politics or political action of any kind.
Pamphlet Collection of the London School of Economics & Political Science
Contains reproductions of many of the Library's 90,000 pamphlets, many published in the 19th century or the early part of the 20th century.

San Diego Technology Archive
The San Diego Technology Archive (SDTA) is a digital collection that documents the history, formation, and evolution of the companies that formed the San Diego region's high-tech cluster, from its beginning in 1965. Materials include interviews with key executives and resarchers, company profiles, corporate family trees, timelines, and links to additional library resources. The collection highlights three or San Diego’s prominent business sectors: life sciences, software/information technology and telecommunications.
The Times [of London] Digital Archive, 1785-2014
The "world's newspaper of record." Searchable full text of every complete page of every issue - every headline, article, editorial, announcement, image and advertisement
Times of India (1838 - 2003)
Searchable full text with full page and article images of the entire newspaper, including articles, editorials, advertising and images for the following titles: The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce (1838 - 1859), The Bombay Times and Standard (1860 - 1861), and The Times of India (1861 - current).
World History in Video
Online collection of streaming video, critically acclaimed documentaries from filmmakers worldwide. Upon completion the collection will include more than 1750 documentaries that offer a survey of human history from the earliest civilizations to the fall of the Berlin Wall. World history in video covers Africa and the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

World Newsreels Online
A collection of streaming videos that features full runs of many of the key international newsreels produced during the first half of the twentieth century, searchable by subject, year, historical era, historical event, people, and places
Yale Avalon Project
Digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.