HIST 292: Material Culture in China (HC)

Ceramic dish, 18th c., Qing Dynasty, Bryn Mawr College, Helen Burwell Chapin Collection (Triarte, public domain)

Primary sources can take many different forms.  Letters, accounts, manuals and other kinds of documents written at the time of an event or era allow a nuanced and detailed understanding of historical issues.  Material below explains ways to locate primary sources in Tripod,  Worldcat and the Web.  To find additional primary sources, historical studies in books and journal articles will often offer the best recommendations. Check footnotes and bibliographies for references to material written in the period of time you are researching.

Primary Source Databases and Collections

Finding Printed Copies of Primary Sources 

Primary source translations that are in the Tricollege libraries will often be listed in Tripod under subject terms using the word "sources"  or "early works."  For example, the search

 (china AND qing) [Keyword] AND sources [Subject]          produces books including the first three listed below.

This search for sources, with differing literary forms specified, provides additional titles: 

       (sources OR memoir* OR diar* OR personal OR letter* OR correspondence) AND (china OR chinese) AND history [All as Subjects]           Results include the last three titles below.

Try these and additional searches in WorldCat for many more primary sources including website as well as books that you can request.