Browse Primary Sources
Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.
Shocking Disaster at Cambridge
This particular news report is drawn from a collection gathered by a Waikato University undergraduate student, Pauline Hunt, when investigating the hazards of life for colonial children during the 1880s. Her unpublished study concentrated on two regional newspapers, the New Zealand Herald, published in Auckland; and the Waikato Times, printed in Hamilton.
Juvenile Depravity Suppression Bill
This Dunedin politician's speech could be analyzed for its tone as well as its (edited) content. Notions of morality and responsibility can be identified, along with an attitude that children should be protected from adverse influences. The proposed legislation would have given police the powers to apprehend young loiterers and return them to their parents.
Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Nonfiction, Florentine Codex (Nahuatl)
This chapter from the Florentine Codex, a bilingual encyclopedia of central Mexican life and history, was created by the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún and indigenous advisors, painters and scribes. Nahuatl and Spanish texts appear side by side, and are accompanied by an image of Malintzin translating.
Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Nonfiction, Florentine Codex (Spanish)
This chapter from the Florentine Codex, a bilingual encyclopedia of central Mexican life and history was created by the Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún and indigenous advisors, painters and scribes. Nahuatl and Spanish texts appear side by side, and are accompanied by the image of Malintzin translating (described above).
John Evelyn's Diary
The English lawyer John Evelyn (1620-1706) kept a diary for nearly 50 years and in it recorded his grief at the death of four of his children. John and Mary Evelyn had eight children altogether: Richard (1652–8), John Standsfield (1653–4), John (1655–99), George (1657–8), Richard (1664), Mary (1665–85), Elizabeth (1667–85) and Susanna (1669–1754). Only Susanna outlived her parents.
Infanticide Trial Transcript from the Old Bailey of Elizabeth Taylor of Clerkenwell
Infanticide or the killing of a baby was punishable by hanging in early modern England. Unlike married women accused of infanticide, the mere fact that single women had tried to conceal the death of their babies was considered proof of murder under the Infanticide Act of 1624. A single woman's only recourse was to try and prove that the baby had been born dead and that she had not killed it.
Dona Marina, Cortes’ Translator: Personal Account, Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Perhaps the most famous 16th-century portrayal of doña Marina, this description is also the most extensive from the period. Díaz del Castillo claims she was beautiful and intelligent, she could speak Nahuatl and Maya. Without doña Marina, he says, the Spaniards could not have understood the language of Mexico.
Italian accounts of the Black Death
Several chroniclers wrote about the Black Death in their own town or region. They described the symptoms of the disease, which they generally called "the mortality," how it arrived with portents of warning from the East, and how many people it killed.
Testament of a Father during the Black Death
Below is a will that offers a window into the family life of Carinus, a parchment worker, or cartolarius, a fairly common trade in the university town of Bologna. Although many wealthy people left long and complicated wills filled with lists of pious bequests, this simple will is more typical of artisans who, despite modern assumptions to the contrary, commonly made wills in medieval Italy.
Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Official Document, Sterilization
Thirty years after Mrs. Roosevelt visited the island of Puerto Rico, working women were still subject to exploitation in the industrial setting—in particular, to coerced sterilization.
Testament of a Mother during the Black Death
Below is a will that offers a window into the family life of Ursollina, wife of a parchment worker named Carinus. Although many wealthy people left long and complicated wills filled with lists of pious bequests, these simple wills are more typical of artisans who, despite modern assumptions to the contrary, commonly made wills in medieval Italy.
Dona Marina, Cortes' Translator: Letter, Hernán Cortés
This excerpt from Cortés’s Second Letter, written to Charles V in 1519 and first published in 1522, is one of only two instances in Cortés’s letters to the King that explicitly mentions his indigenous translator. The letters represent eyewitness accounts of the conquistadors’ deeds and experiences.
Testament of an Elite Wife during the Black Death
The following will belongs to the butcher Phylippinus' wife. The butcher and his wife were a well-off couple, owning at least two shops in Bologna's central meat market as well as land outside of Bologna in Borgo Panigale.
Testament of an Elite Husband during the Black Death
The following will belongs to the butcher Phylippinus. The butcher and his wife were a well-off couple, owning at least two shops in Bologna's central meat market as well as land outside of Bologna in Borgo Panigale.
Alexander Herzen’s My Past and Thoughts
Autobiographical writing as a rich source for the exploration of European childhood and youth is self evident; in many cases, it is one of the most nuanced ways to understand historical actors' earliest experiences. Such is the case in Russia, where there emerged a new genre of writing on childhood and youth in the middle of the 19th century.
Holocaust Girls/Closet
This short story by fiction writer, S.L. Wisenberg, sheds light on the influence of Anne Frank on the imagination and identity of Jewish girls growing up in postwar America.
How to Teach Children: Childrearing and Confucian Doctrine
This excerpt comes from a chapter of Okina mondô, or Dialog with an Old Man, by Nakae Tôju (1606–1648), a Neo-Confucian philosopher. The Dialog teaches practical ethics through a series of questions and answers between a young disciple, Taijû, and a wise old master, Tenkun.
Autobiography, Katsu Kokichi
Katsu Kokichi (1802–1850), a middle- to lower-ranking samurai without distinction, nevertheless wrote his life story, supposedly to warn his children against his own disgraceful behavior.
Puerto Rican Labor Movement: Official Document, Sterilization
Thirty years after Mrs. Roosevelt visited the island of Puerto Rico, working women were still subject to exploitation in the industrial setting—in particular, to coerced sterilization.
Emperor Meiji to President Grant on Iwakura Mission
The Iwakura Mission was a visit to the United States and Europe between 1871 and 1873 by many of the top officials of the new Meiji government.