Browse Primary Sources
Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.
Adventure in New Zealand, from 1839 to 1844
E. J. Wakefield was 19 years of age when he sailed from England, in 1839, on the New Zealand Company vessel, Tory, as secretary to his uncle, Colonel William Wakefield. Wakefield was to oversee the foundation of a Company settlement in the Cook Strait region, where the country's capital city, Wellington, is now located.
The Ancient History of the Maori
In this excerpt, an adult Horeta Te Taniwha recounts childhood memories of a cultural encounter with Europeans for a Pakeha researcher. Te Taniwha, as an indigenous child of Aotearoa/New Zealand, participated in one of the first meetings between coastal tribes and the British maritime explorer, Captain James Cook, and his crew.
Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth
Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth, published in 1791, was the first American bestseller. The author, Susanna Haswell Rowson, was born in England circa 1762, and died in 1824 in Massachusetts, where she spent most of her life. Charlotte Temple tells the story of a young English girl who is lured away from her school by an army officer, Montraville.
A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison
In 1753, 15 year old Mary Jemison was captured by Indians along the Pennsylvania frontier during the Seven Years' War between the French, English, and Indian peoples of North America. She was adopted and incorporated into the Senecas, a familiar practice among Iroquois and other Indian peoples seeking to replace a lost sibling or spouse.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
The book-length narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), chronicles the experiences of Harriet Jacobs who was born a slave in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1813. Harriet was unaware of her slave status until at age six, her mother died and she was sent to live in the house of her mistress.
"To the Spirits of Camila O'Gorman"
The story of Camila O'Gorman (1828-1848), the daughter of a prominent merchant in the Buenos Aires community, is one of the most famous cases of a young person challenging both parental and state authority. In 1847, at the height of Rosas's power, 19-year-old Camila and Ladislao Gutiérrez, a young Catholic priest from Tucumán, fell in love.
Noticias de Portugal
Suggestion for handling orphans, devised in 1655 by Manoel Severim de Faria, an official for the bishop of Evora in Portugal. Here Severim de Faria speaks about the role orphaned children could and should play in the Portuguese empire.
"How Some Children Played at Slaughtering"
The pioneering collection of fairy tales published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the first half of the 19th century reflects both the romantic interest in the national past—that is, in the cultural origins and "childhood" of the German people—and the burgeoning efforts to create a literature tailored to the perceived needs of children.
Boke of Chyldren by Thomas Phaer
Phaer was a lawyer and a physician who wrote the first work in English devoted solely to the health of children. It was first published in 1544 and went through many editions. The audience for the book according to Phaer was everyone who cared about children.
"On Scarlet Fever"
There are many fevers listed as the cause of death in early modern England that do not translate well into modern diseases (worm, spotted, pining, nervous) but scarlet fever is still with us. The Puritan Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) is often referred to as the "English Hippocrates" because of his emphasis on the need to observe the course of diseases and not just theorize about them.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on Small Pox in Turkey
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was the wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey. In 1715 she had survived but been terribly scarred by smallpox while her brother had died from the disease.
Decameron
Giovanni Boccaccio provided the most famous description of what happened during the Black Death in Italy. His report on the behavior of the Florentines after plague entered their city during the spring of 1348 serves as introduction and frame for his collection of 100 tales entitled the Decameron.
The Taoist Priest of Lao-Shan
"The Taoist Priest of Lao-Shan" is a folktale with a moral lesson. The tale uses religion as a device to instill in children the traits desired by upstanding citizens within the culture at that time. "The Taoist Priest of Lao-Shan" comes from a collection of stories called Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio written by P'u Sung-ling.
Three-Character Classic
The famous Three-Character Classic, a children's primer attributed to Wang Yin-lin (1223-1296) whose text consists of rhymed verse developed to help children increase their vocabulary in Chinese characters, provides a valuable introduction to the social values that children were encouraged to embrace as well as a detailed look at the language – rhetorical, idiomatic, and visual – that conveyed
The Chinese Boy and Girl
Issac Taylor Headland (1859-1942), a resident of Beijing and a scholar at Peking (Beijing) University, joined other contemporaries interested in both popular culture and folklore in his own study of daily life in China. He was particularly concerned with the collection and transcription of Chinese children's rhymes.
Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes
Isaac Taylor Headland (1859-1942), a resident of Beijing and a scholar at Peking (Beijing) University, joined other contemporaries interested in both popular culture and folklore in collecting and transcribing Chinese children's rhymes.
Through Masai Land
Joseph Thomson traveled through Kenya Maasailand from 1883 to 1884 on a journey of exploration from the coast to Mt Kenya and Lake Victoria, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. He was the second European to visit the area. Thomson travelled with a trading caravan, for traders knew the routes across Maasailand well.
Excerpts from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
One of the very first slave narratives, The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), served as a prototype for the well-known slave autobiographies of the 19th century written by such fugitive slaves as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Kidnapping
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 20 million Africans crossed the Atlantic to the Americas in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Until recently, slave studies rarely discussed children's experiences, but it has been estimated that one quarter of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic were children.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Slave Ship
From the 16th to the 18th centuries, an estimated 20 million Africans crossed the Atlantic to the Americas in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Until recently, slave studies rarely discussed children's experiences, but it has been estimated that one quarter of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic were children.