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Research Guides

American Ethnic Studies: Primary Sources

Resources for beginning research in American Ethnic Studies.

Primary Source Examples

Chicano/a Movement in Washington State

The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, one of the Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights History Projects, is dedicated to social movements and labor history in the Pacific Northwest. The Chicano/a Movement is one of the chronicled social movements. The Project is directed by Professor James N. Gregory of the University of Washington.

Mapping American Social Movements

This collaborative project is another of the Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Projects.  It features maps and other visualizations showing the chronological geography of dozens of social movements that influenced American life and politics during the 20th century, including radical movements, labor movements, women's movements, many different civil rights movements, environmentalist movements, and more.

What Are Primary Sources?

Primary sources are the evidence of history.  They are the first-hand accounts of an event or period of time created by participants or observers.  There are many kinds of primary sources including texts (letters, diaries, government reports, newspaper personal accounts [narratives], novels, autobiographies), images (photographs, paintings, advertisements, posters), artifacts (buildings, clothing, sculpture, coins) and audio/visual (songs, oral history interviews, films).

For information on how to find specific types of primary sources see the sections on:

Additional primary sources can be found using the following tools.

The UW Restricted indicates that a resource has use restrictions. You may be prompted to enter you UWNetID

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