Library: International Relations at Webster University Library: Primary Sources

Primary source databases

Many of the databases listed in the Find Articles section of this guide include primary resources (for example, newspaper articles). The list below includes additional databases where you can locate primary source material.

JSTOR (contains Artstor images)

JSTOR is a digital archive of scholarly journals. Note that our subscription is for the following collections: Arts & Sciences II and Arts & Sciences III.
Click the Images tab to search Artstor for thousands of images from the arts, architecture, photography, and other disciplines.
General OneFile

A one-stop source for news, magazine, and periodical articles across a wide range of general interest topics and academic disciplines. With millions of articles available in both PDF and HTML full-text, General OneFile serves a wide audience of readers.
Global Breaking Newswires

In the modern news world, newswires are the chief source of timely news. With increasing pressures on the traditional news industry, newswires are often the only news coverage for many large regions of the globe. Global Breaking Newswires is a library news product providing timely access to the best newswire content available from around the globe for the modern researcher. It contains a growing archive of news indexes that are accessible through the functionality of the ProQuest platform.
International Newsstream Collection

International Newsstream Collection provides access to over 1,700 print, digital, and broadcast sources, combining five regional collections from around the world. With an extensive archive from the 1980s to current coverage, researchers gain insights into global events, regional developments, and international relations.
Newspaper Source
Newspaper Source provides cover-to-cover full text for hundreds of national (U.S.), international and regional newspapers. In addition, it offers television and radio news transcripts from major networks.
U.S. Newsstream Collection

U.S. Newsstream Collection delivers over 1,300 sources of current national and regional news content plus deep archives, spanning print, digital, and broadcast sources. From breaking news to historical context, researchers gain insights into American society, politics, and developments through authoritative reporting.
Premier titles include:
- The Baltimore Sun
- Barron’s
- The Boston Globe
- CBS News - 60 MINUTES
- Chicago Tribune
- The Christian Science Monitor
- CNN
- Los Angeles Times
- New York Amsterdam News
- The New York Times
- Texas Monthly
- USA Today
- The Wall Street Journal
- The Washington Post
US History (Gale in Context)
A resource merging Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.
World History (Gale in Context)
A resource that delivers a chronicle of the great cultures and societies that have formed the history of the human race. Rare primary sources, reliable reference and multi-media content put this vast topic into context for students.

Primary sources from the open Web

Below is a list of additional official websites that offer free access to online collections of primary resources.

Case Law Access Project
The Caselaw Access Project (CAP) includes all official, book-published United States case law.
The site includes all state courts, federal courts, and territorial courts for American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Native American Courts, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The earliest case is from 1658, and the most recent cases are from 2018.
Congress.gov
The site provides access to legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC’s Congressional Research Service.
DocsTeach (National Archives)
DocsTeach.org collection contains thousands of primary sources related to American history through the National Archives.
International Criminal Court
This website contains court records, core legal texts, and other documents from The International Criminal Court (ICC).
Library of Congress Primary Sources
The Library of Congress noted as the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections.
The State Historical Society of Missouri
The State Historical Society of Missouri Digital Collections provide online access to photographs, art, maps, diaries, letters, books, articles, and oral histories telling the story of Missouri’s history, people, and culture.

more... less...

To access digital Newspapers, use this link: https://shsmo.org/collections/newspapers/mdnp
National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides public access to billions of records from all three branches of the United States government.
State Department Historian
The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
UN Documents
UN documents include resolutions from legislative bodies, such as the General Assembly, Security Council, and the Economic and Social Council, which often contain a work mandate to be carried out by the UN Secretariat, or the UN system. Additionally, reports of the UN Secretary-General assess the state of the Organization and announce new work initiatives. Access to cases and rulings by the International Court of Justice, the main judicial body of the UN, is also available. On this website, you can search for meeting records, summaries of conferences, UN reports, treaties, maps, yearbooks and more.
U.S. Census Bureau
The Census Bureau is best known for the decennial population and housing census, but it also collects population and housing data between censuses through a variety of surveys. It conducts economic censuses every five years which include both economic and business data. It collects economic and business data between censuses as well.
WGBH Open Vault
Open Vault is the home of WGBH Media Library and Archives, providing online access to unique and historically important content produced by the public television and radio station WGBH. The ever-expanding site contains video, audio, images, searchable transcripts, and resource management tools, all of which are available for individual and classroom learning. Visitors can become a "member" (free) of Open Vault: to access records and save findings.