This is a small sample of Chicago archival and primary source collections. You can also visit DePaul's Special Collections and Archives which includes collections on Chicago and Lincoln Park history and the DePaul University Archives.
Provides access to digital images, maps, photos, letters, descriptions of archival collections, and other resources, made available by the Chicago Collections initiative, a consortium of more than 20 libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, and other cultural heritage organizations across the Chicago region.
Access note: Freely available to the public.
Provides digitized maps for most cities and towns in Illinois. The large scale plans chart the growth and development of these communities.
Dates covered: 1867-1970.
Access note: Only available on-campus.
What are primary sources? Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. Primary sources can be treaties, photographs, legislation, diaries, speeches, interviews, letters, manuscripts, newspaper articles, artifacts, or other materials. Depending on your field of study, a primary source might also be an original scientific experiment or anthropological fieldwork.
Primary sources are not books or journal articles that provide secondary analysis, or describe something that happened somewhere else.
Primary sources can be in any format. Primary sources might be original documents in archives, republished in a contemporary book, available online, or preserved on microfilm. The content of the material -- rather than the format -- determines whether or not it's a primary source.