In the First Person: Going Straight to the Source

Spring Semester has barely begun, but it's not too soon to be thinking about research and paper topics, especially for courses at the intersection of law, culture and history. A great online resource is In the First Person: An index to letters, diaries, oral histories and personal narratives. This fascinating site makes it easy to locate interviews and other personal accounts of individuals who witnessed significant people and events, social movements and eras, famous trials, and more. Best of all, many of the documents are freely available as full-text, audio, or video--either at the site or by direct links to the documents at other free sites. Searching by subject, place, person or historical event makes it easy to find original source material, from interviews with former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to the first-hand account of an investigator at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat