TIBCUS 430 Introduction to Public History

Getting started

The following general histories of Tacoma, Pierce County, and Washington may help you determine a topic for your projects and provide background information that will assist your research.

Bonney, W. P.
History of Pierce County, Washington
Chicago : Pioneer Historical Pub. Co., 1927
F897.P6 B65 1927, vols 1-3, Tacoma Reference (2nd copy Tacoma Stacks)

Davis, William J.
A Pictorial Sketch of the Puget Sound Area and its Builders
Seattle: David Publishing Co, 1960
F 897.P9 D28 1960 Tacoma Reference

A History of Pierce County Washington
[Tacoma, WA]: Heritage League of Pierce County, 1990
F 897. P6 H572, vol. 1, Tacoma Reference

Hunt, Herbert
Tacoma, Its History and its Builders
Chicago, IL: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1916
F899. T2 H9 1916, 3 vols. Tacoma Reference

Stewart, Edgar
Washington, Northwest Frontier
New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1957
F891. S87, vols. 1-4, Tacoma Reference

Finding secondary sources

Secondary sources analyze a scholarly question and often use primary sources as evidence. Secondary sources include histories about a topic or books and articles that explain or review research-based works.

UW Libraries Catalog
Use the UW Libraries Catalog to identify and locate books and reference sources (including many secondary sources) throughout the UW system. To find books by a particular author, perform an author search; to find books about a particular subject or author, try keyword and subject searches.

Databases – http://www.lib.washington.edu/types/databases/
Access databases by title or subject

Finding primary sources

Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a witness to or participant in an event. They are firsthand testimony or evidence created during the time period that you are studying. Primary sources may include diaries, letters, photographs, newspaper articles, government documents, poems, novels, plays, and music. The researcher provides the analysis of a primary source. The collection and analysis of primary sources is central to historical research.

UW Libraries Catalog
To locate books written during a specific time period, published collections of correspondence, memoirs, etc, start with the UW Libraries Catalog. See the handout Using the UW Libraries Catalog to Find Primary Sources in US History for suggestions for searching the catalog to locate primary sources.

Databases – http://www.lib.washington.edu/types/databases/
Access databases by title or subject

Newspapers

Other Primary Resources – Internet sites for library collections

Locating Local Images

UW Digital Collections
http://content.lib.washington.edu/
Historic photographs, posters, pamphlets and newspapers from the Pacific Northwest. Use a Quick Keyword Search, or browse the Collections by subject.

Northwest Photography Archives
http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/images/default.asp?bisc=1
Search the Tacoma Public Library's extensive photograph collection for images on the social, industrial, commercial, and agricultural growth and development of Washington and the Pacific Northwest.

Pierce County Buildings Index
http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/buildings/
Use keywords or a specific address to locate images of more than 29,000 historic buildings constructed from 1883 to 1942 throughout Pierce County.

Seattle Municipal Archives
http://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/
Over 100,000 photographs from Seattle, South King County and Tacoma dating from 1880s to the present. Subjects include public works projects, City events, City sites and facilities, and elected officials.

Course Page (Julie Nicoletta)
http://courses.washington.edu/pubhist/intropub/pubhistindex.htm