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This guide brings together essential collections of military history for World War I (The Great War). These include library resources, links to official military history from governments, and websites that act as portals to gather related materials.
Pick a research topic
- Read your assignment instructions carefully
- Pick a topic that interests you and meets the criteria of the assignment
- Identify key concepts of your research topic
- Need extra help? Click on Choosing an essay topic
- Do some background reading on your topic using Wikipedia
- Using Wikipedia wisely (video)
Use dictionaries, atlases or handbooks to find overviews of your topic
- America History and Life - Covers Canada and the United States
- First World War Personal Experiences
- Historical Abstracts - Covers the rest of the world
- PAIS Index (previously PAIS International)
Begin with:
Searching for primary sources:
Search your topic (or historical person of interest) using Omni, the library's main search box to find primary sources (or reproductions) in our collection. Keyword searches that include the following terms will identify primary materials most of the time.
Example: nurses AND war AND diar*
- Diar* (for diary or diaries)
- Correspondence
- Letters
- Memoir
- Personal narratives
- Recollections
- Reminiscences
- Journal
- Sources
Other search tips:
- Use bibliographies and footnotes of secondary sources on your topic to help identify primary source material.
- Useful e-book: History Beyond the Text : A Student's Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources
- Original documents can also be found by searching our archival collections or by contacting the Archives and Research Collections (ARC) staff for help. The library has many microform collections of primary sources as well. Please ask for assistance at the Research Help Desk.
Historical Newspaper Databases
Primary Sources on the web
- Archives and Primary Sources Databases
- Archives of Ontario
- Digital Public Library of America
- Internet Archive
- Hathi Trust Digital Library
- Library and Archives Canada
- Library of Congress Digital Collections
- National Archives (UK)
- New York Public Library Digital Collections
- Center for Research Libraries (CRL) - Carleton University Library is a member of the CRL consortium. It regularly acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through your RACER account.
Archives
Documents
- 20th Century documents 1900-1999 Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Yale Law School
- EuroDocs: online sources for European history
- Internet history sourcebook: World War I
Military Records
- British Army nurses' service records 1914-1918
- Courts Martial of the First World War (Canadian Expeditionary Force)
- Prisoner of war interview reports 1914-1918 (UK)
- Service Files of the First World War, 1914-1918 – Canadian Expeditionary Force database search
War Diaries
Canada
- Online Exhibitions
- Canadian military journal
- Directorate of History and Heritage
- Official histories
- History... The First World War
- Canada and the First World War
- Military and Peacekeeping collection
Europe
France
Germany
United Kingdom
- BBC History World War I
- BBC News "The Great War remembered"
- British Library - World War One
- Imperial War Museum - First World War
- National Archives: Britain 1906-1918
United States
Maps/Atlases/GIS
- British Army WW1 Trench Maps - includes excellent overview of structure and how to read the maps
- British First World War Trench Maps, 1915-1918
- The Great War: 100 Year Legacy of World War I
Images:
- Bibliothèque Numérique de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France has over 27,000 images and maps
- Canadian War Museum - Objects and Photos of the First World War
- Imperial War Museum (UK) has an extensive collection of over 45,000 images from the World War I period
- Photos of the Great War
- Story Galleries - A Brief History of Vimy (Veterans Affairs Canada)
- World War I in Photos (10-part series from The Atlantic that draws from archives of many nations)
Music:
- Popular Songs of World War I
- World War One Music and Songs includes lyrics and, in some cases, audio recordings
