About the topic
The bombing of Hiroshima was an event without precedent in the history of humanity. Students will be researching and writing about:
- What happened there in the summer of 1945
- What led to this event
- How and why people have tried to make sense of this tragic event.
During this library instruction session we will:
- Review the Drake Library website and the use of databases
- Demonstrate the use of Worldcat and submitting an Interlibrary Loan for materials not owned by Drake Library
- Review digital resources available through our streaming media sites
- Talk about primary sources and some places to find them, including the New York Times and other newspapers
- How to use Google to search for primary source materials
Soe online resources to get you started
This research guide put together by Drake Librarians will help you to understand and search for primary sources.
Other online sources that may be of interest:
- From Barbed Wire to Battlefield: Japanese_American Experiences in WWII
- Kamikaze Images
- Densho
- National Archives: Military Resources, World War II
- President Harry Truman Defends Atomic Bombing of Japan as "the Only Language" a "Beast" Can Understand
- University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library:Digital Resources--Higuchi Wartime Correspondence
- University of Washington: History : Military: Primary Sources -- WWII
- Eastern Michigan University:Primaryy Resources World War II
- United States Air Force Academy: Primary Sources: History of World War II
- The National Security Archive: the Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
- National Archives: Pearl Harbor Oral Histories with Ann Hoog
- Atomic Archive: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Atomic Heritage Foundation: Key Documents
Newspapers as primary sources
Newspapers can be onsidered a primary source if you are looking at the time period during which an event occurred. Despite the high connectivity of today's resources, it can be difficult to get access to newspapers online. One reason for this is publishers would make no money if their paper was freely available on the web. Two resources that may yield some good infomration are:
- New York Times Historical Archive This resource indexes the newspaper from 1857 - 2003. As one of the most influential papers in the country, the Times will have a great deal of information about the bombing and its aftermath
- NYS Historic Newspapers indexes smaller "local" newspapers, and many of them cover the time period that you are researching.
If you perform a Google search for Japanese newspapers, you will get many results, but when you click on the results they may not lead you to an actual newspaper. However, if you find a library that holds a collection of the paper, you may be able to request through Interlibrary Loan, a copy of the front page of the newspaper from the day after the bombing, for example:
- Japanese Historical Newspapers held by the University of Illinois Libraries. If you click on the link to one of the papers that was publishing during the time period, you can put an Interlibrary Loan Request through Drake Library, and specify that you want the front page of the newpaper.
URL: https://library.brockport.edu/history