# Where to find first hand accounts? (websites or keywords) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2019, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245 "2019-02-09T22:41:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anomander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Anomander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomander)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245/1 "2019-02-09T22:41:16Z")
Hi guys, New poster here. In a nutshell, I love reading firsthand historical accounts - I frequently download real exploration accounts in the 17/18th centuries from Gutenberg . I think there’s just something amazing about reading the straight account of someone from so long ago. I was wondering if people had any ideas on how to find more? They don’t have to be to do with exploration, just real first hand accounts. Could be websites, or maybe even keywords that might lead me to some great stuff that I’m missing. Any help would be really appreciated! ---
**Author:** ![Anomander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Anomander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomander)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245/2 "2019-02-09T22:47:48Z")
I should say that I considered General Questions too - if anyone thinks this is in the wrong forum I’m happy to move ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245/3 "2019-02-10T01:56:21Z")
Check the general category of “oral history.” They’re pretty much all first-hand accounts of something. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245/4 "2019-02-10T04:40:00Z")
The Library of Congress has scans of complete issues of newspapers online, some going back to the 18th Century, at it’s Chronicling America site (it’s at [https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov) but as I type this it seems to be down at the moment). These old newspapers are interesting to read because they were written for a contemporary audience that didn’t know how things were going to play out, rather than a history book analyzing events after the fact. You get a sense of people’s thoughts and opinions at the time. I read the news from 100 years ago today there almost daily, and I’ve been doing that long enough that sometimes find myself talking about things from then as though they are current events. I’ve caught myself thinking of Wilson as the current U.S. President, and I “remember” major events like the Lusitania sinking, for example. A few days ago I read that Jack Dempsey’s manager was in New York to negotiate a challenge for the world heavyweight boxing championship with Jess Willard’s manager, and I’m genuinely looking forward to the bout. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2019, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-first-hand-accounts-websites-or-keywords/829245/5 "2019-02-10T05:17:16Z")
[https://books.google.com/](https://books.google.com/) has millions of books in the public domain (books whose copyright has expired). For example suppose you want to read Stanley’s first hand account of how he found Livingstone (in Africa) > **[How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa...](https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=6fhbAAAAcAAJ&rdid=book-6fhbAAAAcAAJ&rdot=1)** > > How I Found Livingstone: Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa : Including Four Months' Residence with Dr. Livingstone, Volume 1 - Ebook written by Henry Morton Stanley. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android,... University Libraries have been digitizing a lot of stuff in their collection and much is available by searching at BASE: > [@](#): > > BASE is one of the world’s most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 140 million documents from more than 6,000 sources. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library. > > We are indexing the metadata of all kinds of academically relevant resources - journals, institutional repositories, digital collections etc. - which provide an OAI interface and use OAI-PMH for providing their contents (see our Golden Rules for Repository Managers and learn more about OAI at the Open Archives Initiative or Wikipedia). > **[BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine): Advanced Search](https://www.base-search.net/Search/Advanced)** > > More than 340 mio. scientific documents from more than 11.000 content providers. BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines for academic web resources.