How to Cite Archives and Primary Sources in Chicago Style

Quick Answer: How to Cite an Archive in Chicago

Put the specific item first in the footnote: writer to recipient, a titled document, or a short description, then the date. After that, copy the series, collection, identifier, and repository from the finding aid — in one order you keep for the whole paper. In the bibliography, name the collection, not every letter, unless you cited only one item.

CMOS 18 §14.119 states the identification rule that every example on this page follows. University CMOS 18 guides reprint the handbook's wording:

CMOS 18 §14.120 then splits the work between the note and the list:

Which Chicago System to Use

History, literature, art history, and most other humanities programs expect Notes-Bibliography: a numbered footnote or endnote, a shortened note after the first full citation, and a bibliography of collections. Sociology, education, and some social-science journals expect Author-Date. Turabian, the student handbook built on Chicago, still describes the 9th edition against CMOS 17; Turabian 10 is announced, not the live student book. The archival pattern — item first in the note, collection in the list — is the same pattern CMOS 18 kept. Do not mix footnotes with parenthetical author-date citations in one paper. If the syllabus is silent, match the journal you are writing for — or the history department's default, which is Notes-Bibliography.

Notes-Bibliography: The Official CMOS Examples

CMOS 18 §§14.127–14.128 prints the same three long-running examples that university CMOS 18 guides still use. They are not invented teaching cases. Copy their punctuation: commas in the note, periods in the bibliography, no quotation marks around a generic description such as memorandum. A standalone unpublished draft with a real title is a different problem — that page is How to cite manuscripts in Chicago (CMOS 18 §14.114).

Letter in a manuscript collection

A letter begins with the writer, the word to, and the recipient. CMOS does not add the word letter unless you need it to tell a letter from a telegram or memorandum. The official model is James Oglethorpe's 13 January 1733 letter in the Phillipps Collection of Egmont Manuscripts at the University of Georgia Library:

The University of Queensland CMOS 18 notes-and-bibliography guide prints the same Oglethorpe note with (hereafter cited as Egmont MSS) after the repository — CMOS's approved way to introduce a short collection tag you will reuse. If you cite only that one letter, CMOS §14.120 lets the letter itself appear in the bibliography. If you cite several Egmont items, the bibliography names the collection once.

Memorandum in a named file

Name the genre when it is not a letter. CMOS's second official example is Alvin Johnson's 1937 memorandum in the Horace Kallen Papers. YIVO's finding aid for those papers (RG 317) uses a slightly different collection title and asks for a folder number. Keep CMOS commas, but prefer the repository's current name when you are citing the real file:

CMOS's file 36 / Horace Kallen Papers line is the handbook specimen. The finding aid's preferred citation is what a second researcher at YIVO will actually use. If you opened folder 732 (the Alvin Johnson correspondence file in that finding aid), write that folder number — do not keep "file 36" as decoration. The finding aid is at yivoarchives.yivo.org.

Bound volume inside a family collection

When the item is a volume rather than a single sheet, CMOS keeps the volume statement in the note and still lists the collection in the bibliography. The official third example is Paul Revere's waste books at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The Society's Revere Family Papers guide (fa0017; microfilm P-230) titles those two volumes Wastebook and memoranda, Boston, 3 Jan. 1761–10 Oct. 1783 and Wastebook, Boston, 2 Aug. 1783–7 Aug. 1797. CMOS rounds the same span to 1761–83 and 1783–97:

If you used the microfilm or the History Vault scan rather than the bound volumes in the reading room, say so. CMOS still wants the collection in the bibliography; the Society's preferred line is the locator a later reader will search.

What to Record from the Finding Aid

CMOS 18 does not invent a universal box-folder order. It names the stable elements and tells you to keep one sequence. Copy the repository's labels, not a remembered paraphrase.

• Item (§14.119). Writer and recipient for a letter; a quoted title if the document has one; otherwise a short description without quotation marks (memorandum, diary entry, photograph).
• Date (§14.122). The date on the item. If the finding aid supplies only a year, use the year. If nothing supports a date, write n.d. A bracketed estimate such as [ca. 1865] is allowed only when the catalog or internal evidence supports it.
• Series, if the repository uses one (§14.119). Skip a series you did not actually consult.
• Collection title (§14.121). Use the specific name the finding aid prints — Abraham Lincoln Papers, not a generic "Lincoln manuscripts."
• Numbering (§14.123). Box, folder, file, reel, or volume — only the identifiers the repository itself uses. Do not invent a folder number to make the note look finished.
• Depository and place (§14.125). Name the repository. Add the city when two institutions could be confused. CMOS 18 dropped the place of publication for books; it did not drop the location of an archive.

The Library of Congress finding aid for the Abraham Lincoln Papers (ms009304, revised November 2021) states the repository's own preferred citation in one sentence:

Prefer that wording, then keep CMOS punctuation around it. The handle hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms009304 is the stable identifier; it currently redirects to the Manuscript Division finding-aid record. If the public catalog does not give a container number, omit it.

A Digitized Letter You Can Retrace

CMOS 18 says a collection consulted online takes the same form as the physical collection, plus a URL or database name. Use the persistent item URL, not the search page you landed on. Abraham Lincoln's 22 August 1862 letter to Horace Greeley is a real document in the Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln Papers (item identifier mal4233400). The LOC record is a newspaper clipping of the letter, not Lincoln's outgoing manuscript. Cite the object you used:

The previous version of this page attached Thomas Jefferson's 27 June 1813 letter to John Adams to "Box 45, Folder 3" at the Library of Congress. The letter is real; that box-and-folder pair is not on the public LOC record. If the catalog does not give a container number, omit it. loc.gov item pages are often behind a bot challenge from this environment; treat mal4233400 as the catalog identifier, not as a claim that the HTML page loaded for you.

Diaries: Cite the Copy You Read

A diary entry is a description, not a quoted title: diary entry, 1 January 1785. The collection still goes in the bibliography. Martha Ballard's 1785–1812 diary is a real holding. DoHistory still states that the original two bound volumes are at the Maine State Library, Augusta, call number Ms B B189 — not the Maine State Museum, which an earlier version of this page named. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale (Knopf, 1990) is a published book about the diary. Cite the copy in your notes:

If a letter or diary has been published, CMOS wants the published edition unless you examined the original for a reason you can state — handwriting, a passage the editor silently dropped, or a date the print edition regularized. That is the published-versus-unpublished trap, not a style preference.

Photographs in an Archival Collection

Use the repository caption, not a later popular nickname, as the title. Dorothea Lange's March 1936 photograph of Florence Owens Thompson is widely called "Migrant Mother." The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs record titles it from the Farm Security Administration caption and publishes the scan as item 2017762891:

You may mention the popular title in your prose. Do not replace the catalog title with it in the note. For published illustrations that are not in an archival collection, use CMOS chapter 14's illustrations sections rather than the manuscript-collection pattern on this page.

National Archives Record Groups

Federal records at NARA are arranged by record group, not by a person's last name. CMOS 18 §14.119 still applies, but NARA's own General Information Leaflet 17 (revised 2010; the PDF is the citable text) is the locator a second researcher will actually use. The leaflet's rule is the one students skip:

GIL 17 wants the item, file unit, series, subgroup, record group (name and number), and repository. Semicolons separate those layers. The leaflet's own textual-records example is this 1871 Justice Department letter:

That is NARA's locator, not a CMOS note. In a Chicago paper, keep CMOS commas and sentence shape, but do not drop the series and record group in favor of "RG 60, Box 12." Published statutes, hearings, and court opinions are government documents or legal citations, not archival case files you have not opened.

Presidential libraries are not family collections

GIL 17 rule 6 is the exception students flatten into "LBJ Papers, Box 12." For papers donated to a Presidential library, cite the record or folder title, then the White House file, the papers, and the named library. The leaflet's own example is this 1964 Lee White memorandum:

Name the building the leaflet names. Subsequent citations may use the leaflet's own abbreviations — FDRL, NAB, NACP, RG — once you have introduced them.

Digitized NARA files: GIL 17 versus CMOS

GIL 17 (2010) still talks about the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). That catalog is now the National Archives Catalog. Keep the leaflet's locator layers; swap in the live Catalog identifier when that is how you retrieved the file. GIL 17 also wants a reviewed-on date for web copies. CMOS 18 does not: it requires an access date for undated web content, not for a stable archival item URL that already carries its own date.

In a Chicago history paper, follow CMOS for the note shape and add the Catalog URL. Add GIL 17's reviewed-on date only if your instructor or the repository asked for NARA's own form. The previous version of this page invented "Box 5, Folder 3" for Brown v. Board of Education in Record Group 267. RG 267 is the U.S. Supreme Court; that box-and-folder pair is not a citation. If you did not open the case file, cite the published opinion.

Digital Archives, Databases, and Session URLs

Add a URL or a database name after the repository — not instead of the collection. Prefer a handle, PURL, or item permalink. A proxied database URL that contains ezproxy or a session token will die. CMOS is comfortable with the database name alone when that is how a reader will retrieve the file.

• Persistent item URL. The Lincoln and Lange notes above use https://www.loc.gov/item/... identifiers.
• Database name. If you opened the scan only inside a licensed collection (ProQuest History Vault for the Revere microfilm, for example), name that collection. Do not paste the proxy string.
• Finding aid versus document. Citing the finding aid tells a reader how you found the box. Citing the letter tells them what you read. They are different sources.
• Access date. CMOS requires an access date for undated web content, not for a stable archival item URL that already carries its own date. GIL 17 is stricter for NARA web copies.

Citing the finding aid itself

When you quote the collection description rather than a document inside it, cite the finding aid as a web document. The Lincoln Papers finding aid is a real, dated LOC file (revised November 2021):

Oral History Interviews Held by an Archive

CMOS 18 §§14.108–14.110 cites an interview under the interviewee, then names the interviewer, the date, and the archive that holds the recording or transcript. Rosa Parks sat for Blackside, Inc. on 14 November 1985 for Eyes on the Prize. Washington University Libraries' Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection, publishes the interview as Interview with Rosa Parks (MAVIS interview record 895; issued 1985-11-14):

The full interview patterns — published, broadcast, and unpublished — live in How to cite interviews in Chicago. Do not turn an interview into a generic "archival document" and drop the interviewer.

Author-Date for Archival Collections

Author-Date is less common for unpublished collections, but CMOS 18 §14.128 covers it. Put the specific item in the sentence. Put the collection — not every memorandum — in the reference list. The year in the parenthetical is often the collection or the document year your reader needs to find the list entry, not a publication year. Monash University's CMOS 18 Author-Date guide restates the official Kallen example this way:

Do not force (Johnson 1937) if the reference list has no Johnson entry. The list entry is the collection. If you cite only one item from a collection, CMOS lets that item head the reference — the same exception as in Notes-Bibliography.

Private Collections and Restricted Files

CMOS 18 §14.129 covers letters and papers that are not in a public repository. Cite them like other unpublished items, then replace the depository with private collection or in the author's possession. Do not name the owner or the street address unless you have permission. Some university and corporate archives require written permission before you quote. That is a repository rule, not a CMOS punctuation rule — follow it, and say so in an acknowledgments line if the archive asks. University CMOS 18 guides reprint the location ban in one sentence:

Failure Modes Students Actually Hit

• Invented containers. Box and folder numbers come from the finding aid or the folder tab in front of you. The retired Jefferson, Marshall, NAACP, Woolf, Alice Paul, and Brown examples on this page failed that test.
• CMOS specimen kept after you opened a different file. The handbook's file 36 is a specimen. YIVO's Alvin Johnson correspondence is folder 732 in RG 317. Copy the folder you used.
• NARA as if it were a family collection. Record group plus a box number is not enough (GIL 17). Add series and subgroup. Name the building.
• Presidential library flattened to a last name. GIL 17 wants the White House file and the named library, not "LBJ Papers, Box 12."
• Published edition disguised as an archive. If you read Ulrich or a printed letter collection, cite the book. If you read the manuscript, cite the manuscript.
• Generic collection titles. CMOS 14.121 wants the repository's specific name.
• Missing dates filled with a guess. Use n.d. or a supported [ca. year]. Do not write a confident year to look finished.
• Session URLs. Prefer a handle, item permalink, or database name.
• ibid. for the next folder. CMOS 18 prefers a shortened note. A new item from the same collection still needs its own item line.
• Interview without an interviewer. Archive-held oral history still follows §§14.108–14.110.

How This Page Differs from Nearby Guides

This URL is the Chicago format guide for items inside archival collections. How to find archives for research is the search-and-reading-room guide; it cites CMOS only long enough to send you here. How to cite manuscripts in Chicago covers medieval shelfmarks, standalone unpublished papers, and working papers that are not in a named collection. History citation is the discipline overview. Primary sources for history is about finding digitized historical sources, not about CMOS note punctuation.

Related guides

• How to Cite Manuscripts and Unpublished Works in Chicago
• How to Find and Use Archives for Research
• History Citation Guide
• How to Find Historical Primary Sources
• How to Cite Interviews in Chicago Style
• How to Cite Government Documents in Chicago
• Turabian vs Chicago