You may try to contact the authors in the papers directly. In addition to getting the paper you might even get to discuss the issues directly with the authors.
At this stage I am mostly trying to get an overview and trying to find out what I need to know. This means reading a few books to give me the background knowledge I know and it means surveying what is being published to identify topics I need to explore. This usually means _skimming_ a lot of material to determine if it is worth my time right now. If I need to contact the author, that slows the process down a lot.
Yes, there is a tradition in academic publishing of sending several unbound copies of the printed article to the original author, which they will then send to people who write to them requesting them; these copies are called "offprints". Your mileage requesting copies of articles from surviving authors might vary, but mine has generally been very good.