duPont Library: History 323: The Many Faces of Sewanee: Primary Resources

Best Primary Source Collections for History 229

Archive of Americana This link opens in a new window
Collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries. From several primary source collections - Early American imprints, Early American newspapers, American Broadsides & Ephemera, American state papers, U.S. Congressional serial set, House and Senate Journals, Senate Executive Journals.
Search interface: Readex

Atlanta Constitution (Newspaper)
A search of past issues of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper from 1868-1945. Covers news of much of the South.

Documenting the American South This link opens in a new window
Collection of primary sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century.
Includes: A Digitized Library of Southern Literature, Beginnings to 1920; First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920; North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920; The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; The Church in the Southern Black Community, Beginnings to 1920; The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940.
HeritageQuest Online This link opens in a new window
Offers research materials for tracing family lineage and American culture. Features United States census records, family and local histories, and primary source material. The most helpful section of this resource should be the Persi search which will help you find information about people and places because it searches genealogy and local history sources.

New York Times (Newspaper)
Search of this major newspaper from 1851-2006.

Primary Resources

Accessible Archives
Full text of important American newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Collection of primary source material from 18th & 19th century sources. Contains the full text of important American newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
This release contains 1,920 authors and approximately 97,000 pages of information. When complete, the collection will include more than 100,000 pages of primary materials.

Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Time period: 1700s-present
Location: North America
Primary sources and archival materials relating to American culture and history, mostly from the collections of the Library of Congress. Includes written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music.
Organized into more than 100 collections, each accompanied by a set of explanatory features designed to make the materials easy to find, use, and understand. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or searched across multiple collections. Comprises more than 9 million items including written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music. Freely accessible.

American State Papers
Collection of legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Collection of colonial and early national period newspapers in full-text including images.
Discovering American Women’s History Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
America's Historical Imprints - Evans This link opens in a new window
Collection of primary sources from 17th and 18th Century America. "Virtually every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America between 1639 and 1800."
Based on the American Bibliography by Charles Evans and published by Readex in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society. Includes thousands of books, pamphlets, and broadsides.
America's Historical Imprints - Shaw-Shoemaker This link opens in a new window
Collection of primary sources from 1801-1819 in America. Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States.
Based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph B. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and supplemented by thousands of new items. Offers fully searchable text and a browse feature with topical indexes.
History Matters: Many Pasts This link opens in a new window
Time Period: 1527-~2010
Location: North America
This free resources from George Mason University provides a collection of primary resources in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. History. Includes selected and curated brief excerpts from primary texts like letters and personal narratives.

Making of America
Collection of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
North American Women's Letters and Diaries (NWLD) includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Our Documents
Collection of 100 milestone documents of American history from the National Archives. Includes the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Paris, Bill of Rights, Gettysburg Address, Plessy v. Ferguson, Tennessee Valley Authority Act, Manhattan Project Notebook, Brown v. Board of Education, Aerial Photograph of Missiles in Cuba, and more.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set This link opens in a new window
Collection of reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes.
Search interface: Readex.
World History Sources This link opens in a new window
Guide to 200 of the best online primary source archives in world history with reviews.
WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch Interface) This link opens in a new window
alog of items held by OCLC member libraries.
Search interface: OCLC FirstSearch.

What Are Primary Resources

Original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. May include letters, diaries, manuscripts, journals, speeches, newspapers, interviews, memoirs, government documents, photographs, audio recordings, film or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, and tools.

Example:

Letter written by George Mason to John Mason

Credit: George Mason Primary Resources Guide

Jessie Ball duPont Library

History 323: The Many Faces of Sewanee

Subject Guide

Best Primary Source Collections for History 229

Primary Resources

What Are Primary Resources