duPont Library: Primary Historical Sources: North America

North America - 1700's and Before

America's Historical Documents
Time period: 1776-1970
Location: North America
A selection of twenty important documents of American history from the National Archives.
Includes the Declaration of Independence, Louisiana Purchase, Social Security Act, A letter from Jackie Robinson, Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and more.
America's Historical Imprints - Evans
Time period: 1639-1800
Location: North America
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides covering American life from the 17th and 18th centuries. Part of the Archive of Americana.
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 Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Time period: 1749-1900
Location: North America
Rare printed pages that were created in response to specific popular or newsworthy issues and events, vividly capture the daily lives of earlier Americans in a unique way. Note: Searching is combined with America's Historical Imprints so choose that option from the menu after you connect.
The subjects of broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Also offers autobiographies and dying confessions of convicted criminals, theater playbills, sheet almanacs, publishers’ prospectuses, advertisements, newspaper carriers’ addresses, patriotic and popular songs and poems and items illustrating political party organizations and controversies. Search interface is Readex.
American Periodicals
Time period: 1740-1940
Location: North America
Contains digitized images of the pages of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Search interface: ProQuest.
American State Papers
Time period: 1789-1838
Location: North America
Legislative and executive documents from the first 14 U.S. Congresses. Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank.
Ancestry Library Edition
Time period: 1621-present
Location: North America; Europe
A searchable text and image database of family history and genealogy materials, including census and voter data; birth, marriage, and death records; immigration records including passenger lists; naturalization records; selected court, land and probate records; German emigration records; United States border crossing information; and United States military and draft records. Note: this academic version of Ancestry.com does not include some of the sources and functionality of the personal subscription version such as the ability to create a family tree. Available from on-campus only.
The bulk of the census data included is from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Western Europe; there are also a limited number of censuses from other parts of the world and U.S. state censuses. Includes data from 1621 to present, although the latest census information dates from 1940.
Archive of Americana
Time Period: 1690-1980
Location: North America
Digitized books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries. Contains several primary source collections: America's Historical Imprints, America's Historical Newspapers, American State Papers, U.S. Congressional Serial Set, House and Senate Journals, Senate Executive Journals.
Search interface: Readex
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Time Period: 1777-1963
Location: North America
A collection of digitized pages of newspapers from many states in the U.S. published between 1836 and 1922. Also includes directory information about American newspapers published between 1690 and the present.
Sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
Documenting the American South
Time Period: 1600s-1940
Location: North America
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
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.
America's Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment
Time Period: 1534-1860
Location: North America
A collection of primary sources (original accounts, letters, logbooks, diaries and journals) from early North America that have descriptions of North America, either its natural features or interactions among various cultural groups - including Native Americans, and Europeans. Date range: 1534-1860.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Time Period: 1473-1700
Location: North America, Europe
A collection of digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
Sources: Early English Books I (Pollard & Redgrave, STC I), 1475-1640, Early English Books II (Wing, STC II), 1641-1700, Thomason Tracts.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Time Period: 1701-1800
Location: North America, Europe
A digitized collection of 150,000 English and foreign language books, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera published in the U.K. and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. Content is presented as full text page images which can be viewed online or downloaded as PDF documents. With full-text searching of approximately 26 million pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
The collection is an ongoing project based on The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private, and public libraries worldwide. Search interface: Gale InfoTrac.
Empire Online
Time Period: 1492-2007
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of "Empire" and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. It is organized into the following five thematic sections:I) Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; II) Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire; III) The Visible Empire; IV) Religion & Empire; and V) Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c1607-2007. Each section features essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays relate directly to the source material covered by the resource, with 30-50 links per essay to documentary evidence.
History Matters: Many Pasts
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.
House and Senate Journals, Series I: 1789-1817
Time Period: 1789-1817
Location: North America
Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank. A collection of the journals of the United States House and Senate from 1789-1817. "Journals are the minutes of the meetings of each chamber of the Congress - an official record of business on petitions, memorials, motions, bills, resolutions, and the votes on them."
Search interface: Readex.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
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.
Making of the modern world, Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1450-1945
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa
Provides digital facsimile images of books, serials, pamphlets, essays and other unique primary sources that track the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Has full-text searching across millions of pages of works from the period 1450-1850. Provides material for research in the areas of history, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies and more.
Part I is based on Gale's microfilm collection: Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women and Transnational Networks (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1797-1947
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions. Includes serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Time Period: 1715-1950
Location: North America
Searchable text of 150,000 pages of diaries and letters from 1,325 American and Canadian women from colonial times to 1950.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Time Period: ~1400-present (constantly updating, but usually a little behind present events)
Location: North America
A collection of scholarly resources focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 8,000 articles from Oxford reference sources, over 1,750 images, more than 300 primary sources with specially written commentaries, and nearly 150 maps. 150 charts and tables offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts. Licensed for only one user at a time. You may have to choose the University of the South as your institution after reaching the site in order to gain access.
Includes the full text of the following Oxford reference sources: - Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present - Black Women in America, Second Edition - African American National Biography Also, contains selected content from other Oxford publications.
Tennessee Virtual Archive
Time Period: mid-1700s to mid-1900s
Location: North America
A digital repository of Tennessee history and culture. Provides a searchable array of digitized historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other original materials of enduring value.
A program of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Time Period: 1492-1980
Location: North America, South America
The Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century offer a range of content for the region, providing opportunities for research into issues and events in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean history, as well as historical perspective back to the colonial period. Coverage extends from the 15th to 20th century, providing information about the indigenous peoples of the region, the Conquest (la Conquista), colonial rule, religion, struggles for independence, and political, economic, and social progress and issues in newly independent nations.
The archive is made up of more than 1.3 million pages of historical material across 33 archival collections from the United States and Europe. The historical collections provide original manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, ephemera, and more from sources such as:

Brazil's Popular Groups, 1966-1986
Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista Y Organización de Las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de America Y Oceania. -- Madrid : M.B. de Quyros, 1864-1884
Conquistadors: The Struggle for Colonial Power in Latin America, 1492-1825
Despatches From U.S. Consuls in Havana, Cuba, 1783-1906
Latin American History and Culture: An Archival Record, Series 1: The Yale University Collection of Latin American Manuscripts, Parts 1-7
Latin American and Iberian biographies
Latin American Independence: Nineteenth Century Political and Official Pamphlets
Mexican and Central American Political and Social Ephemera
Papers of Agustin de Iturbide, 1799-1880
US State Department records on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and more
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Time Period: 1600-2000
Location: North America
A collection of digitized primary sources that document women's activism in United States public life. The collection includes books, images, pamphlets, advice literature, training guides, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, bibliographies, publications of state and local commissions on women, and ephemera.
There are multiple ways to identify relevant documents within the database. The database contains over 130 Document Projects, each of which consists of an interpretive question and a series of primary source documents that address that question. The database also includes an index of people, an index and dictionary of social movements, a chronology of U.S. women’s history, indexing by organization, and indexing by subject. Additional features include reflections by present-day scholars of women’s history, book reviews, teaching strategies, the biographical dictionary Notable American Women, and the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States.

North America - 1800's

History Commons
Time period: 1827-1923
Location: North America
Diverse primary source materials reflecting broad views across American history and culture have been assembled into comprehensive databases. These databases allow access to the rich store of materials from leading books, newspapers, and periodicals.
Collections include: African American Newspapers, African American Newspapers in the South, American County Histories, American Inventor, Anatomy of Protest in America (1701-1928), Colonial Newspapers, Frank Leslie's Weekly, Native Americans in History, North American Women's Magazines & Newspapers, Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue, Quarantine and Disease Control in American, The Civil War Collection, Women's Suffrage Collection, and World War I: Military Camp Newspapers.
America's Historical Documents
Time period: 1776-1970
Location: North America
A selection of twenty important documents of American history from the National Archives.
Includes the Declaration of Independence, Louisiana Purchase, Social Security Act, A letter from Jackie Robinson, Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and more.
America's Historical Imprints - Evans
Time period: 1639-1800
Location: North America
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides covering American life from the 17th and 18th centuries. Part of the Archive of Americana.
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
Time period: 1801-1819
Location: North America
Books, pamphlets, and broadsides covering American life from the early 19th century. Part of the Archive of Americana.
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.
America's Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Time period: 1749-1900
Location: North America
Rare printed pages that were created in response to specific popular or newsworthy issues and events, vividly capture the daily lives of earlier Americans in a unique way. Note: Searching is combined with America's Historical Imprints so choose that option from the menu after you connect.
The subjects of broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Also offers autobiographies and dying confessions of convicted criminals, theater playbills, sheet almanacs, publishers’ prospectuses, advertisements, newspaper carriers’ addresses, patriotic and popular songs and poems and items illustrating political party organizations and controversies. Search interface is Readex.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
Time period: 1861-1877
Location: North America
A searchable collection of diaries, letters, and memoirs by over 2,000 authors. Among the 10,000 digitized pages are 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. Also includes biographies, an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database, and material licensed from The Civil War Day-by-Day by E.B. Long.
American Periodicals
Time period: 1740-1940
Location: North America
Contains digitized images of the pages of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Search interface: ProQuest.
American State Papers
Time period: 1789-1838
Location: North America
Legislative and executive documents from the first 14 U.S. Congresses. Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank.
Ancestry Library Edition
Time period: 1621-present
Location: North America; Europe
A searchable text and image database of family history and genealogy materials, including census and voter data; birth, marriage, and death records; immigration records including passenger lists; naturalization records; selected court, land and probate records; German emigration records; United States border crossing information; and United States military and draft records. Note: this academic version of Ancestry.com does not include some of the sources and functionality of the personal subscription version such as the ability to create a family tree. Available from on-campus only.
The bulk of the census data included is from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Western Europe; there are also a limited number of censuses from other parts of the world and U.S. state censuses. Includes data from 1621 to present, although the latest census information dates from 1940.
Archive of Americana
Time Period: 1690-1980
Location: North America
Digitized books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries. Contains several primary source collections: America's Historical Imprints, America's Historical Newspapers, American State Papers, U.S. Congressional Serial Set, House and Senate Journals, Senate Executive Journals.
Search interface: Readex
Black Studies Center
Time Period: 1827-1975
Location: North America, Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania
Essays, primary sources, biographies, timelines, and other materials including documents from historic newspapers and magazines for researching the past, present and future of African-Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable component databases.. Includes Black Studies Periodicals database and Black Literature Index 1827-1940. Supports Black Studies, History, Literature, Women's Studies and Religion. Time period: 1827-1975.
Includes Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience-- cross-disciplinary essays by today's leading scholars in Black Studies; backfiles of leading African-American newspaper, The Chicago Defender, 1910-1975;journals from Africa, the U.S., and the Caribbean; 110 black periodicals and newspapers between 1827-1940.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Time Period: 1777-1963
Location: North America
A collection of digitized pages of newspapers from many states in the U.S. published between 1836 and 1922. Also includes directory information about American newspapers published between 1690 and the present.
Sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
Civil War in Words and Deeds
Time Period: 1861-1865
Location: North America
These first-person accounts [personal narratives and regimental histories], compiled in the postwar period and early 20th Century period, chronicle the highs and lows of army life from 1861 through 1865.
This collection comprises, in its entirety, the Primary Source Media microfilm collection entitled Travels in the Confederate States. In addition, a small number of selected titles were included from the microfilm collection entitled Travels in the New South I, 1865-1900.
Civil War Primary Source Documents
Time Period: 1860-1900 (a few collections after 1900)
Location: North America
Civil War Primary Source Documents from The New-York Historical Society presents unique manuscript material chronicling all aspects of the American Civil War from warfare on land, at sea, in hospitals and prison camps, and reactions and impressions of the War from the home front. The collection, comprised of over 110,000 pages, focuses on the War as it was fought from 1861 to 1865 and represents both Northern and Southern perspectives. It also contains important contextual documents leading up to War and after its conclusion.
The collection provides researchers with access to letters; diaries; administrative records; photographs; illustrations; artifacts such as reading glasses, wooden boxes, and pocketbooks; various scrapbook journals; family portraits; and maps featuring hand-colored details of troop movements and local landmarks. Highlights from the collection include the papers of David Cronin, a famous soldier and artist; the letters of three soldier-brothers to their family back home in the Lyon family papers, soldiers' diaries chronicling daily life and experiences as prisoners of war; women's diaries discussing life on the home front; accounts from famous people, such as Ulysses S. Grant’s letters regarding the fall of Richmond; collections of records from Confederate and Union regiments; Union Defense Committee records; Confederate Army records; and records of the Provost Marshal of the 7th congressional district.
Confederate newspapers: a collection from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama
Time Period: 1861-1865
Location: North America
This collection is a mixture of issues and papers from Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, and Alabama ranging from 1861-1865. These newspapers "recorded the real and true history of public opinion during the war."
Digital Library of Appalachia
Time Period: ~1800-2000
Location: North America
Provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.
Documenting the American South
Time Period: 1600s-1940
Location: North America
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
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.
America's Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment
Time Period: 1534-1860
Location: North America
A collection of primary sources (original accounts, letters, logbooks, diaries and journals) from early North America that have descriptions of North America, either its natural features or interactions among various cultural groups - including Native Americans, and Europeans. Date range: 1534-1860.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Time Period: 1701-1800
Location: North America, Europe
A digitized collection of 150,000 English and foreign language books, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera published in the U.K. and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. Content is presented as full text page images which can be viewed online or downloaded as PDF documents. With full-text searching of approximately 26 million pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
The collection is an ongoing project based on The English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC), a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private, and public libraries worldwide. Search interface: Gale InfoTrac.
Empire Online
Time Period: 1492-2007
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of "Empire" and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. It is organized into the following five thematic sections:I) Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; II) Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire; III) The Visible Empire; IV) Religion & Empire; and V) Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c1607-2007. Each section features essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays relate directly to the source material covered by the resource, with 30-50 links per essay to documentary evidence.
Historic American Sheet Music
Time Period: 1850-1920
Location: North America
A collection of digital images of 3042 pieces of sheet music published in the United States between 1850 and 1920, from the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
History Matters: Many Pasts
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.
House and Senate Journals, Series I: 1789-1817
Time Period: 1789-1817
Location: North America
Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank. A collection of the journals of the United States House and Senate from 1789-1817. "Journals are the minutes of the meetings of each chamber of the Congress - an official record of business on petitions, memorials, motions, bills, resolutions, and the votes on them."
Search interface: Readex.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
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.
Making of America
Time Period: 1850-1877
Location: North America
A collection of primary sources in American social history from the mid-19th century. Includes monographs and serials. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Also includes general interest materials from the time period.
Making of the modern world, Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1450-1945
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa
Provides digital facsimile images of books, serials, pamphlets, essays and other unique primary sources that track the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Has full-text searching across millions of pages of works from the period 1450-1850. Provides material for research in the areas of history, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies and more.
Part I is based on Gale's microfilm collection: Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University.
Medical Services and Warfare: 1850-1927
Time Period: 1850-1949
Location: Europe, North America, Africa, Oceania
Medical Services and Warfare tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives. Material has been sourced from across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada to enable comparisons on key areas of systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment. The three conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War.
Note: this database was sold in two parts: Module 1: 1850-1927, and Module 2: 1928-1949. The library only purchased Module 1.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women and Transnational Networks (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1797-1947
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions. Includes serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Time Period: 1715-1950
Location: North America
Searchable text of 150,000 pages of diaries and letters from 1,325 American and Canadian women from colonial times to 1950.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Time Period: ~1400-present (constantly updating, but usually a little behind present events)
Location: North America
A collection of scholarly resources focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 8,000 articles from Oxford reference sources, over 1,750 images, more than 300 primary sources with specially written commentaries, and nearly 150 maps. 150 charts and tables offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts. Licensed for only one user at a time. You may have to choose the University of the South as your institution after reaching the site in order to gain access.
Includes the full text of the following Oxford reference sources: - Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present - Black Women in America, Second Edition - African American National Biography Also, contains selected content from other Oxford publications.
Proquest Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1851-1997
Location: North America
Includes The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945); The Christian Science Monitor (1908-1997), The New York Times (1851-2007), The Wall Street Journal (1889-1993), The Washington Post (1877-1994.)
Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the enforcement of federal law in the South, 1871-1884
Time Period: 1871-1884
Location: North America
This collection on law and order documents the efforts of district attorneys from southern states to uphold federal laws in the states that fought in the Confederacy or were Border States. This publication includes their correspondence with the attorney general as well all other letters received by the attorney general from the states in question during that period, including the correspondence of marshals, judges, convicts, and concerned or aggrieved citizens. Content: 59,185 images. Date Range: 1871-1884. Source Library: U.S. National Archives.
Tennessee Virtual Archive
Time Period: mid-1700s to mid-1900s
Location: North America
A digital repository of Tennessee history and culture. Provides a searchable array of digitized historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other original materials of enduring value.
A program of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Time Period: 1817-1980
Location: North America
Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank. A collection of reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes. Content covers 1817-1980. The maps published as part of the U. S. Congressional Serial Set publications are also searchable. This is a rich source of primary source material on all aspects of American history.
Search interface: Readex.
Volunteer Voices
Time Period: around 1800-1993
Location: North America
Volunteer Voices provides access to digitized primary sources, such as photographs, letters, diaries, oral histories, and other artifacts, documenting the history and culture of Tennessee. The collection includes materials from archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums from across the state.
Women and Social Movements, International -- 1840 to present
Time Period: 1840-2011
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women's international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women's international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. It is also rich in online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations. Covered topics include war and peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, women's rights and gender inequality.
Women Working: 1800-1930
Time Period: 1800-1930
Location: North America
A collection of digitized books, magazines, photographs, manuscripts, personal papers, and institutional records about women and work in the United States. Includes approximately 650,000 digitized pages and nearly 1,500 images, including 3,000 pages of manuscripts and personal papers, and 7,000 pages of institutional records; more than 3,100 individually cataloged books, magazines, and trade catalogs; and well over 1,400 photographs, taken from the holdings of the Harvard University Library. The collection is an exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented.
Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Time Period: 1492-1980
Location: North America, South America
The Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century offer a range of content for the region, providing opportunities for research into issues and events in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean history, as well as historical perspective back to the colonial period. Coverage extends from the 15th to 20th century, providing information about the indigenous peoples of the region, the Conquest (la Conquista), colonial rule, religion, struggles for independence, and political, economic, and social progress and issues in newly independent nations.
The archive is made up of more than 1.3 million pages of historical material across 33 archival collections from the United States and Europe. The historical collections provide original manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, ephemera, and more from sources such as:

Brazil's Popular Groups, 1966-1986
Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista Y Organización de Las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de America Y Oceania. -- Madrid : M.B. de Quyros, 1864-1884
Conquistadors: The Struggle for Colonial Power in Latin America, 1492-1825
Despatches From U.S. Consuls in Havana, Cuba, 1783-1906
Latin American History and Culture: An Archival Record, Series 1: The Yale University Collection of Latin American Manuscripts, Parts 1-7
Latin American and Iberian biographies
Latin American Independence: Nineteenth Century Political and Official Pamphlets
Mexican and Central American Political and Social Ephemera
Papers of Agustin de Iturbide, 1799-1880
US State Department records on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and more
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Time Period: 1600-2000
Location: North America
A collection of digitized primary sources that document women's activism in United States public life. The collection includes books, images, pamphlets, advice literature, training guides, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, bibliographies, publications of state and local commissions on women, and ephemera.
There are multiple ways to identify relevant documents within the database. The database contains over 130 Document Projects, each of which consists of an interpretive question and a series of primary source documents that address that question. The database also includes an index of people, an index and dictionary of social movements, a chronology of U.S. women’s history, indexing by organization, and indexing by subject. Additional features include reflections by present-day scholars of women’s history, book reviews, teaching strategies, the biographical dictionary Notable American Women, and the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States.

North America - 1900's

History Commons
Time period: 1827-1923
Location: North America
Diverse primary source materials reflecting broad views across American history and culture have been assembled into comprehensive databases. These databases allow access to the rich store of materials from leading books, newspapers, and periodicals.
Collections include: African American Newspapers, African American Newspapers in the South, American County Histories, American Inventor, Anatomy of Protest in America (1701-1928), Colonial Newspapers, Frank Leslie's Weekly, Native Americans in History, North American Women's Magazines & Newspapers, Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue, Quarantine and Disease Control in American, The Civil War Collection, Women's Suffrage Collection, and World War I: Military Camp Newspapers.
America's Historical Documents
Time period: 1776-1970
Location: North America
A selection of twenty important documents of American history from the National Archives.
Includes the Declaration of Independence, Louisiana Purchase, Social Security Act, A letter from Jackie Robinson, Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and more.
America's Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Time period: 1749-1900
Location: North America
Rare printed pages that were created in response to specific popular or newsworthy issues and events, vividly capture the daily lives of earlier Americans in a unique way. Note: Searching is combined with America's Historical Imprints so choose that option from the menu after you connect.
The subjects of broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Also offers autobiographies and dying confessions of convicted criminals, theater playbills, sheet almanacs, publishers’ prospectuses, advertisements, newspaper carriers’ addresses, patriotic and popular songs and poems and items illustrating political party organizations and controversies. Search interface is Readex.
American Periodicals
Time period: 1740-1940
Location: North America
Contains digitized images of the pages of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Search interface: ProQuest.
Ancestry Library Edition
Time period: 1621-present
Location: North America; Europe
A searchable text and image database of family history and genealogy materials, including census and voter data; birth, marriage, and death records; immigration records including passenger lists; naturalization records; selected court, land and probate records; German emigration records; United States border crossing information; and United States military and draft records. Note: this academic version of Ancestry.com does not include some of the sources and functionality of the personal subscription version such as the ability to create a family tree. Available from on-campus only.
The bulk of the census data included is from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Western Europe; there are also a limited number of censuses from other parts of the world and U.S. state censuses. Includes data from 1621 to present, although the latest census information dates from 1940.
Archive of Americana
Time Period: 1690-1980
Location: North America
Digitized books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries. Contains several primary source collections: America's Historical Imprints, America's Historical Newspapers, American State Papers, U.S. Congressional Serial Set, House and Senate Journals, Senate Executive Journals.
Search interface: Readex
Black Studies Center
Time Period: 1827-1975
Location: North America, Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania
Essays, primary sources, biographies, timelines, and other materials including documents from historic newspapers and magazines for researching the past, present and future of African-Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable component databases.. Includes Black Studies Periodicals database and Black Literature Index 1827-1940. Supports Black Studies, History, Literature, Women's Studies and Religion. Time period: 1827-1975.
Includes Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience-- cross-disciplinary essays by today's leading scholars in Black Studies; backfiles of leading African-American newspaper, The Chicago Defender, 1910-1975;journals from Africa, the U.S., and the Caribbean; 110 black periodicals and newspapers between 1827-1940.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Time Period: 1777-1963
Location: North America
A collection of digitized pages of newspapers from many states in the U.S. published between 1836 and 1922. Also includes directory information about American newspapers published between 1690 and the present.
Sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
Civil War Primary Source Documents
Time Period: 1860-1900 (a few collections after 1900)
Location: North America
Civil War Primary Source Documents from The New-York Historical Society presents unique manuscript material chronicling all aspects of the American Civil War from warfare on land, at sea, in hospitals and prison camps, and reactions and impressions of the War from the home front. The collection, comprised of over 110,000 pages, focuses on the War as it was fought from 1861 to 1865 and represents both Northern and Southern perspectives. It also contains important contextual documents leading up to War and after its conclusion.
The collection provides researchers with access to letters; diaries; administrative records; photographs; illustrations; artifacts such as reading glasses, wooden boxes, and pocketbooks; various scrapbook journals; family portraits; and maps featuring hand-colored details of troop movements and local landmarks. Highlights from the collection include the papers of David Cronin, a famous soldier and artist; the letters of three soldier-brothers to their family back home in the Lyon family papers, soldiers' diaries chronicling daily life and experiences as prisoners of war; women's diaries discussing life on the home front; accounts from famous people, such as Ulysses S. Grant’s letters regarding the fall of Richmond; collections of records from Confederate and Union regiments; Union Defense Committee records; Confederate Army records; and records of the Provost Marshal of the 7th congressional district.
Commercial and Trade Relations Between Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the U.S., 1910-1963
Time Period: 1910-1963
Location: North America, Europe
This collection of U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relates to commercial and trade relations beginning in the Tsarist Russia period and extending through Khrushchev period in Soviet history. It contains a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats including materials on treaties, general conditions affecting trade, imports and exports, laws and regulations, customs administration, tariffs, and ports of entry activities.
Czechoslovakia from liberation to Communist state, 1945-63
Time Period: 1945-1963
Location: North America
This collection documents the creation of the Third Republic, which was established after World War II, and differed markedly from the First Republic of 1918. The Third Republic was created as a result of a compromise between pre-war Czechoslovak Republic leaders and the Czech Communist Party (KSC). The Republic's hopes were subverted by the KSC, which at the time had considerable popular support and the backing of the Soviet Union.
Digital Library of Appalachia
Time Period: ~1800-2000
Location: North America
Provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.
Documenting the American South
Time Period: 1600s-1940
Location: North America
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
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.
America's Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1690-1922
Location: North America
Search or browse early American newspapers including titles from all 50 present states. Includes the following collections:
Early American Newspapers, Series 1 (1690 - 1876), From Colonies to Nation
Early American Newspapers, Series 2 (1758 - 1900), The New Republic
Early American Newspapers, Series 3 (1829 - 1922), From Farm to City
Early American Newspapers, Series 4 (1756 - 1922), The Rise of Industry
Early American Newspapers, Series 5 (1777 - 1922), An Emerging World Power
Early American Newspapers, Series 18 (1825 - 1879), Racial Awakening in the Northeast
Early American Newspapers, Series 19 (1766 - 1877), The Politics of Race in the South
Empire Online
Time Period: 1492-2007
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of "Empire" and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. It is organized into the following five thematic sections:I) Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; II) Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire; III) The Visible Empire; IV) Religion & Empire; and V) Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c1607-2007. Each section features essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays relate directly to the source material covered by the resource, with 30-50 links per essay to documentary evidence.
Fight for racial justice and the Civil Rights Congress
Time Period: 1946-1955
Location: North America
The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was established in 1946 to, among other things, "combat all forms of discrimination against ... labor, the Negro people and the Jewish people, and racial, political, religious, and national minorities." CRC campaigns helped pioneer many of the tactics that civil rights movement activists would employ in the late 1950s and 1960s. The CRC folded in 1955 under pressure from the U.S. Attorney General and the House Un-American Activities Committee, which accused the organization of being subversive.
The records in this collection represent the files of the national office of the Congress, based in New York City, including several hundred case files; publications produced and received by the Congress; files of the Literature Department; Executive Director William Patterson’s correspondence files; correspondence and other materials from Civil Rights Congress chapters around the country, including case files of the New York chapter; and files of the New York headquarters of the Communist Party of the United States of America, created during the trial of twelve Communist leaders, 1948-1949, including two black members, Benjamin J. Davis and Henry Winston, consisting of correspondence, transcripts, legal briefs, and printed material.
Historic American Sheet Music
Time Period: 1850-1920
Location: North America
A collection of digital images of 3042 pieces of sheet music published in the United States between 1850 and 1920, from the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.
History Matters: Many Pasts
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.
Immigrations, migrations and refugees: global perspectives, 1941-1996.
Time Period: 1941-1996
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
A searchable digital archive that covers all aspects of 20th-century human migration. The news and analysis comes from reports gathered every day between the early 1940s and 1996 by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA . These include translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts (transcripts), newspapers, periodicals and government documents.
Integration of Alabama schools and the U.S. military, 1963
Time Period: 1963
Location: North America
The dramatic confrontation between the governor of Alabama and the president of the United States in June 1963 resulted in the federalization of the entire Alabama National Guard. The imposition of federal law allowed two black students admission into the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. This archive details Operation Oak Tree, the codename for the Army’s plans to intervene in Alabama in the event of civil disturbances related to school integration in May 1963. Operation Palm Tree extended the operation over a wider area. The documents in this collection are sourced from the Records of the Department of the Army, in the custody of the National Archives of the United States.
This archive consists of documents comprising RG 319: Records of the Army Staff, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Operations, Domestic Disturbance Files: Records of Operations "Oak Tree" and "Palm Tree," 1963.
James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the integration of the University of Mississippi
Time Period: 1961-1962
Location: North America
Contains 8,792 digital page images reproducing FBI documentation on James Meredith's battle to enroll at The University of Mississippi in 1962 and white political and social backlash, including his correspondence with the NAACP and positive and negative letters he received from around the world during his ordeal.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
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.
Literature, culture and society in Depression era America: archives of the Federal Writers' Project
Time Period: 1933-1943
Location: North America
The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) was the most controversial and contentious program of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), an integral part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s "New Deal." This collection presents the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) publications of all 47 states involved in the project, which ran from 1933 to 1943. Forming the most complete collection of publications from all participating states, this archive contains more than 450 individual items, many of which are typed or mimeographed and received only limited circulation. This unique collection of the publications of the FWP provides scholars with an extremely lively and detailed picture of life in America during the Great Depression. Almost every aspect of life is covered from industry and labor relations, through welfare and government, to sports and hobbies.
The contents of this collection constitutes the Harvester Microfilm product entitled Archives of the Federal Writers Project, Series One: Printed and Mimeograph Publications in the Surviving FWP Files, 1933-1943, excluding State Guides.
Making of the modern world, Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1450-1945
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa
Provides digital facsimile images of books, serials, pamphlets, essays and other unique primary sources that track the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Has full-text searching across millions of pages of works from the period 1450-1850. Provides material for research in the areas of history, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies and more.
Part I is based on Gale's microfilm collection: Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University.
Medical Services and Warfare: 1850-1927
Time Period: 1850-1949
Location: Europe, North America, Africa, Oceania
Medical Services and Warfare tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives. Material has been sourced from across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada to enable comparisons on key areas of systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment. The three conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War.
Note: this database was sold in two parts: Module 1: 1850-1927, and Module 2: 1928-1949. The library only purchased Module 1.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women and Transnational Networks (Gale Primary Sources)
Time Period: 1797-1947
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions. Includes serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Time Period: 1715-1950
Location: North America
Searchable text of 150,000 pages of diaries and letters from 1,325 American and Canadian women from colonial times to 1950.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Time Period: ~1400-present (constantly updating, but usually a little behind present events)
Location: North America
A collection of scholarly resources focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 8,000 articles from Oxford reference sources, over 1,750 images, more than 300 primary sources with specially written commentaries, and nearly 150 maps. 150 charts and tables offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts. Licensed for only one user at a time. You may have to choose the University of the South as your institution after reaching the site in order to gain access.
Includes the full text of the following Oxford reference sources: - Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present - Black Women in America, Second Edition - African American National Biography Also, contains selected content from other Oxford publications.
Post-War Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945-1950
Time Period: 1945-1950
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Includes primary sources for the study and understanding of the challenges facing the European peoples in the aftermath of World War II. Covers the politics and administration of the refugee crisis in Europe after World War II as well as the day-to-day survival of the refugees themselves.
Proquest Historical Newspapers
Time Period: 1851-1997
Location: North America
Includes The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945); The Christian Science Monitor (1908-1997), The New York Times (1851-2007), The Wall Street Journal (1889-1993), The Washington Post (1877-1994.)
Ralph J. Bunche Oral Histories Collection on the Civil Rights Movement
Time Period: 1960-1973
Location: North America
The Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection (formerly the Civil Rights Documentation Project) from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is a unique resource for the study of the era of the American civil rights movement. Included here are transcriptions of close to 700 interviews with those who made history in the struggles for voting rights, against discrimination in housing, for the desegregation of the schools, to expose racism in hiring, in defiance of police brutality, and to address poverty in the African American communities. Content: 27,002 images. Date Range: 1967-1973 (covers the 1950s through early 1970s).
Source Library: Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D. C.
Tennessee Virtual Archive
Time Period: mid-1700s to mid-1900s
Location: North America
A digital repository of Tennessee history and culture. Provides a searchable array of digitized historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other original materials of enduring value.
A program of the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set
Time Period: 1817-1980
Location: North America
Part of the Archive of Americana from NewsBank. A collection of reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes. Content covers 1817-1980. The maps published as part of the U. S. Congressional Serial Set publications are also searchable. This is a rich source of primary source material on all aspects of American history.
Search interface: Readex.
Volunteer Voices
Time Period: around 1800-1993
Location: North America
Volunteer Voices provides access to digitized primary sources, such as photographs, letters, diaries, oral histories, and other artifacts, documenting the history and culture of Tennessee. The collection includes materials from archives, historical societies, libraries, and museums from across the state.
We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
Time Period: 1961
Location: North America
Contains over 4,000 digitized pages of FBI reports and memoranda concerning the Freedom Rides of 1961. Freedom Riders were civil rights activists that rode interstate buses into the segregated South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States.
Women, War and Society, 1914-1918
Time Period: 1914-1918
Location: North America, Europe, Oceania
The First World War had a revolutionary and permanent impact on the personal, social and professional lives of all women. Their essential contribution to the war in Europe is fully documented in this definitive collection of primary source materials brought together in the Imperial War Museum, London. These unique documents - charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs, press cuttings, magazines, posters, correspondence, minutes, records, diaries, memoranda, statistics, circulars, regulations and invitations - are published in fully-searchable form, along with interpretative essays from leading scholars. Useful for the study of 20th-Century social, political, military and gender history.
Women and Social Movements, International -- 1840 to present
Time Period: 1840-2011
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women's international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women's international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. It is also rich in online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations. Covered topics include war and peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, women's rights and gender inequality.
Women Working: 1800-1930
Time Period: 1800-1930
Location: North America
A collection of digitized books, magazines, photographs, manuscripts, personal papers, and institutional records about women and work in the United States. Includes approximately 650,000 digitized pages and nearly 1,500 images, including 3,000 pages of manuscripts and personal papers, and 7,000 pages of institutional records; more than 3,100 individually cataloged books, magazines, and trade catalogs; and well over 1,400 photographs, taken from the holdings of the Harvard University Library. The collection is an exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented.
Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Time Period: 1492-1980
Location: North America, South America
The Archives of Latin American and Caribbean History, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century offer a range of content for the region, providing opportunities for research into issues and events in contemporary Latin American and Caribbean history, as well as historical perspective back to the colonial period. Coverage extends from the 15th to 20th century, providing information about the indigenous peoples of the region, the Conquest (la Conquista), colonial rule, religion, struggles for independence, and political, economic, and social progress and issues in newly independent nations.
The archive is made up of more than 1.3 million pages of historical material across 33 archival collections from the United States and Europe. The historical collections provide original manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, ephemera, and more from sources such as:

Brazil's Popular Groups, 1966-1986
Colección de Documentos Inéditos Relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista Y Organización de Las Antiguas Posesiones Españolas de America Y Oceania. -- Madrid : M.B. de Quyros, 1864-1884
Conquistadors: The Struggle for Colonial Power in Latin America, 1492-1825
Despatches From U.S. Consuls in Havana, Cuba, 1783-1906
Latin American History and Culture: An Archival Record, Series 1: The Yale University Collection of Latin American Manuscripts, Parts 1-7
Latin American and Iberian biographies
Latin American Independence: Nineteenth Century Political and Official Pamphlets
Mexican and Central American Political and Social Ephemera
Papers of Agustin de Iturbide, 1799-1880
US State Department records on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and more
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Time Period: 1600-2000
Location: North America
A collection of digitized primary sources that document women's activism in United States public life. The collection includes books, images, pamphlets, advice literature, training guides, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, bibliographies, publications of state and local commissions on women, and ephemera.
There are multiple ways to identify relevant documents within the database. The database contains over 130 Document Projects, each of which consists of an interpretive question and a series of primary source documents that address that question. The database also includes an index of people, an index and dictionary of social movements, a chronology of U.S. women’s history, indexing by organization, and indexing by subject. Additional features include reflections by present-day scholars of women’s history, book reviews, teaching strategies, the biographical dictionary Notable American Women, and the Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States.

North America - 2000's

Ancestry Library Edition
Time period: 1621-present
Location: North America; Europe
A searchable text and image database of family history and genealogy materials, including census and voter data; birth, marriage, and death records; immigration records including passenger lists; naturalization records; selected court, land and probate records; German emigration records; United States border crossing information; and United States military and draft records. Note: this academic version of Ancestry.com does not include some of the sources and functionality of the personal subscription version such as the ability to create a family tree. Available from on-campus only.
The bulk of the census data included is from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Western Europe; there are also a limited number of censuses from other parts of the world and U.S. state censuses. Includes data from 1621 to present, although the latest census information dates from 1940.
Digital Library of Appalachia
Time Period: ~1800-2000
Location: North America
Provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.
Empire Online
Time Period: 1492-2007
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of "Empire" and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. It is organized into the following five thematic sections:I) Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; II) Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire; III) The Visible Empire; IV) Religion & Empire; and V) Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c1607-2007. Each section features essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays relate directly to the source material covered by the resource, with 30-50 links per essay to documentary evidence.
History Matters: Many Pasts
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.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
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.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Time Period: ~1400-present (constantly updating, but usually a little behind present events)
Location: North America
A collection of scholarly resources focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 8,000 articles from Oxford reference sources, over 1,750 images, more than 300 primary sources with specially written commentaries, and nearly 150 maps. 150 charts and tables offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts. Licensed for only one user at a time. You may have to choose the University of the South as your institution after reaching the site in order to gain access.
Includes the full text of the following Oxford reference sources: - Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 - Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present - Black Women in America, Second Edition - African American National Biography Also, contains selected content from other Oxford publications.
Women and Social Movements, International -- 1840 to present
Time Period: 1840-2011
Location: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women's international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women's international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. It is also rich in online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations. Covered topics include war and peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, women's rights and gender inequality.
U.S. Newsstream
Time period: 1980-present
Location: United States
U.S. Newsstream (from ProQuest) enables users to search current U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s. This contemporary news collection delivers current, full-text news sources including newspapers, newswires, news journals, television and radio transcripts, blogs, podcasts, and digital-only websites. The collection offers access to major national sources including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN Newswires, and the Huffington Post. It also offers exclusive access to over 80 Gannett regional newspapers and includes hundreds of other local, regional, and national titles from throughout the U.S. All content can be searched together or separately.
The following U.S. regional collections are included:
- U.S. Midwest Newsstream
- U.S. Southeast Newsstream
- U.S. North Central Newsstream
- U.S. Northeast Newsstream
- U.S. South Central Newsstream
- U.S. West Newsstream
Key U.S. titles include:
- The New York Times (from 1980 forward)
- The Wall Street Journal (from 1984 forward)
- The Washington Post (from 1987 forward)
- Los Angeles Times (from 1985 forward)
- Chicago Tribune (from 1985 forward)
- The Boston Globe (from 1980 forward).
Newspapers.com: Southeast Collection
Newspapers.com Southeast Edition provides access to newspapers from the southeast United States including 2000+ historical and recent newspapers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Search or browse to find news, social pages, notices of births and marriages, obituaries, local sports, and comics. Of interest to historians, genealogists, family historians, researchers, and teachers.

Jessie Ball duPont Library

Primary Historical Sources

North America - 1700's and Before

North America - 1800's

North America - 1900's

North America - 2000's