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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Collection of reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes.
Guide to 200 of the best online primary source archives in world history with reviews.
Types of Primary Resources
This is a list of the most common types of primary resources in history. When searching for sources, you might watch for these terms to help you figures out if you have found a primary resource. You might also use these terms in your searches to help focus on a particular type of source or narrow down a large list of results.
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