Research Guides: History: United States

Primary Documents Online - United States

United States - Primary Resource Links

The Burning of McPhersonville, South Carolina 1865

William Waud. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

American History

American Journeys - Subtitle: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
American History from Revolution to Reconstruction
American Memory
100 Milestone Documents - 1776 to 1965
American Colonist's Library - Heterogeneous collection of sources in American history from the beginning to the late-18th century. Browse the contents or search using Google Custom Search.
Archiving Early America - A commercial site, and not very comprehensive
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers - News stories: 1836-1922
Digital History - Colonial period to the present: look for documents by choosing "era" from the left sidebar, then "Documents" from the topbar.
Early Americas Digital Archives - EADA is a collection of documents from 1492-1820. It is two databases: the Archive (search the EADA Database) and the Gateway (search the Early Americas Web Gateway)
Emma Goldman Papers - Noted anarchist
Eyewitness to History - The "17th Century" page on this site lists a handful of brief annotated documents. See also buttons to other document lists: 18th century, 19th century, Civil War, Old West, 20th century - mainly American content
Hanover Historical Texts - Small collection of documents from colonial & US history organized chronologically: 17th - 20th centuries
Harvard Library Digital Collections - Four collections of use for American history research: Expeditions & Discoveries; Contagion; Immigration; & Women Working.
History Matters - An educator’s directory to internet resources. See the “Many Pasts” link to open >1000 primary documents
JFK Assassination Records - The National Archives is releasing documents previously withheld in accordance with the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.
Making of America - Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction
Modern History Sourcebook: Fordham University - On the Modern History page choose from the sidebar: Colonial North America, American Independence, US Civil War, US Power, US Society.
National Archives - Education site for resources about primary sources, activities for educators and students
National Humanities Center of History & Literature - On the Toolbox Library tab search for primary documents 1492-1912
Parallel Histories - Spain, the United States, and the American Frontier
Perseus Collection 19th Century Documents - A collection of 19th Century American papers and collections. Organized alphabetically by author.
Primary Documents in American History - Small collection of key documents from the period 1775-1870
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive - Court records, letters, sermons, diaries, etc. scanned in their original form and in readable transcription.
University of Northern Iowa Library: American History Sources - Use tabs to identify primary documents
Voices from the Great Hall - Historical addresses from Cooper Union's Great Hall, covering large portions of American history.
Windows on the Past - Some of the collections are not available to anyone except Cornell University users
Women Working 1800-1930 - Diaries, memoirs, pamphlets, magazines from Harvard University collections on the roles of American women in the economy

Witchcraft at Salem Village

From WA Craft's 1876 book: 'Pioneers in the Settlement of America'

Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain

American Polics and Law

AMDOCS - A chronological directory of sites containing American historical and political documents.
American Left Ephemeral Collection - Documents from the Socialist Party of the USA, Communist Party of the USA, etc.
AAEC Editorial Cartoons - >1000 cartoons from 1960s-1970s: Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate
American Presidency Project - Public papers, documents, addresses, executive orders, and press conferences of the presidents
Brown v. Board of Education - University of Michigan archive collecting documents from the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954
Core Documents of US Democracy - Congressional, presidential judicial, regulatory documents, etc.
Foreign Relations of the United States - 1861- 2000
George Washington Papers (1741-1799)
History and Politics Out Loud - Searchable archive of politically significant 20^th C American audio materials
James Madison Papers - US Presidential papers & images from 1723-1836
National Security Archive - Access to declassified records about U.S. national security, foreign policy, diplomatic and military history, intelligence policy

Lincoln Memorial

Image courtesy Jeff Kubina

Wikimedia Commons. No changes, CC License

War

The Atomic Bomb and the End of WWII - More than 70 source documents from the National Security archives on this seminal military use of atomic weapons
Guide to World War I Materials - Photos, documents, newspapers, and media links to the Library of Congress collection and to other external sites
Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War - Media archive of newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, military records, and population & agricultural censuses
World War II Pearl Harbor - A collection of documents on the war in the Pacific, and Pearl Harbor in particular
World Wars I & II: Poster Collection - "War bonds, rationing, enlistment, security, and morale are all topics treated" in this collection of poster art. Provides a fascinating and illuminating look at the use of images in war time.

Avenge December 7

US Office of War Information Poster, 1942

Reference is to the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

Ethnic Groups

BlackPast.org: African American History
African Americans: Online Primary Sources - Some links are available only to MSU students
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project - Links to images, text, and audio files of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.
Frederick Douglass Papers
Jet Magazine - Black American political & entertainment news; browse from 1950s

Regional

Digital Library of Georgia - Georgia's history in books, manuscripts, photographs, government documents, newspapers, maps, audio, & video.
Documenting the American South - Texts, images, and audio files of southern history, literature, and culture. Sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, & songs
Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930
Texas Slavery Project - Slave and slaveholder populations in Texas 1837-45
Triangle Factory Fire - Documents related to the 1911 deaths of women in a NYC sweatshop
North Carolina Digital Collections

The Great Fire of New York

Nicolino Calyo 1835

Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

Historical Newspapers: American

United States - Historical News

October 12 1792 issue of the Boston newspaper American Apollo

Published by Belknap & Hall

Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

Brooklyn Daily Eagle - Free access to the Daily Eagle (1841-1955) and to the society magazine Brooklyn Life (1890-1931) from the Brooklyn Public Library
California Newspaper Collection - 600,000+ pages from California news sources (1846-1922)
Chronicling America - Free access to millions of pages of American historical news sources. The collection is keyword searchable.
Colorado Historical Newspapers - 600,000+ pages from Colorado news sources from 1859-1923
Farm, Field and Fireside - A University of Illinois collection of US farm weeklies from the late 19^th & early 20^th centuries
Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press - Spanish language news publications from the American south-west and Mexico. Search by keywords or browse titles.
Historical Jewish Press - More than a million pages of Jewish news from different countries, time periods (1843-1987), and in several languages.
ICON (International Coalition on Newspapers) - Historic and recent news from around the world. Search by country. Not all titles are fully scanned; not all titles are available for free (look for the exceptions with the $-sign)
Kentucky Digital Library - This collection contains 300,000+ pages of news, but also contains images, oral histories, books and maps.
Lancaster County Historical Newspapers - Five newspapers from this Pennsylvania county, most content is from the 19^th century.
North Carolina Digital Collections - The page includes many other “collections” in the sidebar besides newspapers. Search by keyword or browse the papers
Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers - Text from a collection of state newspapers from the period 1831 – 1877 (coverage is not comprehensive). Pennsylvania State University
Richmond Daily Dispatch - Almost 1400 issues of the Dispatch available for the Civil War period – 1860-1865.
Utah Digital Newspapers - More than a million pages of news from nearly 100 Utah newspapers

Fleischmann's Yeast ad in the Times Dispatch

Richmond, Virginia. February 7, 1913

Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

Media History: Primary Resources

Media History Digital Library - More than a million digitized pages of text and images from media trade papers and fan magazines. Search using the "Collections Gateway" in the right sidebar.

Image (left) from the Fan Media Collection

Image (right) from the Global Cinema Collection

Gale / Cengage Collection

"Points to the Past" is an enormous collection of primary resource materials (nearly 200,000,000 pages of digitized content) that is available to you in full text. The collection includes maps, photos, newspapers, pamphlets, sermons, poems, and other resources. NOTE: This material is made available through BC Government funding and is accessible only from within British Columbia.

There are more than thirty collections of documents in the set. One of them - the "Gale NewsVault" - contains ten sub-collections of newspaper resources such as:

19th Century UK Periodicals: Empire
19th Century U.S. Newspapers
Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2005
Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006

The collection is predominantly related to records in British and North American history.

See all of the collection titles here.

Print Primary Sources: Series Titles

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Titles from the Bedford Series in History & Culture

The Library has several book series (both print and e-Book) that collect primary documents. Each series is made up of individual titles.

Series titles include:

Bedford Series in History and Culture

Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life & Thought

Canadian History Through the Press

Classics of Western Spirituality

Documentary History of American Life

Documentary History of the Jews in Italy

John Harvard Library

Loeb Classical Library

Manchester Medieval Sources

Records of Civilization

Rupert’s Land Record Society

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Popular Patristics

Sources of Civilization in the West

Sources of Early Christian Thought

Sources of History

Sources of Medieval History

Translated Texts for Historians

To browse the topics in each series use the "title" search option. Another way is to use the catalogue’s “Advanced search” option: enter the name of the series title (e.g. Bedford Series in History and Culture) and select the drop-down option “series (any word)”. This search will display all the titles in that series (there are 10 titles in the Bedford Series).

Norma Marion Alloway Library

History

Your Librarian

Chat with a Librarian (from TWU or other BC university)

Primary Documents Online - United States

Historical Newspapers: American

Media History: Primary Resources

Gale / Cengage Collection

Print Primary Sources: Series Titles