Research Guides: Guide to Primary Sources: History, U.S.

Links to collections

U.S. History Primary Source Timeline
Explore important topics and moments in U.S. history through historical primary sources from the Library of Congress.
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Archive of historic programs of publicly funded radio and television across America. Also includes recorded interviews from programs such as Eyes on the Prize and others.
Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
Historical materials from Abraham Lincoln's Illinois years (1830-1861), including Lincoln's writings, speeches, and other materials on antebellum Illinois.

African Diaspora (1860-Present)
Primary and secondary sources on migrations and communities of people of African descent in countries around the world, from 1860-present
Focused on African diasporic communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, France, and the UK. Covers Movements and ideologies, including the Back to Africa movement and the Pan-African movement. Includes personal papers, organizational papers, government documents, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.

American Experience
American history series from PBS
American Jewish Committee Archives
Includes oral histories, historic films and TV shows, radio programs, and the American Jewish Year Book, 1899-present.
American Journeys
Eyewitness accounts of early American exploration and settlement. From the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Latinx Thought and Culture: The NPR Archive, 1979-1990
Collection of audio recordings, transcripts, and articles related to the Latinx community in the United States produced by National Public Radio

The American Presidency Project
Public documents and papers of US presidents.
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Also contain thousands of other documents such as party platforms, candidates' remarks, Statements of Administration Policy, documents released by the Office of the Press Secretary, and election debates.
The American Yawp Reader
Primary sources related to the American Yawp History textbook.
American Revolutionary War Maps
From the Boston Public Library
Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Center
Collections include music, speeches, interviews, radio broadcasts, and more.
Online Archive of California
Descriptions of primary resource collections of libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, universities, and museums throughout California.
Calisphere
Photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more from all ten campuses of the University of California and other California libraries, archives, and museums.
CARLI Digital Collections
Historic photos and primary documents from Illinois academic library collections.

Colonial State Papers (1574 - 1757)
Primary source documents covering the earliest English settlements in North America, encounters with Native Americans, piracy in the Atlantic and Caribbean, the trade in slaves, and English conflicts with the Spanish and French
Primary Source collections included:
Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers (Collection CO 1 from The National Archives) -
Papers presented to the Privy Council and the Board of Trade between 1574-1757, relating to England's governance and activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies

The Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739 -
bibliographic records on documents relating to the colonial past, some with abstracts and full transcriptions

Detailed Guide to this resource.

Chicago Collections
Collections of primary sources on the history and culture of Chicago. Collaboration of libraries, museums, and allied organizations in Chicago.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Michigan
Includes vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life. Atlases provide information on land use, settlement patterns, and early town and city plans.

Daguerreotypes at Harvard
Over 3,500 daguerreotypes from Harvard's photographic holdings.
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Includes early photographs of the moon, views of the first operations using ether as an anesthetic, rare portraits of African-born enslaved people, and more. Portraits include Horatio Alger, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Jenny Lind, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and James McNeill Whistler. The collections represent the work of pioneering daguerreotypists Mathew Brady, Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Adams Whipple, and others.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Primary sources from the Library of Congress covering all aspects of American life and history.

Digital National Security Archive (1945-Present)
Declassified government documents covering U.S. policy on critical world events, including military, intelligence, diplomatic, and human rights, from 1945 to the present.
Detailed Guide to this resource.

Digital Public Library of America
Millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the content provider’s website.
Digital Collections at the University of South Carolina Libraries
Primary source collections, including Audio & Oral Histories, Books & Pamphlets, Film, Images & Postcards, Manuscripts & Diaries, Maps, Newspapers, and Sheet Music.

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970
These fire insurance maps chart the development of over 12,000 US towns and cities and include large-scale plans of cities and towns. Maps were produced 1867 - 1970, and drawn at a scale of 50 feet to an inch, list street blocks and building numbers, and detail building outline, size and shape.
The Sanborn Map Company, founded in 1867, was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. These maps were created to assist fire insurance companies to assess risk associated with insuring a particular property.

Documenting the American South
Primary sources covering Southern history, literature, and culture. From the University of North Carolina.
Duke University Digitized Collections
Primary sources collections covering American History.
Farmworker Movement
Primary source accounts from those who worked with Cesar Chavez to build the farmworker movement (1962-1993).

Gilded Age (1870-1900)
Primary sources and documentary essays covering American life from end of the Civil War to the election of Theodore Roosevelt. Covers immigration and migration, racism and civil rights, labor and industry, women and universal suffrage, treatment of Native Americans, and the environment. Includes songs, letters, photographs, cartoons, government documents, and ephemera.

Gilder Lehrman Archives of US History
Primary Sources covering five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1896)
Women's interest periodical published from 1830-1878; created to entertain, inform, and educate American women.
Articles on “hearth and home,” dating and marriage, fashion, entertainment, recipes, health and hygiene, remedies, morality, jewelry, handcrafts, education, suffrage, African American and immigrant women, the role of women in foreign countries, brief biographies of leading personalities, literature, recipes and remedies, and more. Includes full color plates as they originally appeared.Over time, the periodical matured into a literary magazine, with book reviews, essays, poetry, and short stories by celebrated 19th century authors.
Harper's Magazine (1850-2000)
America's leading 19th century illustrated, general-interest monthly magazine.

Historical Maps of the United States
From the Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas Austin
Historical Maps Online
Maps charting the last 400 years of historical development in Illinois and the Northwest Territory.

History Vault
Primary sources and documents on 19th and 20th-century American history. Sources include digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and more.

Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that document voluntary immigration to the United States, from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.

Indian Claims Insight
History and documents of the Indian Claims Commission. Compiled docket histories with the ability search the full text of content related to each Indian claim. Includes docket books, court documents, cites treaties, related congressional publications, and maps.
Detailed explanation of this resource.
Nation/Tribe and State/Territory Histories provide comprehensive insight into the treaties, claims, testimony and decisions related to states and federally recognized Indian nations.
Docket History view shows the complete legal process for an individual claim including treaties, briefs, exhibits, testimony, decisions and more.

Internet Archive
Open and permanent access to historical collections in digital format for researchers and the public.
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“Books in this collection may be borrowed by logged in patrons for a period of two weeks. You may read the books online in your browser, or download them into Adobe Digital Editions, a free piece of software used for managing loans.”
Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
Photographs of Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese-Americans interned there during World War II, taken by Ansel Adams.
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The photographs include over 200 portraits, views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities (see Collection Highlights). When offering the collection to the Library in 1965, Adams said in a letter, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment....All in all, I think this Manzanar Collection is an important historical document, and I trust it can be put to good use."
Joseph Labadie Collection
One of the oldest and most comprehensive collections covering anarchism, anti-colonialist movements, antiwar and pacifist movements, atheism and free thought, civil liberties and civil rights, ecology, labor and workers’ rights, feminism, LGBTQ movements, prisons and prisoners, the New Left, the Spanish Civil War, and youth and student protest.
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Includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, printed ephemera and holdings of posters, photographs, sheet music, pinback buttons, and scrapbooks. Also includes archival and manuscript material, as well as recordings of speeches, debates, oral histories, and protest songs.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Primary sources from the Library of Congress covering all aspects of American life and history.

Literature, Culture and Society in Depression Era America: Archives of the Federal Writers Project
Collection of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) publications of all 47 states involved in the project, which ran from 1933 to 1943, and was a part of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), an integral part of Franklin D. Roosevelts "New Deal."

Making of America Books (Univ of Michigan)
Primary sources covering American social history, primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Approximately 10,000 books with 19th century imprints.
Making of America Journals (Cornell)
Primary sources covering American social history, primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Includes many old and rare journals.
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Title List:
The American Missionary (1878 - 1901)
The American Whig Review (1845 - 1852)
The Atlantic Monthly (1857 - 1901)
The Bay State Monthly (1884 - 1886)
The Century (1881 - 1899)
The Continental Monthly (1862 - 1864)
The Galaxy (1866 - 1878)
Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1850 - 1899)
The International Monthly Magazine (1850)
The International Monthly Magazine (1850 - 1852)
The Living Age (1844 - 1900)
Manufacturer and Builder (1869 - 1894)
The New England Magazine (1886 - 1900)
The New-England Magazine (1831 - 1835)
New Englander (1843 - 1892)
The North American Review (1815 - 1900)
The Old Guard (1863 - 1867)
Punchinello (1870)
Putnam's Monthly (1853 - 1870)
Scientific American (1846 - 1869)
Scribner's Magazine (1887 - 1896)
Scribner's Monthly (1870 - 1881)
The United States Democratic Review (1837 - 1859)
Making of America Journals (Univ of Michigan)
Primary sources covering American social history, primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Includes many old and rare journals.
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Title List:
American Jewess 1895-1899 (hosted on behalf of the Jewish Women's Archive)
Appleton's 1869-1881 (2 series)
Catholic World 1865-1901
DeBow's 1846-1869 (2 series)
Garden and Forest 1888-1897 (hosted on behalf of the Library of Congress)
Journal of the United States Association of Charcoal Iron Workers 1880-1891
Ladies Repository 1841-1876 (3 series)
The Old Guard 1864
Overland Monthly 1868-1900 (2 series)
Princeton Review 1831-1882 (3 series)
Southern Literary Messenger 1835-1864
Southern Quarterly Review 1842-1857 (3 series)
Vanity Fair 1860-1862
The Making of Modern Michigan
Statewide collaborative project of Michigan libraries; the goal is to create a digital collection about the Michigan history – including 20th century materials usually excluded from library digitization projects.
Michigan History Magazine
History magazine for professionals and enthusiasts alike, offering a variety of subject matter, time frames, and perspectives.
Moving Image Research Collections
Collection of films and videos produced outside the American feature film industry, including news film, home movies, and civil rights movement film footage.
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Main collecting areas: the Chinese Film Collection, Newsfilm Collections, Regional Film Collections, Science and Nature Films and Military Films Collections. Materials include local television news and commercials, home movies, cinemicroscopy nature films, and fiction and documentary films from the People's Republic of China.
From the University of South Carolina.
Menu Archive from the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library’s digital restaurant menu collection of over 45,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present; used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts.
National Archives Online Exhibits
From the US National Archives
National Archives Catalog (U.S.)
The U.S. Government’s collection of documents that records important events in American history. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the Government agency that preserves and maintains these materials and makes them available for research.
National Museum of American History
Search and browse primary sources and objects in the Smithsonian's collections relating to U.S. History.
National Security Archive (U.S.)
Repository of U.S. government records and declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, covering national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States. At George Washington University.
National Women's History Museum Online Exhbits
Online museum dedicated to uncovering, interpreting, and celebrating women’s diverse contributions to society. Exhibits include primary sources.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Prints, photographs, manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, illustrated books, printed ephemera, streaming video, and more from the New York Public Library Collections.
New York Historical Society Digital Collections
Primary sources on American History, with a focus on the East Coast.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
Provides the immigrant experience in the United States and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Collection of personal narratives, letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, oral histories, Ellis Island Oral History interviews, and political cartoons.
North American Indian Thought and Culture
Collection of Native American autobiographies, biographies, publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files.
Detailed explanation of this resource.
North American Womens Letters and Diaries
Collection of women’s diaries letters, and correspondence spanning more than 300 years, covering the personal experiences of hundreds of North American women.
American Newsreels in Video
US newsreel footage covering the years leading up to and during the Second World War, 1929-1946.
Over 35 hours of the American weekly newsreel produced by the U.S. Office of War Information from 1942 to 1946, complete with transcripts, from United Newsreel. Universal Newsreel provides over 200 hours of film with full transcripts from Universal Studios’ biweekly series that ran from 1929 to 1946.

Prelinger Archives
Thousands of "ephemeral" films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) made from 1927 through the present.
Pulp Magazines Project Digital Archive
Open access archive of all-fiction pulpwood magazines. The Project is dedicated to the study and preservation of these pulpwood magazines.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Library devoted to research, collection, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Located at the New York Public Library.
Michiganology
Records relating to the history of Michigan and its residents: state government records, stories chronicling the everyday lives of Michiganders, family history records, and educational materials.
From the Michigan History Center.
Shorpy Historic Photo Archive
Vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
Smithsonian Institution Collections
Browse or search the Smithsonian's collections, museums, archives, libraries, and research holdings. Includes images from current exhibits and historic collections.
Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives
Personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, films, works of art, and organizational records that document the history of art, culture, music, design, flight, space exploration, science and technology, landscapes and gardens, and native cultures in the United States.
Digital Collections at Stanford Libraries
Western Michigan University Digitized Collections
Collections of southwest Michigan local history documents and photographs.
White House Tapes
"Between 1940 and 1973, six American presidents from both political parties secretly recorded just under 5,000 hours of conversations. This site imakes freely available all of these presidential recordings, along with relevant research materials."
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The site is hosted and maintained by the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.
Women's Liberation Movement Print Culture
Collection documenting the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, with a focus on the radical origins of this movement. Includes manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials such as radical theoretical writings, to humorous plays, to the minutes of an actual grassroots group.
Women Working, 1800 - 1930
Focuses on women's role in the U.S. economy Collection includes historical publications, manuscripts, images, and more from Harvard University's library and museum collections.

Workers, Labor Unions, Progressives, and Radicals
Primary sources covering the American labor movement and workers since the Civil War, as well as other progressive and radical social movements.
Includes records of the Knights of Labor; the AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO; Socialist Party of America, Students for a Democratic Society, Americans for Democratic Action, and the American Jewish Congress. Documents major labor strikes such as the Pullman Strike of 1894, the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike, and the National railroad yardmen's strike; the 1955 merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); the 1962 Port Huron Statement by Students for a Democratic Society; and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including those demonstrations organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Worlds of Change Digital Collections from Harvard
Primary sources covering 17th- and 18th-century North America. Materials include personal correspondence, business ledgers, drawings, maps, illustrations, and government documents. From the Harvard Library archival and manuscript collections.

U.S. Civil War

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
100,000 pages of diaries, letters, and memoirs written 1861-1865 by the famous and the unknown, providing both Northern and Southern perspectives, and of foreign observers.

Antislavery Movement in Massachusetts
Photographs, paintings, sculptures, engravings, artifacts, banners, and broadsides from the Massachusetts Historical Society, illustrating the role of Massachusetts in the national debate over slavery.

Civil War Era
Primary Sources covering the US Civil War. Regional newspapers and pamphlets produced 1840-1865. Original document views available
Detailed Guide to this resource.
Civil War in Words and Deeds
Primary Sources on the US Civil War. Regimental histories and personal narratives chronicle US Civil War army life from 1861 through 1865.
Includes sources from "Travels in the Confederate States," and selected sources from "Travels in the New South I, 1865-1900."
Early Encounters in North America
Primary sources documenting the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. Includes published and unpublished accounts, narratives, diaries, journals, and letters on early encounters.

Ad*Access
Free database of historical Advertising Images (1911-1955) from Duke University
AdViews: Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commericals
Vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
Thousands of advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States. From Duke University.
Wishbook Catalog Archive
Vintage mail-order catalogs from Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JCPenney 1940-2017
Prelinger Archives
Thousands of "ephemeral" films (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) made from 1927 through the present.

Women's Magazine Archive
Complete archives of consumer magazines published for a female audience, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal. These magazines cover family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture, and provide canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. Publications are in high-resolution color.

Life Magazine via Google
Magazine know for excellent photography. Digitized issues back to 1935

Vogue Archive (1892 - current)
Digital Archive of the US edition of Vogue Magazine, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month.
Searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Pages, advertisements, covers and fold-outs have been included, with rich indexing enabling researchers to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world's greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.
Vogue Italia Archive (1964 - current)
Digital archive of Vogue Italia magazine - all issues from its 1964 launch to the present.
Detailed Guide to this resource.

Guide to Primary Sources: History, U.S.

Links to collections

U.S. Civil War

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