Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons: Find Primary Sources Online: American History : Primary Sources

American History & Society

50 Core Documents that Tell America's Story
A collection of important American historical documents.
100 Milestone Documents
Digital images of American historical documents, with transcripts. Courtesy of the National Archives.
The American Yawp (Stanford U.)
A two-volume open-access textbook that portrays American history from its indigenous beginnings to the present day through introductory essays and primary source readings.
Digital AAS (American Antiquarian Society)
Links to the digital collections of the AAS which collects materials on American life up to 1876, including digitized books, manuscripts, broadside ballads, and illustrations.
Documenting the American South (DocSouth)
Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
DPLA: Primary Source Sets
A searchable archive of primary source materials from all eras of American history.
Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA)
Native American and European texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project
Photos, music, oral histories, and videos regarding Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker Movement.
Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression
LOC: 71 Digital Portals to State History
A list of links from the Library of Congress to state archives across the United States.
LOC: Primary Documents in American History
Major documents from the Revolutionary War through the Progressive Era (1775-1920).
National Archives (United States): DocTeach
Primary resources for American history education, with activity tools,
Women Working, 1800-1930
A digital exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Courtesy of Harvard University.

17th Century Primary Sources

European Views of the Americas: 1493 - 1750 This link opens in a new window
A free archive of indexed publications related to the Americas and written in Europe before 1750. It includes primary source records covering the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. The collection represents a broad range of topics including the British, French, and Dutch in the Americas, natural disasters, religious orders, slavery, pirates, commerce and more.

Colonial North American Project at Harvard University
An ongoing project that will make available digitized images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America.
Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications
Contains primary sources such as letters, diaries, church records, and notebooks from the colonial era in Massachusetts.
Cornell University Library: Witchcraft Collection
A digitized collection of rare books on witchcraft, including 17th century texts on the Salem witchcraft delusion.
Digital AAS (American Antiquarian Society)
Links to the digital collections of the AAS which collects materials on American life up to 1876, including digitized books, manuscripts, broadside ballads, and illustrations.
Early Americas Digital Archive
Native American and European texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.
Isaiah Thomas Broadside Ballads Project
A collection of 300 ballads that were sold on the streets of Boston in the early years of the 19th century.
Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS)
Primary sources on Mass. history from the Colonial period to the present day.
New England Historic Genealogy Society Digital Collections (NEHGS)
Digitized documents related to the family lives of individual Americans, with an emphasis on the New England region.
Records of the American Colonies
Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors
Salem Witchcraft Papers
Original documents and transcriptions.

18th Century Primary Sources

The American Revolution and Constitution
A collection of 18th-century writings surrounding the American Revolution, the creation of the Constitution, and the Early Republic.
American Revolutionary War Manuscripts at the Boston Public Library
A digitized collection of handwritten manuscripts by participants and witnesses to the Revolutionary War.
Atlantic Black Box
This digital history project is dedicated to uncovering New England's deep complicity in the transatlantic slave trade. Resources include ship logs, census records, and insurance company documents, as well as links to indexes, databases, and local history projects that document the history of slavery in the region.
Colonial North American Project at Harvard University
An ongoing project that will make available digitized images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America.
National Archives: Founders Online
Over 185,000 searchable documents by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison.
Records of the American Colonies
Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Information on 36,000 slaving voyages.

19th Century Primary Sources

Boston Athenaeum Digital Collections
Digitized rare books, prints, photographs, maps, and archives, with an emphasis on Boston and New England history.
Boston Public Library Anti-Slavery Collection
Extensive collection of 40,000 anti-slavery writings in downloadable PDF format.
Digital AAS (American Antiquarian Society)
Materials on American life up to 1876, including digitized books, manuscripts, broadside ballads, and illustrations.
Documenting the American South
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Especially strong in 19th century texts.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Primary and secondary resources in the public domain. Individual pages must be saved as .jpeg images before printing (right-click to save).
Internet Archive
Films, audio recordings, and pre-1923 books.
Making of America
A digital library documenting American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
A vast collection of Union and Confederate military orders, correspondence, and maps.

20th Century Primary Sources

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
Provides background on the behind-the-scenes debates regarding the use of the atomic bomb, and the eventual decision to use it. Accompanied by scanned images of government documents.
Avalon Project
Documents in law, history, and diplomacy from the ancient world to the present day.
Berkeley Free Speech Movement Archives
The Free Speech Movement (1964-5) was led by UC Berkeley student Mario Savio. Students demonstrated and took over buildings for the right to engage in political activity on campus.
C-Span Video Library
Broadcasts of complete U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate proceedings. Also includes programs in which public policy is discussed and debated.
Civil Rights Digital Library
Primary sources on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, in a variety of formats.
Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 1878-1920
Important legislation and treaties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896); Treaty of Versailles (1919); and the 18th and 19th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Great Depression & New Deal: Primary Source Collections
An annotated list of links, courtesy of the Newton Gresham Library of Huntsville, TX.
Korean War: Military Resources
Primary source documents from the The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
National Security Archive (George Washington U.)
More than 100,000 formerly classified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Presidential Libraries and Museums of the National Archives
Access to online collections, including documents, videos, and photographs.
The Progressive Era: Primary Documents
Links to the texts of speeches by the leading social and political leaders of the day (1896-1916).
U.S. State Dept.: Access to Archival Databases (AAD)
Allows searching for declassified diplomatic cables.
U.S. State Dept.: Historical Documents
Provides access to the Foreign Relations of the United States series, with many volumes in downloadable e-book formats.
United Nations Archives
Covers four broad areas: the Secretaries-General, Secretariat Departments, Peacekeeping Missions, and Predecessor Organizations.
Vietnam War: Military Resources
Links to primary sources from the National Archives.
Wilson Center Digital Archive
Declassified documents from governments all across the globe. Especially strong in its coverage of the Cold War, 1947-1991.
World War I: Primary Sources
Courtesy of the University of Washington Libraries.
World War I Document Archive
Primary documents from international sources.
World War II: Primary Sources
A an extensive list of primary sources for the military history of World War II. Courtesy of the University of Washington Libraries.
World Wide Diplomatic Archives Index
Links to governmental archives from around the world.