LibGuides: History: Finding Primary Sources American History

Local News

Newspapers are an excellent place to go for primary sources. Use this Research Guide for California Newspapers. This primarily for the Central Valley, although some of these papers are from Los Angeles and San Diego. These are published in English, Spanish, and Russian.

So You want to find Local News?

Databases that include Primary Sources

Many of these databases also contain other source types, so make sure you use the limiters to filter results to the kind of content you're interested in.

African American Experience (ABC-CLIO)
An online database collection on African American history and culture Developed with the guidance of African American librarians and subject specialists
America History and Life (EBSCO)
Literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With selective selective indexing for 1,700 journals from 1955 to present, this database is without question the most important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history. America: History & Life with Full Text also provides full-text coverage of more than 200 journals and nearly 100 books.
American Indian Experience (ABC CLIO)
The American Indian Experience is an invaluable digital resource that provides in-depth historical accounts and cultural information about the indigenous peoples of North America.
Latino American Experience (ABC CLIO)
The first-ever database dedicated to the history and culture of Latinos, the largest, fastest growing minority group in the United States.
MasterFILE Complete (EBSCO)
Designed for public libraries, provides full text for nearly 1,700 general reference publications dating back as far as 1975 covering nearly every subject area. Also contains full text for nearly 500 reference books and over 164,000 primary source documents and over 500,000 images.

Selected Primary Source Websites for General U.S. History

These are some examples of online primary resource collections.

There are many university and government libraries and museums with online collections of primary source materials. Find these collections using Google.

To limit your results to sites that end with .gov, at the end of the words you enter in the search box, type site:.gov
To limit your results to sites that end with .edu, at the end of the words you enter in the search box, type site:.edu

You can even add the words library or archive to the end of the words you enter in the search box to see if a library out there has a collection on your topic, historical period, or historical figure.

If you have a collection you want to share, contact the librarians.

100 Milestone Documents Here is a link to a list of 100 important documents that the National Archives and Records Administration compiled regarding U.S. history from 1776 to 1965.
Accessible Archives Accessible Archives utilizes computer technology and a large team of conversion specialists to provide easy to use access to vast quantities of archived historical information previously available only in microformat, hard copy form or as images.
Africans in America Developed by PBS, this website traces the history of Africans in America through the Reconstruction period. For each era, find a historical narrative and a resource bank of images, documents, stories, biographies, and commentaries.
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History Developed by Lynn Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Kansas, AMDOCS provides links to documents related to American and U.S. political, diplomatic, military, and legal history. Documents range from the 1400s through 2009.
American Civil War Collections The University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center is home to a variety of primary source material on the American Civil War, including letters, diaries, and newspapers.
American History From Revolution to Reconstruction Developed by the University of Groningen's Computing in the Humanities department, the American History From Revolution to Reconstruction Project contains primary source documents related to American history from pre-1600 to the present.
American Memory The Library of Congress's American Memory has a growing collection of digitized primary source documents from different time periods in U.S. history.
American Presidency Project Developed by University of California Santa Barbara, the American Presidency Project has transcripts for presidential speeches and documents, as well as sound and video recordings.
American Rhetoric A trove of speeches.
The Avalon Project Developed by the Lillian Goldman Law Library of Yale Law School, the Avalong Project contains law, history, and diplomacy documents from ancient times through the 21st century.
Britain and the American Civil War "While war was fought on American soil, the conflict had global repercussions, with Britain playing an important strategic, commercial and diplomatic role." This collection highlights Britain's involvement.
C-SPAN Programs dating back to 1987.
Calisphere Discover over one million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more. devoted to California History. The collections on Calisphere have been digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state.
Chronicling America Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, Chronicling America allows you to search America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922. The U.S. Newspaper Directory helps to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Congress Members Who Owned Slaves The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents.
Cornell Digital Collections Digitized primary source documents. From Cornell University.
David Rumsey Map Collection
Digital History This website was designed and developed to support the teaching of American History in K-12 schools and colleges and is supported by the College of Education at the University of Houston.
Digital Public Library of America The DPLA is "a portal that delivers students, teachers, scholars, and the public to incredible resources, wherever they may be in America."
Discovering American Women's History Online Primary sources in women's history. From the Middle Tennessee State University.
Documenting the American South Primary resources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture. From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Harvard University Library Digital Collections Digitized archival images. Some are copyrighted; others are in the public domain.
Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights From the University of Maryland.
History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web This website was first developed in 1998 by the American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, with initial funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.
The Huntingon Free Library Native American Collection The Huntington Free Library Navtive American Collection has 91 native language dictionaries that were digitized by Cornell University.
Internet Archive Texts E-books in fiction, children's literature, academic texts, and historical documents.
JCB Archive of Early American Images The Archive of Early American Images from John Carter Brown University Library at Brown University is "[a] database of graphic representations of the colonial Americas, from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego, drawn entirely from primary sources printed or created between 1492 and ca. 1825."
Library of Congress Maps Collection
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog Historical prints and photographs. Most are in the public domain.
Making of America Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The project is a joint venture between the University of Michigan and Cornell University.
Mapping History Interactive and animated map representations of historical problems, events, developments, and dynamics. From the University of Oregon.
National Archives and Records Administration Scanned text and images. "All of the digital images that are available on [the] website are in the public domain."
National Security Archive From George Washington University.
Old Maps Online Search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. Search by typing a place-name or by clicking in the map window, and narrow by date. Funded by JISC. Many participating institutions. Many of these maps are in the public domain.
Perseus Digital Library 19th Century American Collection From Tufts University.
Project Gutenberg The biggest collection of public domain e-books on the web. Many classics and primary sources.
Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image (SCETI) Rare books and manuscripts. From the University of Pennsylvania.
Smithsonian Institution Check out the Folkways Collection, the Photography Initiative, and the Archives of American Art.
University of Chicago Digital Collections Digitized classics and primary source documents.
Vincent Voice Library Clips of American political speeches. From Michigan State University Libraries.
Women Working, 1800-1930 Digitized primary source documents in women's involvement in the US economy between the Civil War and the Great Depression. From Harvard University.
World Digital Library Digitized primary source documents from countries and cultures around the world. From the Library of Congress.
Yale University Library Digital Collections Photographs and digitized archival images. Some are copyrighted; others are in the public domain.