Primary Sources

Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina, this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

This collection of primary sources related to African American life and culture features 173 periodicals spanning from 1816 through 1922. It comprises newspapers and magazines, in addition to reports and annuals from various African American organizations, including churches and educational and service institutions.

Cross-search a multidisciplinary suite of streaming video and audio, music scores, film scripts and text collections. Videos can be linked or embedded and include full, searchable transcripts. Use Advanced Search to specify collections or choose parameters such as language or format.

Collections include:

• Academic Video Online: Premium
• Anthropology Online
• Border and Migration Studies Online
• Counseling and Therapy in Video
• Early Encounters in North America
• Engineering Case Studies
• Film Scripts Online
• Filmakers Library Online
• Music and Performing Arts Online
• PBS Video Online
• African American Music Reference
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries
• Theatre in Context Collection
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

Digital collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912 covering advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more.

A primary source collection of general interest magazines, trade publications, and professional journals published in America between 1741 and 1940. The collection covers three broad periods: America's transition from colonial times to independence; the early 19th century "golden age of American periodicals" including general interest magazines, children's publications, and journals for women; and Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction America.

Features digitized historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic history, literature and culture. Includes more than 1,100 digitized historical books, as well as Hispanic newspapers, political and religious pamphlets, and essays.
Also called: Latino-Hispanic American Experience Series 1

The Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers, and Thinkers: contains a digital collection of historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic history, civil rights, religious thought, and growing presence of women writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Contains over 250,000 pages of personal and archival manuscript collections, 3000 issues of rare historical newspapers and periodicals, and hundreds of rare books. Content is drawn from the “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project”.
Also called: Latino-Hispanic American Experience Series 2

Digitized primary source material concerning the African American civil rights struggle in two modules: Federal Government Records and Organizational Records and Personal Papers. Topics include African Americans in the military, Black workers in the era of the Great Migration, civil rights under different presidential administrations, FBI files on various African American individuals and organizations, the Tuskegee Airmen records, Mary McLeod Bethune papers, Claude A. Barnett papers, records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and more.

Includes over 587 journals that comprise the microfilm collection Early British Periodicals Series I and II. Covers topics in literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, and the social sciences.

DNSA contains a wealth of declassified primary documents relating to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945 obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Divided into more than 50 collections on Cuba, Mexico, South and Central America, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Iran, China, Korea, Vietnam, and other areas. Documents include memos, diplomatic dispatches, meeting notes, independent reports, briefing papers, White House communications, emails, and confidential letters. Also see National Security Archive homepage for Unredacted (blog) and news postings.

Based on Evans' American Bibliography, this database contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in the American Colonies or United States from 1639 through 1800. Includes an additional 1,100 titles from Bristol's Supplement to Evans.

Provides full text access to virtually every known book, pamphlet, and broadside published in the U.S. from the years 1800 through 1819. Also contains state papers and government materials; presidential letters and messages; and congressional, state and territorial resolutions. Based on the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.

Offers full-image access to more than 125,000 literary and historical works published in Great Britain and Ireland from 1475 to 1700. Included are titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue of printed materials published in the English language from 1475 to 1640; Wing's Short-Title Catalogue of works dating from 1641 to 1700; and Thomason Tracts, a compendium of broadsides on the English Civil War printed between 1640 and 1661. Also included are high-resolution images of original works by authors such as Malory, Spenser, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, Galileo, Purcell, Shakespeare, and Behn. Included are books, tracts, pamphlets, proclamations, almanacs, and calendars of interest to those researching history, literature, and the humanities.

Chronicles accounts of exploration, discovery, travel, environment, peoples, and cultures in North America from 1534-1850. Includes over 100,000 pages of published and unpublished material by 1,482 authors, including letters, diaries, memoirs, and accounts. The collection's focus is on present-day Canada and the United States with limited coverage of Mexico.

Based on The English Short Title Catalogue, a historical bibliography of works printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, ECCO provides more than 180,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800.

Current, authoritative information on world affairs at the country and region level, including economic, political, and geographic background information, as well as statistical data and analysis by country. Up-to-date directory information is provided for government and politics, society and media, business and commerce, and international organizations. Bibliographies for countries and regions provide sources for further reading. Only a few people can use this database at one time.

Digitally streams thousands of educational videos in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Business & Economics, Science & Engineering, Technology, and World Languages, as well as films on current newsworthy issues. Includes distributors such as Films for the Humanities & Sciences, BBC Worldwide Learning, NOVA, PBS, and HBO.

An extensive collection of mostly primary sources from the 1700s to the mid-20th century that trace the evolution of women's rights in the United States, Britain, Canada, continental Europe, and New Zealand, among other geographic areas. Topics include the nature and role of women, the historical and legal status of women, the education of girls and women, marriage and the family, employment of women, women and religion, women's voluntary associations, political and social reform, biography and autobiography, women writers, and more. Includes books and historical journals, with most materials in English, and others representing 14 additional languages.

Containing publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, legislative histories on landmark legislation, briefs from relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases, and more, this database covers civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans.

This timely database brings together essential periodicals, compiled legislative histories, CRS reports, Congressional hearings, United States Supreme Court briefs, monographs, and other related materials on the difficult and controversial topic of regulating firearms in the United States. It also includes an extensive bibliography and a balanced selection of external resources to further research this subject.

Covers the gay rights movement in America, showing the civil rights codified into law in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics are divided into subcategories including marriage and family, employment discrimination, military service, AIDS and health care, public spaces and accommodations, and historical attitudes and analysis. Includes primary sources and scholarly articles, subject-coded court cases, books, pamphlets, reports, as well as an interactive timeline.

Contains works published by the Justice Initiative including reports, handbooks, briefing papers, legal and policy submissions, and fact sheets exploring and advocating on issues of human rights and justice around the world.

Includes all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world, as well as materials on free African-Americans in the colonies and the U.S. before 1870. Search the entire database or browse by slavery statutes (state and federal), judicial cases, scholarly articles, e-books, bibliography, and external links.

A rich collection of research materials for genealogists and historians to trace family histories and American culture. Includes full-image population schedules from the U.S. Census (1790-1950), U.S. City Directories (1821-1989), U.S. Freedman's Bank Records (1861-1875), U.S. Indian Census Rolls (1885-1940), Canadian Census (1825-1921) and more.

Published annually since 1972, each volume in the Historic Documents Series includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Turn of the century files cover immigration of various groups to the United States, including Japanese and Chinese immigration, European immigration, and Mexican immigration between 1906-1930. There are also extensive files on the regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.

Extensive collection of digitized historical legal material and government documents. Includes publications of state, federal, and territorial governments of the U.S, as well as foreign and international legal and government materials and indigenous law. All documents are available full text in PDF. Date range: 14th-21st centuries. Title List.

Covers 1909-1972. Digitized primary source material from the NAACP. Content is organized into six modules documenting the NAACP's work on behalf of civil rights, including the fight for voting rights and campaigns against segregated education, discrimination and segregation in public places, residential discrimination, discrimination in the workplace and the armed forces, and the campaign against lynching, among others. Also included are the NAACP’s national organizational records and Legal Department files. Use Advanced Search for keyword searching or use the timeline to find records of significant events.

Extensive coverage of news, legal and business sources. Contains full text U.S. and foreign newspapers, broadcast transcripts, newswires; company, industry and financial information including Company Dossier, and legal sources for U.S. Federal and State case law, statutes, regulations and law reviews. Create a free profile (optional) to save searches and set up alerts. Updated daily. Coverage: 1975-current. 

Chronicles personal accounts of immigration to America and Canada from 1800-1950. Currently includes approximately 37,500 pages of material by 2,162 authors. When completed, the collection will contain over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories, many previously unpublished.

Chronicles various aspects of women's lives in North America from Colonial times through 1950. As the largest collection of women's diaries and correspondence in existence, it includes 150,000 pages of published and previously unpublished letters and diaries by 1,325 women authors. Limited biographical information is included.

Provides citations to nearly 14 million articles in the humanities and social sciences. Full-text articles are available from approximately 740 historically significant periodicals in disciplines such as anthropology, area studies, economics, education, history, linguistics and philology, literature, music and the performing arts, and sociology, among others. Includes full-text articles in languages other than English, with significant offerings in Spanish, French, and German.

Comprehensive full image coverage of U.S. Congressional publications 1789-present, Updated daily. Hearings (1824-present); Congressional Research Service Reports (CRS) (1916-present); House and Senate Documents/Reports (1817-present); Legislative Histories (1969-current); Bills & Laws (1776-present); Vote Reports (1987-present); Historical Maps & Images (1789-2007); Congressional Record (daily and bound versions) (1789-present); Regulations; Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations; Presidential Executive Orders.
Member profiles, committee assignments, financial disclosure statements and voting records.

Digitized historical primary and secondary source content in four curated collections exploring caste and social structure, literature, social and economic history, and women and gender. Includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, government documents, literary criticism, and creative works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Search across all four collections at once or search them individually.

A vast collection of primary sources, as well as document projects, that examine interpretive questions concerning U.S. women's history in social movements from colonial times through the twentieth century. Provides access to documents, images, books, chronologies, biographies, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies. New primary documents and document projects are added annually.

Full image historical and primary source documents from Mexico (including Texas/Tejas), Latin America and the Caribbean. Includes manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, maps, diaries, historical newspapers & monographs, pamphlets, Department of State diplomatic records and more. Collected from archives in U.S. and Europe. Materials in English, Spanish, Portuguese and other languages.

Don't let the name fool you! ArtSTOR is not just for art. Great images for History from the George Eastman House, Magnum Photo Archive, and elsewhere.