HISTORY: United States and Canada

“Based on Joseph Sabin’s landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900’s. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere.”

Includes the full text of diaries and letters of more than 100 women from the 18th and 19th centuries, with biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography on women’s narratives.

Full text letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters, centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico. Includes information on the peoples, places, environment, flora and fauna encountered. Of note are more than 9,000 Audubon prints from "The Birds of America" as well as the complete contents of the three-volume "The Quadrupeds of North America".

This site consists of online primary sources in the following areas:

• Abolition and Antislavery Movements Including the Underground Railroad
• Civil War Philadelphia
• Japanese American Internment and Redress
• Immigration and Ethnicity

Searchable database of citations and digitized images of the pages of more than 1100 American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century.

The Massachusetts Historical Society offers several digital collections from the Colonial period to the present, with an emphasis on Colonial, Revolutionary and Early Republic History.

Cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, reference books, and more.

The Library edition of Ancestry.com, Ancestry Library is a genealogical collection with coverage primarily of the United States and the United Kingdom (with some coverage of Canada, Europe, Australia and other areas of the world as well), including census, vital, church, court, and immigration records.

Empire Online contains several thousand searchable scanned images of original documents relating to Empire Studies. Includes documents from English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and German points of view, and that from indigenous peoples from Africa, India and North America. Sections also include thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) provides full-text searchable access to the digital images of 150,000 books and other materials published during the 18th Century. Based on the English Short Title Catalog bibliography, it includes English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.

This is a full-text collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides and periodicals published between 1639-1819. It combines two collections: “Early American Imprints Series I (1639-1800). Evans” and “Early American Imprints Series II (1801-1819). Shaw-Shoemaker”.

The EADA is a collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. Published by by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.

A full text collection of letters and diaries by hundreds of participants and witnesses to the Civil War. Includes biographies, bibliographies and a day-by-day record of events, all accessible via a detailed search engine.

Provides full-image reproductions of Harper’s Weekly from 1857-1912, one of the most important weekly magazines read by Americans during the 19th Century.

From 1935-1967, Time Inc. offered Americans views of significant historical events in their newsreel series The March of Time. Several hundred of these newsreels can be searched and viewed as streaming videos. Transcripts of these commercial, documentary, instructional and public service videos accompany the films. In support of research and teaching, the resource enables users to create, edit, and share playlists or film clips.

Started in 1942, the Bracero Program brought millions of Mexican guest workers to the United States, and over the next two decades, more than 4 million Mexicans came to work in the country. This public history resource from the Center for History and New Media at Georgetown University brings together oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the program. Visitors can read the “About” section to learn more about the program and its legacy and then move on to browse the documents. The document archive can be searched in its entirety, or users can also move through areas that include “Images”, “Documents”, and “Oral Histories”. Educators will want to look over the “Teaching” area, as it features three different learning activities which draw on the archive’s documents. Also, the “Resources” area includes a video tutorial on how to use the archive effectively and several interview questions for those who might know some former Bracero workers.

Provides streaming video access to the 60 Minutes news show archive for the third and fourth decades of this long-running show, plus segments from the CBS News program Sunday Morning. Includes transcripts of the videos for ease of citation, and a citation export feature. Topics include international and national news, politics, women’s studies, society and culture, and many more

Historic American newspapers from 1690-1900, parts 1 & 2: images and full-text content, drawn from the American Antiquarian Society and from the collections of other institutions and societies. Note: These parts can be searched separately using the following URLs. For Part 1: http://uclibs.org/PID/42513 For Part 2: http://uclibs.org/PID/275700 This search also includes UCD’s subscription to California’s Historical Newspapers which can be searched separately by clicking the link on the upper right of the search screen.

Searchable, full-text of the most important colonial and early national newspaper.

"The Virginia Gazette was the first newspaper published in Virginia and the first to be published in the area south of the Potomac River in the colonial period of the United States. Issues have the following subtitle: “Containing the freshest advices, foreign and domestick” Between 1776 and 1780 there were often two and sometimes three competing papers with the same name publishing simultaneously. All available copies are included here with the competitors described as Virginia Gazette 2 and 3.

Includes The South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1775; The South Carolina & American General Gazette, 1764-1775; The South Carolina Gazette & Country Journal, 1765-1775; The Gazette of the State34 of South-Carolina, 1777-1780

19th Century US Newspapers (NCNP) provides access to over 28 million articles of primary source newspaper content from the 19th-century, featuring full-text content and images from newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history,Western migration and the Antebellum-era among other subjects. Newspapers from all 19th-century U.S. states and territories are included.

Google has a growing collection of digitized historic and contemporary newspapers mostly from the U.S. and Canada. It’s hard to know exactly what is included, but this link goes to the alphabetical list of papers including the years covered and number of issues scanned.

Historical coverage of the New York Times from 1857-2016, with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue.

The Chicago Tribune is one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in the United States. Provides in-depth coverage during the Civil War period and includes many special editions such as the Lincoln Centenary Issue, honoring Abraham Lincoln. Part of ProQuest Historical Newspapers, this database delivers cover-to-cover full-images in PDF and searchable ASCII text.

Historical coverage of the Los Angeles Times, with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue in 1881 through 1995.

Historical coverage of the Philadelphia Tribune from 1912-2001, with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue.

Historical coverage of the Wall Street Journal 1889-2002 with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue.

Historical coverage of the Washington Post from 1877-1997, with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue.

Full text plus page images of the early decades of this important Southwestern Newspaper.

Full-text of seven 19th Century African American Newspapers: Freedom's Journal, The Colored American (Weekly Advocate), The North Star, The National Era, Provincial Freeman, Frederick Douglass Paper, The Christian Recorder. Coverage varies by newspaper.

The Los Angeles Sentinel is the flagship newspaper of the local African-American community. The database provides coverage from 1934 to 2005.

Includes the full image of articles published in the Chicago Defender from 1910 to 1975. The Chicago Defender was the most influential African-American newspaper of the 20th century. With the majority of its readership outside the Chicago region, it served as the de facto national black newspaper in the U.S. You can browse individual issues by clicking Publications at the top of the screen, or search by keyword(s), author(s), article title, date ranges, and more. Includes illustrations and advertisements.

One of nine African American newspapers available through ProQuest.  The Pittsburgh Courier was “one of the most nationally circulated Black newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier reached its peak in the 1930s. A conservative voice in the African-American community, the Pittsburgh Courier challenged the misrepresentation of African-Americans in the national media and advocated social reforms to advance the cause of civil rights.”

One of nine African American newspapers available through ProQuest. The Atlanta World was founded in 1928, became the Daily World in 1932, and is still published today. Keep in mind, this database does not include the full run of the title.

This database provides full text search of articles, classified ads, display advertisements, bylines, headlines, obituaries and more, and is cross-searchable with all other ProQuest titles.

 

One of the oldest African American newspapers of the United States, Amsterdam News was founded in New York in 1909 and is still published today. Keep in mind that this database does not contain the full run of the title.

Provides primary source documentation on Black history, politics, culture, and the arts. Full text search of articles, classified ads, display advertisements, bylines, headlines, obituaries and more. Cross-searchable with all other ProQuest titles.

One of the nine African American newspapers available through ProQuest. This weekly paper was founded in 1928 with a merging of the Cleveland Call and the Cleveland Post, and is still published today. Keep in mind, this database does not include the full run of the newspaper.

Provides primary source documentation on Black history, politics, culture, and the arts. Full text search of articles, classified ads, display advertisements, bylines, headlines, obituaries and more. Cross-searchable with all other ProQuest titles.

 

Full-text of the Sacramento Bee newspaper from 1857-1983. In time, coverage will be complete to 1984 where the current online edition begins.

The CDNC provides full text access to more than 5 million articles and 400,000 pages of 21 significant historical California newspapers published from 1846-2009, including the first California newspaper, the Californian, and the first daily California newspaper, the Daily Alta California. The San Francisco Call, the Sacramento Transcript and the Sacramento Daily Union also are included in the CDNC.

A full text collection of 13 California Newspapers covering the period between 1850 and 1900. It can be searched separately or in conjunction with the Early American Newspapers Collection (Series 1).

Full-text page images of for the years 1865-1922.

Historical coverage of the Los Angeles Times, with both full page and individual article images. Searchable full text back to the first issue in 1881 through 1995.

The Los Angeles Sentinel is the flagship newspaper of the local African-American community. The database provides coverage from 1934 to 2005.

This database contains citations to books, journal articles, essays, conference papers, and US and Canadian government documents about native peoples of North America published from the sixteenth century to the present.

This full-text collection documents “interactions between American Indians and Europeans [in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico] from their earliest contact, . . .[through] the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century.” The documents are drawn from Edward E. Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library. Also includes maps and images, scholarly essays to provide context and bibliographies to suggest further reading.

This resource focuses on American Indians in the first half of the 20th Century, although it is strong in the 19th Century as well. It includes two major collections on the 20th Century: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.

“The archive includes extensive monograph, manuscript, newspaper, periodical and photograph collections.” It “sources collections from across Canadian and American institutions, providing insight into the cultural, political and social history of Native Peoples from the seventeenth into the twentieth century.”

Full text letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters, centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico. Includes information on the peoples, places, environment, flora and fauna encountered. Of note are more than 9,000 Audubon prints from "The Birds of America" as well as the complete contents of the three-volume "The Quadrupeds of North America".

Indian Claims Commission decisions archived by Oklahoma State University Library, based on actions of the US Federal Commission, established by law in 1946, which created a process for Native American tribes to address their grievances against the United States, and offered monetary compensation for territory lost as a result of broken federal treaties. However, by accepting the government's monetary offer, the aggrieved tribe abdicated any right to raise their claim again in the future. 1946-1978.

Indian Claims Insight will provide Indian claims researchers with content and workflow solution tools that will allow users to research the history of U.S. Indian claims from 1789-present. Content includes: Pre-1948: claims presented to Congress and/or brought before the Court of Claims; 1948-1978: Indian Claims Commission, including briefs, docket books, decisions, expert testimony, oral transcripts;Post-1978: Claims brought before the US Court of Claims (through 1982) and US Court of Federal Claims (through 2006); documents related to post-2006 settlement of claims; legislative histories and congressional publications directly related to Indian claims, including congressional publications indexed by docket numbers; important Supreme Court decisions; and maps.

American Indian Newspapers presents the publications of a range of communities, covering periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016. Representing a huge variety in style, production and audience, the newspapers include national periodicals as well as local community news and student publications. The collection provides a unique view of a range of subjects from an Indigenous perspective, including the civil rights era and American Indian Movement (AIM), education, environmentalism, land rights and cultural representation. This resource has been developed with, and has only been made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.

Sanborn fire insurance maps, created to assist fire insurance companies assess risk, are large-scale community plans drawn at a scale of 50 feet to one inch. The maps give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, and house and block numbers. Sanborn maps also contain data about construction details, building use and the utilities and transportation infrastructure that supported the community overall. Several editions of maps exist for some cities.

The Everett D. Graff Collection is one of the major special collections on the American West. This database contains a full-text selection of original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material and rare printed sources from that collection. It also includes such supplementary materials as scholarly essays and data maps. It is a rich resource to explore almost any aspect of the history of the American West.

A fully searchable collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century histories of counties in the Western United States. On the Search Page, select “American County Histories.”

Searchable full-text of the journals edited by Gary Moulton. Also includes related primary and secondary material.

“Alaska’s Digital Archives presents a wealth of historical photographs, albums, oral histories, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and other materials from libraries, museums and archives throughout our state.”

“The Arizona Memory Project provides access to the wealth of primary sources in Arizona libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions.” Collections cover a wide variety of topics in Arizona history including, among others, Japanese American Relocation, Hydroelectric Power, Aviation, Military, Native American History, Law.”

This index provides the first ready access to one of the richest sources for California history in the 20th Century. “The Appendices include reports produce by California executive agencies as well as the California Legislature. In a few instances, the reports include work by the United States federal government or the University of California.The reports are indexed by subject as well as by agency.

Sanborn fire insurance maps, created to assist fire insurance companies assess risk, are large-scale community plans drawn at a scale of 50 feet to one inch. The maps give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, and house and block numbers. Sanborn maps also contain data about construction details, building use and the utilities and transportation infrastructure that supported the community overall. Several editions of maps exist for some cities.

“Calisphere is the University of California’s free public gateway to a world of primary sources. More than 150,000 digitized items — including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts — reveal the diverse history and culture of California and its role in national and world history. Calisphere’s content has been selected from the libraries and museums of the UC campuses, and from a variety of cultural heritage organizations.”

The Los Angeles Public Library’s History and Genealogy Department’s Photo Collection emphasizes the history of Los Angeles, Southern California, and California.

Fire Insurance Maps online (FIMo) is a research portal to find and view high-definition, color Fire Insurance Maps, Real Estate Atlases, Plat Books, and other historical maps showing building structures, building construction details, property ownership, property uses, and other useful information.

UC Davis has licensed the maps for the state of California.

California County Agricultural Commissioners’ Reports from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. This collection consists of annual crop and livestock data from each of the 58 California Counties. The collection covers 1915-1981.

Special Collections at California State University, Chico’s Merriam Library has a fine collection of scanned historic topographic maps of California.

“The Chinese in California, 1850-1925 illustrates nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California through about 8,000 images and pages of primary source materials. Included are photographs, original art, cartoons and other illustrations; letters, excerpts from diaries, business records, and legal documents; as well as pamphlets, broadsides, speeches, sheet music, and other printed matter.”  Some of this material is available online.

Over 150 years of California’s unique stories from collections across the state California Revealed is a State Library initiative to help California’s public libraries, in partnership with other local heritage groups, digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials - books, newspapers, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and more - that tell the incredible stories of the Golden State