Primary source collections organized by time period
All Time Period Primary Source Collections
Sabin Americana: 1500-1926 [via Gale]
1
“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.”
North American Women’s Letters and Diaries (NAWLD) [via Alexander Street Press]
2
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.
Early Encounters in North America (EENA): Peoples, Cultures and the Environment [via Alexander Street Press]
3
Tags: Ecology, Environmental Science, Exploration, History, North America, Science, United States Of America
Historical Society of Pennsylvania Online Collections
4
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
American Periodicals Series Online [via Proquest]
5
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.
Massachusetts Historical Society — online collections
6
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.
Black Studies Center [via Proquest] [via ProQuest]
7
Ancestry Library [via ProQuest]
8
Colonial and Early Republic Primary Source Collections
Empire Online [via Adam Matthew]
1
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 [via Gale]
2
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.
America’s Historical Imprints [via Newsbank]
3
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”.
Early Americas Digital Archives [via Readex/Newsbank]
4
19th- and 20th-Century Primary Source Collections
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries [via Alexander Street Press]
1
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.
HarpWeek
2
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.
March of Time [via Alexander Street Press]
3
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.
Bracero History Archive [via Center for History and New Media at Georgetown University]
4
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.
60 Minutes: 1997-2014
5
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