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Michigan State University

Eighteenth-Century Studies: Online Resources: Primary Sources

This is a guide to both free web sites and electronic primary resources we have purchased or subscribe to on/about the long 18th century. Last updated 06-05-2023

Primary Sources

Primary Sources contains several sub-sections.  The first, Multidisciplinary, offers access to large databases containing many different types of publications printed from the 1470s through 1800 in England, North America, and other English-speaking places.  In prior eras, scholars either had to travel to famous libraries in the United States or England to use these rare books/materials or read the materials in microformat.  Periodicals as a publication format developed in the 18th century.  The second sub-section offers access to this early periodical literature.  We offer access to newspapers for the 18th century also, in the sub-section Newspapers.  The other sub-sections contain full-texts from or about France, North American history, women, slavery, Afro-Americans, and British history.  There are also full-texts of American and British literature and U.S. and British government documents. Most all the resources in this section are open only to M.S.U. community users or if you travel to our Library, or to another large academic library, as described above.