Primary sources are materials which provide first-hand evidence of an event, a social movement, or daily life in a particular time and place. Common examples of primary sources are letters, diaries, photographs, and oral history interviews. Depending on your research context, primary sources might also include newspaper articles, data, laws, treaties, or other legal documents.
This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
To provide American citizens direct online access to the basic Federal Government documents that define our democratic society, a core group of current and historical Government publications is being made available for free, permanent, public access via the GPO Access service. These titles contain information which is vital to the democratic process and critical to an informed electorate. They support the public's right to know about the essential activities of their Government. Immediate, online access to authenticated versions of these Core Documents of Democracy increases in importance as Americans grow ever more dependent on remote electronic access to basic information resources -- both past and present.
More than half of America’s states began as territories. From the 1760s to the 1950s the United States of America expanded southward and westward, acquiring territories that spanned from Florida to California to Alaska. Before they evolved into twenty-seven American states, these territories were managed by the U.S. State and Interior departments. The official history of their formative territorial years is recorded in the “Territorial Papers of the United States”—a collection of Native American negotiations and treaties, official correspondence with the federal government, military records, judicial proceedings, population data, financial statistics, land records, and more.
This collection chronicles the prevailing social, religious, political, and benevolent movements of 1815-1884. It represents a wide variety of publications, ranging from many points of view, including anarchists, communists, workingmen, immigrants, women, and more.
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.
Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender, the largest collection available in support of the study of gender and sexuality, enables scholars to make new connections in LGBTQ history and activism, cultural studies, psychology, health, political science, policy studies, and other related areas of research.
Covers journals, newspaper, and magazine articles from over 700 international alternative, radical, and left periodicals. Born of the New Left, the database was launched in 1969 to provide access to the emerging theories and practices of radical social change.
Includes the full text of:
Atlanta Daily World (1931-2010)
Calgary Herald (1883-2010)
Chicago Defender (1909-2010)
Chicago Tribune (1849-2013)
Chinese Newspapers Collection (1832-1953)
Cleveland Call and Post (1934-2010)
Communist Historical Newspaper Collection (1919-2013)
Detroit Free Press (1831-1922)
Indianapolis Star (1903-2004)
Le Monde (1944-2000)
Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals (1845-2015)
Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2010)
Los Angeles Times (1881-2014)
Louisville Courier Journal (1830-1922) (1830-1922)
Louisville Defender (1951-2010)
Michigan Chronicle (1939-2010)
Minneapolis Star Tribune (1867-2001)
Montreal Gazette (1785-2010)
New York Amsterdam News (1922-2010)
New York Tribune / Herald Tribune (1841-1962)
Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2010)
Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2010)
Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2010)
San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922)
South China Morning Post (1903-2001)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (1874-2003)
The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger (1857-1922)
The American Israelite (1854-2000)
The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1984)
The Austin American Statesman (1871-1980)
The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-2010)
The Baltimore Sun (1837-1997)
The Boston Globe (1872-1991)
The Christian Science Monitor (1908-2009)
The Cincinnati Enquirer (1841-1922) (1841-1922)
The Globe and Mail (1844-2019)
The Guardian and The Observer (1791-2003)
The Irish Times and The Weekly Irish Times (1859-2021)
The Jerusalem Post (1932-2008)
The Jewish Advocate (1905-1990)
The Jewish Exponent (1887-1990)
The Korea Times (1956-2016)
The Nashville Tennessean
The New York Times (1851-2019)
The Philadelphia Inquirer (1860-2001)
The Province (1894-2010)
The Scotsman (1817-1950)
The Times of India (1838-2010)
The Wall Street Journal (1889-2011)
The Washington Post (1877-2006)
Toronto Star (1894-2020)
U.S. Midwest Collection
Finally, it contains these aggregations: "Ethnic NewsWatch" (1959-present) and "ProQuest Civil War Era" (selected newspapers and pamphlets from 1850-1870).
Provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience.
Newly digitized, these newspapers published by African Americans can now be browsed and searched as never before. Part of the Readex America's Historical Newspapers collection, African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 was created from the most extensive African American newspaper archives in the United States—those of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress. Selections were guided by James Danky, editor of "African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography." Beginning with Freedom's Journal (NY)—the first African American newspaper published in the United States—the titles in this resource include The Colored Citizen (KS), Arkansas State Press, Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, L'Union (LA), Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate (NY), Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN) and hundreds of others from every region of the U.S. A richly detailed record of the African American past African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 offers researchers valuable primary sources for such diverse disciplines as cultural, literary and social history; ethnic studies and more. Users can compare and contrast African American views on practically every major theme of the American past. Coverage spans life in the Antebellum South; the spread of abolitionism; growth of the Black church; the Emancipation Proclamation; the Jim Crow Era; the Great Migration to northern cities, the West and Midwest in search of greater opportunity; rise of the N.A.A.C.P.; the Harlem Renaissance; the Civil Rights movement; political and economic empowerment and more. Teachers and students will find firsthand perspectives on notable Americans from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as obituaries, advertisements, editorials and illustrations.
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, explore nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities. 1828-2016.
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.
This online collection provides extensive coverage of many of the most influential ethnic groups in U.S. history, with an emphasis on Americans of Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovak and Welsh descent. It features more than 130 fully searchable newspapers in 10 languages from 25 states—including many rare 19th-century titles. 1799-1971.
This collection brings together for the first time local, regional, and national newspapers published by Klan organizations and by sympathetic publishers across the U.S. during the 1920s. It also includes the voices from several anti-Klan newspapers.
This comprehensive news collection includes local, regional, national and international news sources. Source types include print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos.
This database provides full-text, full-color newspapers and magazines from around the world. Titles are displayed as published in print. Includes a searchable, 60-day archive.
350 hours of high-definition video from 17 years of broadcasts, including hundreds of segments not available anywhere else in the world. True to 60 MINUTES’ iconic style, each news segment within the collection serves as a standalone short documentary on a specific news topic.
Provides indexing and abstracting of more than 30,000 evening news broadcasts and news related shows from networks such as ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. Streaming video of the entire NBC collection dating from August 5th, 1968 to the present and of CNN from 1995 to present are currently available online. All other broadcasts must be leased directly through the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.
This collection assembles hundreds of the greatest documentary films and series from the history of the Public Broadcasting Service into one convenient online interface. A core of 245 titles, selected for their high quality and relevance to academic curricula, covers many educational disciplines, including history, science and technology, diversity studies, business, and current events. This collection provides access to the films and series users already know and trust, including Frontline, NOVA, American Experience, Odyssey, and films by Ken Burns and Michael Wood.
