Guide to Primary Sources

American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.

The Printed Ephemera collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the collection comprises 28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history. Broadsides (newspapers) are the bulk of the collection, but it also includes pamphlets, advertisements, programs, timetables, and more.

Documents in law, history, and diplomacy, ranging from ancient to modern times. Emphasis on US and Western European documents but not exclusive.

This 13,000 page reference center is dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history and on the history of the more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world. Includes full text primary documents, and major speeches of black activists and leaders from the 18th Century to the present.

Contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.

Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to interviews with women engineers from the 1970s.

UNC's digital collection of texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.

Includes documents from ancient and medieval times, plus some 20th century voice & video recordings. Mostly Western civilization, US & Europe (England, especially).

Published from 1836-42, Friend of Man is one of the most significant newspapers documenting early anti-slavery and other reform movements.

A collection of documents covering the Reformation and early modern life through the 21st century and a variety of geographic areas.

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1860s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

MoA is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.

Search the National Archives for images, documents, videos, and more.

Primary sources in US history and literature going back to 1492.

Free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

The Scripps Library, through cooperation with various presidential libraries, has been collecting some of the most important presidential speeches in American history. These speeches all have transcripts, and some are available in their entirety in audio or video.

Centered on a database of slave and slaveholder populations in Texas during the Republic era (1837-45), the Texas Slavery Project offers a window into the role slavery played in the development of Texas in the years before the region became part of the United States.

Project details life in two communities-- one white, one black-- in the Civil War era (John Brown's Raids through Reconstruction). Materials include letters & diaries, census & other official records, newspapers, images, church records.

The almost seven hours of recorded interviews presented here took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. Twenty-three interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom.

Primary source document companion reader to the online textbook, American Yawp. Organized by topic within loose time periods.