HIS 500: Research Guide: Primary Sources

Links to the full-text of hundreds of primary source documents relating to American history which have been digitized by academic institutions. The documents, which cover the 15th century through the 21st century, are easily accessible from a straightforward chronological listing. Because these documents have been created by many different institutions as part of separate digital projects, users will find considerable variation in the type of accompanying materials available.

Gateway to the Library of Congress's vast resources of digitized American historical materials. Comprising more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture, American Memory is organized into more than 100 thematic collections based on their original format, their subject matter, or who first created, assembled, or donated them to the Library.

Primary sources related to the cultural and political history of the Western Hemisphere from colonization to the present. From Rice University.

An extensive collection of digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government covering time periods from pre-18th Century to the 20th Century. Links to supporting documents are also provided. Documents include charters, constitutions, declarations, diplomatic documents, papers, speeches and treaties.

A collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files.

A wealth of information on the Constitutional Convention, Continental Congress, and Congress provided by the American Memory site at the Library of Congress. It also contains specialized information on the impeachment trial of President Johnson, Indian land cessions, Journals of the Confederate Congress, the evolution of the conservation movement 1850-1920 and links to related databases.

Created and maintained by the University of Oklahoma School of Law.

Sponsored by the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.

Contains a core group of current and historical Government publications which have been made available for free, permanent, public access via GPO Access.

The Digital Library of Appalachia (DLA) provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.

Primary sources that document the cultural history of the American South from the Southern point of view. Includes diaries, autobiographies, travel accounts, titles about slavery, and regional literature. Emphasis is on the 19th century.

GPO Access is a service of the U.S. Government Printing Office that provides free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. The information provided on this site is the official, published version and the information retrieved from GPO Access can be used without restriction, unless specifically noted.

Since its inception in 1957, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has been at the forefront of efforts by the Federal Government and state governments to examine and resolve issues related to race, ethnicity, religion and, more recently, sexual orientation. By providing access to the historical record of this important federal agency, the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland will offer scholars an opportunity to examine the efforts of the Commission more closely.

The Internet Modern History Sourcebook is one of series of history primary sourcebooks. It is intended to serve the needs of teachers and students in college survey courses in modern European history and American history, as well as in modern Western Civilization and World Cultures. Although this part of the Internet History Sourcebooks Project began as a way to access texts that were already available on the Internet, it now contains hundreds of texts made available locally.

A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

The nation's largest repository of federal, state, and local documents, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) site includes thousands of images of historical documents, figures, and events.

Find archives, collections, and indexes at the NYPL's website in specialized areas of study.

From Richard Henry Lee's Resolution of 1776 to the Voting Rights Act Act of 1965, this site includes images, text, and other information for 100 milestone documents drawn from the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States contains material that was compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. It includes volumes covering the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. As subsequent volumes are published, they will be added online.

The Public Papers of the Presidents is published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and is the official publication of United States Presidents' public writings, addresses, and remarks. Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order; dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events.

Documents the 1704 raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, by 300 French and their Native American allies.

An electronic collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692 and a new transcription of the court records.

The Federalist, also often referred to as The Federalist Papers, is a series of essays written and published between October 1787 and August 1788 in New York newspapers. While always attributed to the single author "Publius," the essays were actually written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison.

Consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, maps, etc.

Part of the "Making of America" project at Cornell University.

The Filson has been collecting, preserving, and telling the significant stories of Kentucky and Ohio Valley history and culture since 1884. In addition to research collections and publications, The Filson offers an array of programming.

Includes finding aids to help locate material in Kentucky archival collections, an electronic text collection related to Kentucky history, an Oral History Collection, and digital images.

The Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) was formed in 1836. It was chartered as the state society in 1838 and began to collect books and printed materials. The Society became a state government agency in the early 1950s. KHS collects, preserves, conserves, interprets and provides access to information, memories and materials from Kentucky's past.

The place to start when researching Kentucky land acquisitions. Includes information for Kentucky cities, county formation, military and non-military registers and land records, Revolutionary War warrants, Virginia Treasury warrants, and pulic land sales in the Jackson Purchase.