LibGuides: United States History: Primary Sources

Introduction

Primary sources can be very important in doing historical research. These are documents of many kinds which were created during the period you are studying -- personal accounts like letters and diaries, newspapers, magazines & journals, books, government documents, and much more.

There is a separate guide to United States Historical Newspapers, and a Guide to Online Primary Sources that includes all kinds of primary sources in all subject areas. This guide is the US History subsection of that guide. To see more specific types of primary sources, mouse over the "Primary Sources" tab at the top of this page and look at the sections on personal accounts, historical texts, and primary source collections.

Additional published primary sources, collections of primary sources, and guides to primary sources may be retrieved systematically by subject keyword searches on UC Library Search. One generally effective initial search syntax is: [country or region or topic] [history] [sources], as in carolina history sources or southern states history sources or slavery history sources. To find specific types of published primary sources in subsequent search approaches, replace sources with one of these subject terms: diaries, correspondence, narratives, catalogs, manuscripts, archives, archival.

Links to collections

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History
Collection of primary documents and speeches essential for the study of US History. Arranged chronologically: as of August 2004, from Columbus' journals to the report of the 9/11 Commission.
America and Great Britain : diplomatic relations, 1775-1815 [British government documents]
This 9-volume set provides 7000 pages of primary documents, written by contemporary diplomats, charting the emergence of an independent America. Documents are sourced from Colonial Office, Foreign Office, State Papers, and Admiralty records.

American Colonist's Library
A large collection of historical works that contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals. Arranged chronologically, the resources include material from classical times through the 18th century. (Although several links are no longer active, the site is useful in identifying specific works.)
American Decades Primary Sources, 2000-2009
Covers the first decade of the twenty-first century from monumental events and groundbreaking individuals to the details of Americans' daily lives. Topics include world events, the arts, business and the economy, education, fashion, government and politics, law and justice, lifestyles and social trends, media, medicine and health, religion, science and technology, and sports.
American Historical Documents
Text of 47 treaties, speeches, historical accounts and governmental documents that trace U.S. history from the settling of the continent to the founding of the country to the Civil War and early twentieth-century international relations.
American History in Video
Coverage of historic events through documentaries, commercial and government newsreels, and archival and public affairs footage. When finished, will include 1200 titles, 2000 hours of video.
American Journeys
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.
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election
Consists of 59 sound recordings of speeches by American leaders from 1918-1920. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding WWI and the subsequent presidential election of 1920. Speakers include: Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge and John J. Pershing. Speeches range from one to five minutes.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
Recorded histories describe the informant's family education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, diet and miscellaneous observations.
American Memory
Decommissioned. Content migrated to the Library of Congress Digital Collections site below.
American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920
Presents 253 narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920.
American Periodicals Series Online
Full text of North American periodicals (magazines and newspapers) from 1740 through the 19th century; a few early 20th century periodicals also included. Search APS Online by keyword or browse by journal.

American West
Original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material, and rare printed sources from the Graff Collection about the American West, including tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes, and outlaws, and the growth of urban centres and environmental impact of westward expansion and of life in the borderlands.

America's Historical Documents
Collection from the National Archives.

Archives Unbound (American Studies)
This collection explores civil rights, race relations, immigration, and war and military topics in the U.S. in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Archiving Early America
Primary (and secondary) sources from 18th Century America. Includes material from newspapers, maps and writings.
Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands
Explores the history of the Dutch presence in America and the interactions between the United States and the Netherlands from Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage to the post-WWII period.
Basic Readings in U.S. Democracy
Critical texts from the Mayflower Compact (1620) to the late 20th century. (archived site)
Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection
Features color and black & white images of life in America between 1938 and 1969.

China, America and the Pacific
Explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Sourced from twelve North American libraries including a selection of rare books and manuscripts from the UC San Diego Library's Special Collections & Archives. These include selected rare books from the Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages and manuscript material for the Alaska Commercial Company Records.

China, America and the Pacific offers unique insights into the history of North American trade. Coverage includes the Old China Trade, the Pacific Northwest fur trade, the whaling industry and the development of Pacific trading centres such as Hawaii. Manuscripts, rare printed sources, visual images, objects and maps from international libraries and archives document this fascinating history.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Search and read newspaper pages from several states, including California; search a directory (including library holdings) for U.S. newspapers published from 1690-present.
Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)
Includes primary sources and essays on events, publications, lifestyles and individuals important to the Civil War and Reconstruction Era in U.S. history.

Colonial America
Colonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. This unique collection of largely manuscript material from the archives of the British government is an invaluable one for students and researchers of all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.
Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries
Towards Revolution
The American Revolution
Legislation and Politics in the Colonies
Growth, Trade and Development

Community Service Society Photographs
Nearly 1400 photographs (and a few illustrations). They offer representations of urban poverty, unsafe tenement housing, inadequate hygiene in public areas, and other pressing social issues in late-19th- and early-20th-century New York. The images range from the 1880s through the 1950s.
Complete Audio of WTC 911 Calls on 9/11
Transcripts of phone calls and radio transmissions, and copies of police reports released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, under a federal order resulting from a lawsuit brought by the New York Times.
Confidential Print, North America, 1824-1961: Canada, The Caribbean and the USA
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government, aimed to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. This collection, covering c.1824-1961, takes in the USA, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.
C-SPAN Video Library
The video library records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, research, and archival uses. Every C-SPAN program aired since 1987, now totaling over 170,000 hours, is contained in the C-SPAN Archives.
Development of the Industrial United States (1878-1899)
Includes primary sources and essays on events, publications, lifestyles and individuals important to the era of industrial development in U.S. history.
Digital History Reader: US History
Provides materials covering important themes and issues from the colonial era to the present. Click on the "evidence" link within each module to view primary source material.
Digital History
Browse more than 600 annotated documents written by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and many others dealing with American politics, diplomacy and social history.
Digital Library of Appalachia
Historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. Material includes photographs, reformatted typed pages, published books, unpublished manuscripts, personal diaries and correspondence, journal and newspaper articles, musical recordings, oral history recordings and transcripts, and other related reproductions.
DocsTeach
Collection of 3000+ documents, images and audio/video clips from the National Archives. Material is grouped into eight broad eras of U.S. history.
Documenting the American South
Search or browse full text sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the early 20th century: slave narratives, other first person narratives, literature, life during the Civil War and African American churches.
Earliest Voices : A Gallery from the Vincent Voice Library
Presents some of the most significant voices captured during the first fifty years of sound recording, 1877-1927: William Jennings Bryan, Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, Samuel Gompers, William McKinley, William Taft, and Booker T. Washington.
Early American Imprints Series I (1639-1800)
Browse or search Early American Imprints (Digital Evans), a major collection of 17th and 18th century books and pamphlets based on Charles Evans American Bibliography. On completion will consist of over 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images.
Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819)
Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States, this primary source collection provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first 19 years of the nineteenth century.
Early Encounters in North America
This release contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of material: letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters in North America. The collection is centered on present-day Canada and the U. S. with limited coverage of Mexico.
Environmental Issues in American History
Primary documents supporting different sides of various environmental questions, such as the use of water as an energy source, deforestation, gold mining in California, and the emergence of wildlife conservation.

Environmental Issues Online
Brings together multimedia materials (text, archival primary sources, video and audio) around key environmental challenges, including climate change, water/air pollution, biodiversity, conservation, agriculture, deforestation and more. The database focuses on specific environmental case studies that enable students, teachers, and researchers to dive into particular, local problems and to investigate how solutions have been created (or not created) in globally scale-able ways. Each case study includes published text, films, documentaries, government reports, NGO publications, monographs, regulations debates, contextualizing resources, and archival primary sources, with an eye toward situating each case in its historical context and supporting continued interdisciplinary dialogue to invent multi-faceted and creative solutions for the future.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
Created by a group of U.S. government photographers, these images show Americans in every part of the nation. Early years emphasize rural life and the negative impact of the Great Depression, farm mechanization, and the Dust Bowl. Later years focus on the mobilization effort for World War II.
FBI Vault
Scanned -- and redacted -- images of FBI files of (in)famous individuals and groups.
Federalist Papers
Series of essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788 to encourage support for ratification of the proposed United States Constitution.
Founders Online
Correspondence and other writings of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Includes more than 119,000 searchable and annotated documents.
Harper's Weekly
Harpweek includes and can be searched by full text, illustration, photographs, maps, advertisement; full page images are displayed. It can also be browsed by date and other categories. Covers the period 1857-1912.
HeritageQuest
Search or browse U.S. Census forms as filled in by door-to-door census takers, 1790-1930. (Not all years indexed yet.) Also includes 25,000 books of local and family history, genealogy, other documents and index to genealogy and local history periodicals.
Historic Documents, 1972-present
U.S. and international documents on the most significant events of the year. Includes presidential speeches, international agreements, Supreme Court decisions, governmental reports, scientific findings, cultural discussions, etc. New documents added each year.
History Matters
A gateway to web resources and other useful materials for teaching U.S. history, including first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence.
History Vault
Digital primary sources drawn mostly from U.S. archival collections. Collections are arranged into subject modules: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics & Society; International Relations & Military Conflicts; Revolutionary War & Early America; Women's Studies; Workers, Labor Unions, & Radical Politics.
Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
Digital objects including images, podcasts, videos and blog postings of personal accounts from those affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement
Materials primarily from the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, which was the center of American eugenics research from 1910-1940.
Images of America: A History of American Life in Images and Texts
Built on Arcadia Publishing's large and ongoing series of local town and community histories, on completion it will include over 1 million historical images and texts.
Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Collection of selected historical materials that document voluntary immigration to the US from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Presents "a diversity of source material in modern European, American and Latin American history, as well as a significant amount of materal pertinent to world cultures and global studies." Rather than emphasizing legal and political documents, efforts are made to include contemporary narrative accounts, personal memoirs, songs, newspaper reports, as well as cultural, philosophical, religious and scientific documents.
Library of American Civilization
Collection of materials relating to all aspects of American life and literature from their beginnings to the outbreak of World War I.
Making of America (Cornell)
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. (Collaborative effort with the University of Michigan; see below.)
Making of America (Michigan)
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. (Collaborative effort with Cornell University; see above.)
Milestone Documents
Includes documents that chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.
Nation Digital Archive
1865-present. Search or browse full text of The Nation, a weekly magazine of news, politics, culture and comment published continuously in the U.S. since the end of the Civil War. Latest issue not displayed.
New York Heritage Digital Collections
Gateway to hundreds of digital collections about New York State's people, places, and institutions. NewYorkHeritage.org brings together freely accessible digital collections from libraries, museums and archives from all over the state .
New York Public Library Picture Collection Online
30,000 images of New York City, costume, design, U.S. history, etc. from books, magazines and newspapers, as well as original photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923.
New York Public Library's Digital Collections
700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
Nuclearfiles.org: A project of the nuclear age peace foundation
Note: site appears to be unavailable; link is to archived site. Primary and secondary sources on issues of nuclear energy. Click on "Library" to view treaties and correspondence related to the Manhattan Project, the decision to drop the bomb, peace & human rights, and other related topics.
Our Americas
Serves as a gateway to digital collections at participating institutions. Content is in the field of American Studies, focusing on a hemispheric view of the Americas. Date coverage is 1500-1927.
Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880
This digital collection provides a unique window on American western history. Selections are based on the bibliographies, The Plains and Rockies: A Critical Bibliography of Exploration, Adventure, and Travel in the American West, 1800-1865, and The Trail West: A Bibliography-Index to Western American Trails, 1841-1869.
Papers of the War Department: 1784 to 1800
Offers access to 55,000 documents of the early War Department, many long thought irretrievable but now reconstructed through a multi-year research effort. Covers the history of the Early Republic, from the handling of Indian affairs, pensions and procurement to the nature of the first American citizens’ relationship with their new Federal government.
Political Americana Collection
Presidential promotional and commemorative items dating from 1789 to 1980, with elections from 1832 to 1960 particularly well represented.
Primary Documents and the History of United States Foreign Relations
Collection of primary source documents and contextual information about events related to U.S. foreign relation. Arranged chronologically.
Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
The collection includes proclamations, advertisements, blank forms, programs, election tickets, catalogs, clippings, timetables and menus. They capture the everyday activities of ordinary people who participated in the events of nation-building and experienced the growth of the nation from the American Revolution through the Industrial Revolution up to present day.
Proquest History Vault: Immigration Records of the INS 1880-1930
Covers the investigations made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the massive immigration wave of 1880-1930. The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS’s regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.
Readex AllSearch
Allows searching across 22 databases, including African American Periodicals, America's Historical Imprints, America's Historical Newspapers, American State Papers, FBIS Daily Reports, U.S. Congressional Serial Set, and World Newspaper Archive.

Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926
Covering more than 400 years and more than 65,000 volumes in North, Central, and South America and the West Indies, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions, and momentous events of the time through sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature, and more.

September 11 Digital Archive
Collects, preserves, and presents the history of 9/11/01 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, including emails and other electronic communications; first-hand stories; and digital images.
September 11: New York Times Topics
An accumulation of coverage by the Times from 2001 to the present, including retrospectives and resources.
Sid Lapidus '59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution
Books, pamphlets and prints representing the intellectual origins of the American Revolution; the Revolution itself; the early years of the republic; the resulting spread of democratic ideas in the Atlantic world; and the effort to abolish the slave trade in both Great Britain and the United States.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974
Thousands of pages of letters, diaries and oral histories, plus posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, audio and video materials. Also interpretive essays by historians.
Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American guides on race, sex, gender, and the family
A collection of manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that "illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave."
Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive
A "library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists, and the public, it presents one week of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis."
United States and its Territories, 1870-1925: The Age of Imperialism
Monographs and government documents published in the United States, Spain, and the Philippines between 1870 and 1925. The primary focus of the material is the Spanish-American war and subsequent American governance (approximately 1898-1910).
World Digital Library
Collection of print and visual resources. Use limiters in left column to focus search on specific geography, date range, topic or type of resource. Also offers a keyword search box at top of page.

Introduction

Primary sources are extremely important for historical research. They can be materials produced during the period you are researching: newspapers, other periodicals, even books, as well as letters, diaries, government publications and much more. There is a separate guide to U.S. Historical Newspapers and a separate Guide to Online Primary Sources in all periods of history. This page gives you a selection of primary sources selected for their value to research in U.S. History.