Finding Primary Sources: Sources in Internet Collections

This web site offers the primary sources related to John and Abigail Adams as well as other historical documents important to American history from the first settlers to the 20th century

An invaluable collection of historical works which contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals The following is a massive collection of the literature and documents which were most relevant to the colonists' lives in America.

The Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA) is a collection of electronic texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.

The exhibit is based on spy letters from the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Gallery of Letters provides a brief description of each letter and links to more information about the stories of the spies in the letter or the secret methods used to make the letter.

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the American Revolution era (1763-1783), including manuscripts, broadsides, government documents, books, images, and maps.

The National Archives holds records relating to military service during the Revolutionary War, including both Continental troops and state troops that served as Continental troops.

This collection of newspapers, official documents and personal correspondence from 1764 to 1776 was created by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Colonial America enables access to a vast archive of circa 70,000 manuscript documents – now fully searchable using Handwritten Text Recognition technology.

This collection of primary documents in American history is from the Library of Congress.

Various primary documents related to American history from before 1600 to after 1951 are gathered at this website sponsored by a university in the Netherlands.

During the mid 1800s to the early 20th Century, Harper’s Weekly offered the nation news in magazine form. Primary sources linked to the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments as well as other historical events can be searched here via the site’s own database. The site says, “The paper’s editorials played a significant role in shaping and reflecting public opinion from the start of the Civil War to the end of the century.”

This site describes itself as, “a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War.” Letters, diaries, newspapers articles, and more offer a window into the daily lives of these Southern and Northern communities from 1859-1870.

This guide highlights a diverse collection of free websites of primary sources for the study of the Civil War. These websites include digitized newspaper archives for both the Union and Confederate sides of the struggle, collections of letters and diaries, digitized photographs, maps, and official records and dispatches from the battlefields.

Find a range of primary source sets on the Civil War provided by the Library of Congress.

A research guide to primary and secondary sources for American history in the 20th century from the University of Washington. The resources are split into the major eras of the 20th century.

A collection of publicly accessible pages that include primary sources for the study of U.S. history, from Bowling Green State University.

Find essays and primary sources that focus on the role of alcohol in society, Prohibition, and its repeal. “The digitized pamphlets were published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition
era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors.”

A list of publicly available digital collections on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, put together by Brandeis University.

A collection of primary sources on Asian American history, put together by UC San Diego.
Note: If a source has a lock icon next to it, this resource is unavailable to non-UC students.

This site illustrates nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California through about 8,000 images and pages of primary source materials...These documents describe the experiences of Chinese immigrants in California, including the nature of inter-ethnic tensions. They also document the specific contributions of Chinese immigrants to commerce and business, architecture and art, agriculture and other industries, and cultural and social life in California.

The story of Japanese Americans in the 20th century — their migration to the United States, the Alien Land laws under which they lived, incarceration during World War II, and the Redress Movement — is a complex one. The CSU Japanese American Digitization Project, the 23-campus California State University system archives, and other, similar collections across the state now offer scholars, librarians, archivists, educators and the interested public far easier access to a wide variety of archival material about this crucial subject.

Digitized images and texts related to the experiences of immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Focuses on post-1975 immigration.

Documents the experience of Japanese Americans in WWII internment camps. Primary source materials include photographs, documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, letters, and oral histories.

The KADA brings together documents, photographs and sound files that document the Korean American community during the period of resistance to Japanese rule in Korea and reveal the organizational and private experience of Koreans in America between 1903 and 1965.

The SAOHP represents one of the first attempts in the U.S. to record pan-South Asian immigrant experiences in the Pacific Northwest using the medium of oral history.

Oral histories of Vietnamese Americans in Southern California. Compiled by UC Irvine.

The library at the University of Washington has gathered together links to primary sources related to
Native American history for many tribes. Both general and specific links are available here.

This extensive guide from Christopher Newport University contains tabs of resources on many different areas of Native American history. When clicking through the tabs, be sure to focus on the "Online Resources" boxes, as you may not be able to access the book resources.

Over 2,000 documents and images dating from 1730 to 1842 on the history of Native Americans in the Southeastern U.S., letters, legal proceedings, military orders, and more.

A list of selected major digital projects from the journal College & Research Libraries News.

Open access project that is an “international collaboration among more than twenty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private collections” aiming to create “a generative point of entry into the fascinating and expansive world of trans history.”

The Lesbian Herstories Archives Audio/Visual Collections contains digitized copies of some of the 3,000 oral herstory cassettes in the Archives’ Spoken Word Collection and 950 videotapes in the Video Collection. This comprises over 385 hours of digitized content on the site.

An excellent and thorough list of digital primary source collections compiled by the University of Washington.

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the oldest active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records and personal papers.

The GLBT Historical Society collects, preserves, exhibits and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity.

This guide from Sam Houston State University provides a list of primary source collections of women in the United States.

An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression.

Manifestos, speeches, essays, and other materials documenting various aspects of the Women's Movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, put together by Duke University.