American History

"U.S. history textbook; ... primary sources on slavery, Mexican American, Asian American, and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; succinct essays on the history of film, ethnicity, private life, and technology; multimedia exhibitions; ... , an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images." Lots of stuff. From the University of Houston.

The American Experience

Companion web site to the PBS series.

U.S. Election Statistics: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

C-Span Digital Library

"A collection totaling over 227,000 hours of programming first made available to the public for free in 2007. In addition, The Video Library records all three C-SPAN networks seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Programs are extensively indexed, making the database of C-SPAN programming an unparalleled chronological resource."

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Primary Sources

Library of Congress Digital Collections

Historical collections for the National Digital Library.

American Memory Timeline

From American Memory. Easy to use.

Index of Library of Congress Research Guides

ALIC: Archives Library Information Center

Vast collection of resources from the National Archives.

History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web

"A gateway to Web resources" From CUNY and George Mason University.

Our Documents

"100 milestone documents of American history."

Gilder Lehman Institute

Calisphere

"Your gateway to California’s remarkable digital collections. Calisphere provides free access to unique and historically important artifacts for research, teaching, and curious exploration. Discover over two million photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more."

Social Networks and Archival Context

"A free, online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families, and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another. Users can locate archival collections and related resources held at cultural heritage institutions around the world."

American Folklife Center: Online Collections and Presentations

"Online access to selected portions of our collections. Online content may include audio samples of music and stories, digital images of rare letters and photographs, and video clips."

Primary Sources Research

From the Yale University Library.

Internet Modern History Sourcebook

From Fordham University.

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History

A timeline with links to documents. From the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.

Congressional Record

Proceedings and Debates of the U.S. Congress (1957-Present).

Congressional Record (Bound Edition)

Proceedings and Debates of the U.S. Congress (1873-2016).

Chronicling America

"Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1924 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present." Alphabetical List of Topics.

American Rhetoric

"Growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two."

THOMAS

"Legislative information on the Internet." Current and historical documentation of the U.S. Congress at work. From the Library of Congress.

Avalon Project

Documents in law, history, and diplomacy. From Yale Law School.

NARA

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Digital History

"U.S. history textbook; ... primary sources on slavery, Mexican American, Asian American, and Native American history, and U.S. political, social, and legal history; succinct essays on thehistory of film, ethnicity, private life, andtechnology; multimedia exhibitions; ... , an audio archive including speeches and book talks by historians, and a visual archive with hundreds of historical maps and images." Lots of stuff. From the University of Houston.

Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library of Duke University

"From ancient papyri to records of modern advertising."

American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920

"253 published 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. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907 after diligent compilation by the distinguished historian and secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society Reuben Gold Thwaites." Part of the American Memory collections from the Library of Congress.

Authentic History Center

Primary Sources from American Popular Culture. "Images of artifacts and historic sounds from American popular culture." From the Colonial period through the 2000's.

Documenting the American South

"Digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture." From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Assassination Archives and Research Center

Information on political assassinations.

World Digital Library

"Manuscripts, maps, rare books, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other types of primary sources." From libraries, museums, and archives around the world.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia

Access to the Library of Congress's "unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, and other materials."

Social Explorer

"Easy access to demographic information about the United States, from 1790 to present." Full of U.S. Census data.

Ad*Access

"Over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955." From Duke University.

American Archive of Public Broadcasting

"Online access to thousands of hours of programming – as much material as legally possible to include. More than 7,000 historic public radio and television programs are now available for streaming and more content will be added periodically. In addition, the website provides data records for approximately 2.5 million items inventoried by public broadcasting stations for this project." From the Library of Congress and WGBH.

Internet Archive

"A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more."

C-SPAN Video Library

"The Video Library records all three C-SPAN networks seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Programs are extensively indexed, making the database of C-SPAN programming an unparalleled chronological resource."

EveryCRSReport

"CRS is Congress’ think tank, and its reports are relied upon by academics, businesses, judges, policy advocates, students, librarians, journalists, and policymakers for accurate and timely analysis of important policy issues."

The Art of American Advertising: 1865 - 1910

"Explores the role these burgeoning and extraordinarily inventive forms of advertising played in marketing mass-produced products to the evolving American consumer culture." From Harvard Business School.

Social Welfare History Project Image Portal

"Brings together photographs, pamphlets, artifacts and documents chronicling the history of the nation's response to human need. This history includes the work of volunteer organizations, reform movements, social workers, and government legislation and systems."

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

"The repository for individuals in the fields of literature, criticism, journalism, drama, music, film, civil rights, diplomacy and national affairs. Although contemporary public figures is the specialty of the Center, there are substantial holdings of earlier historical documents and over 140,000 rare books. Beginning with the sixteenth century, the historical collections include documents of United States presidents and the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Other historical holdings include papers relating to the areas of military history, Eighteenth Century Americana, nursing history, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franz Liszt. There are also individual letters and documents from monarchs, writers and major historical figures."
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Revolution and Founding

Colonies in America: Commerce, Business, and the Economy

From the Library of Congress.

Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention Home Page

From the Library of Congress. Part of the American Memory project.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Declaration of Independence

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Articles of Confederation

American Founders: A Guide to Their Online Papers and Publications

From the Library of Congress.

Meet the Framers of the Constitution

From the National Archives.

Framing of the United States Constitution: A Beginner’s Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Founders' Constitution

"Documents included range from the early seventeenth century to the 1830s, from the reflections of philosophers to popular pamphlets, from public debates in ratifying conventions to the private correspondence of the leading political actors of the day." From the University of Chicago and the Liberty Fund.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Constitution of the United States

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Bill of Rights

Alexander Hamilton: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: The Federalist Papers

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Northwest Ordinance

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Alien and Sedition Acts

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Antebellum America

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship)s

"A scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. Our activities are driven by three primary goals: to serve as a peer-reviewing body for digital work in the long 19th-century (1770-1920), British and American; to support scholars’ priorities and best practices in the creation of digital research materials; to develop software tools for new and traditional forms of research and critical analysis."

War of 1812

"Provides description of the events leading up to the declaration of war, the war itself, and on through the after effects of the war. It does this through a combination of short essays and primary source material relating to various aspects of the war. Materials available in the site include monographs (mainly books and broadsides), prints, sheet music, maps, and several collections of manuscripts." From Indiana University.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Monroe Doctrine

Presidential Election of 1824: A Resource Guide

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Indian Removal Act

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Nullification Proclamation

Chronicling America

"Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1924 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present."

Making of America

"Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." From Cornell University and the Hathi Trust.

American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920

"253 published 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. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907 after diligent compilation by the distinguished historian and secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society Reuben Gold Thwaites." Part of the American Memory collections from the Library of Congress.

America in Caricature 1765-1865

Political cartoons from American history. From Indiana University.

Slavery and the Courts

"Over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States." Part of the American Memory Collection.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Missouri Compromise

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Compromise of 1850

LOC Chronicling America: Bleeding Kansas

LOC Chronicling America: Dred Scott v. Sandford

LOC Chronicling America: Fugitive Slave Ads

LOC Chronicling America: Harper's Ferry

Lewis and Clark

Companion web site to the Ken Burns documentary.

Lewis and Clark Journey of Discovery

From the National Park Service.

Journals of Lewis and Clark

From the University of Nebraska.

Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures and Contexts

"An interdisciplinary collection of primary texts and images on physical and cognitive disability in the long nineteenth century (c. 1780 to 1914). Its primary goal is to immerse users in the cultures and concepts that shaped embodied experience in the nineteenth century. Currently comprising over 50 items, the reader emphasizes the technologies, institutions, and representations in literature and popular culture that shaped ideas about disability which are still current today."Back to Top

American Civil War and Reconstruction

Making of America

"Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." From Cornell University and the Hathi Trust.

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship)s

"A scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. Our activities are driven by three primary goals: to serve as a peer-reviewing body for digital work in the long 19th-century (1770-1920), British and American; to support scholars’ priorities and best practices in the creation of digital research materials; to develop software tools for new and traditional forms of research and critical analysis."

War of the Rebellion

A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies from the War Department. An important primary source for the Civil War.

Civil War Battle Summaries

From the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields.

Civil War Women

Primary sources on the Internet. From Duke University.

Crisis at Fort Sumter

"An interactive historical simulation and decision making program." From Tulane University.

Civil War

From the Ken Burns PBS series.

Civil War@Smithsonian

From the Smithsonian.

America in Caricature 1765-1865

Political cartoons from American history. From Indiana University.

Selected Civil War Photographs

From American Memory.

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Digital Civil War Collection

"Links to the most useful identified electronic files about the American Civil War (1861-1865)." From the University of Tennessee.

Gettysburg National Military Park

"Showcases some of the belongings made or used by soldiers in Union or Confederate camps."

Slavery and the Courts

"Over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States." Part of the American Memory Collection.

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Emancipation Proclamation

LOC Chronicling America: Emancipation Proclamation

LOC Chronicling America: Sherman's March to the Sea

LOC Chronicling America: Gettysburg Address

LOC Primary Docs in US History: 13th Amendment

LOC Primary Docs in US History: 14th Amendment

LOC Primary Docs in US History: 15th Amendment

LOC Chronicling America: Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

LOC Chronicling America: Plessy v. Ferguson (Jim Crow Laws)

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Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age, and Progressivism

Rise of Industrial America, 1876 - 1900

Information and documents on the American West, immigration, urban and rural life, railroads, and work in the late 19th century. From the American Memory project of the Library of Congress.

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship)s

"A scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first. Our activities are driven by three primary goals: to serve as a peer-reviewing body for digital work in the long 19th-century (1770-1920), British and American; to support scholars’ priorities and best practices in the creation of digital research materials; to develop software tools for new and traditional forms of research and critical analysis."

Wake Up, America

Section on the Industrial Revolution from the PBS series Freedom: A History of US.

Making of America

"Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." From Cornell University and the Hathi Trust.

Modernist Journal Project

"Digitizes English-language literary magazines from the 1890s to the 1920s. We also offer essays and other supporting materials from the period."

Women Working, 1800 - 1930

"Focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections ... approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images." Huge, easy-to-use, and fascinating.

Eli Whitney Museum

Information and documents on the inventor.

LOC Chronicling America: Golden Spike, 1869

LOC Chronicling America: Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886

LOC Chronicling America: Pinkertons

LOC Chronicling America: Spanish American War

LOC Chronicling America: Sinking of the Maine

LOC Chronicling America: Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders

LOC Chronicling America: Philippine-American War

LOC Chronicling America: Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet”

American Experience: Andrew Carnegie

From the American Experience from PBS.

Jane Addams: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

LOC Chronicling America: Jane Addams

LOC Chronicling America: Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

LOC Chronicling America: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

LOC Chronicling America: Trial and Lynching of Leo Frank

LOC Chronicling America: Eight Hour Day (1916)

LOC Chronicling America: Andrew Carnegie

LOC Chronicling America: John D. Rockefeller

LOC Chronicling America: Mother Jones

LOC Chronicling America: Clarence Darrow

LOC Chronicling America: Eugene Debs

LOC Chronicling America: Louis D. Brandeis

LOC Chronicling America: Influenza Epidemic of 1918 (Spanish Flu)

LOC Chronicling America: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement

LOC Chronicling America: Palmer Raids

LOC Chronicling America: Prohibition

LOC Primary Docs in US History: 18th Amendment

LOC Chronicling America: The Early American Eugenics Movement

Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures and Contexts

"An interdisciplinary collection of primary texts and images on physical and cognitive disability in the long nineteenth century (c. 1780 to 1914). Its primary goal is to immerse users in the cultures and concepts that shaped embodied experience in the nineteenth century. Currently comprising over 50 items, the reader emphasizes the technologies, institutions, and representations in literature and popular culture that shaped ideas about disability which are still current today."
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World War I

1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War

""1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War” is an English-language virtual reference work on the First World War. The multi-perspective, open-access knowledge base is the result of an international collaborative project involving more than 1,000 authors, editors, and partners from over fifty countries."

Europeana 1914-1918

"The Europeana website provides cultural heritage enthusiasts, professionals, teachers, and researchers with access to Europe's digital cultural heritage. ... millions of items from providing institutions across Europe. Discover artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport, and much more."

World War I Document Archive

"Assembled by volunteers of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L)." All sorts of stuff.

World Wars: World War I

From the BBC, which is always good.

World War I: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

LOC Chronicling America: Zimmermann Telegram

LOC Chronicling America: WWI Declarations

LOC Chronicling America: World War I Draft

LOC Chronicling America: WWI Tanks

LOC Primary Docs in US History: Treaty of Versailles

World War I - Punch Cartoon Selection

Cartoons from the famous British humor magazine.

First World War Cartoons of W.K. Haselden

European Film Gateway: EFG1914 project

"The European Film Gateway provides access to around 3,000 historical films related to the First World War ... The films cover various genres such as newsreels, documentaries, fiction and propaganda and are of particular importance as only about 20% of the total silent film production has survived in film heritage institutions."

Films about Canada and the First World War

"View documentaries and archival footage of major themes and events of the First World War. Discover the stories of exceptional Canadians."

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Great Depression and New Deal

Great Depression and New Deal: A General Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection

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World War II

Historic Government Publications from WWII

From Southern Methodist University.

Powers of Persuasion

World War II poster art from NARA.

Avalon Project: The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic Bomb: Decision

"Documents on the decision to use the atomic bomb."

Remembering Nagasaki

An online photo exhibit from the Exploratorium.

The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb

From the Truman Presidential Museum and Library.

NuclearFiles.org

Dr. Seuss Went to War

LOC World War II Rumor Project

"This collection has two distinct components. The first component involved field representatives of various federal agencies in the United States instructed to enlist individuals in their communities who were willing to write down rumors and send them to the field representatives. These individuals or "correspondents" included dentists, beauty shop operators, policemen, proprietors, and librarians who had access to rumors in their communities.The second component involved rumors, jokes, rhymes, and anecdotes about the war from high school and college students collected by teachers. Subjects include Adolf Hitler, Japan, rationing, and rhymes and stories composed or recorded by students. This collection contains historical materials that are products of their particular times, including offensive language and negative stereotypes."
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Cold War

Cold War History

"The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) has amassed a tremendous collection of archival documents on the Cold War era from the once secret archives of former communist countries. CWIHP has become internationally recognized as the world’s preeminent resource on the Cold War."

Sputnik and the Space Race: 1957 and Beyond: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.
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21st Century

September 11, 2001 Web Archive

"Preserves the web expressions of individuals, groups, the press and institutions in the United States and from around the world in the aftermath of the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. The selected websites are comprised broadly of United States and non-United States government sites; press, corporate/business, portal, charity/civic, advocacy/interest, religious, school/educational, individual/volunteer, professional organizations sites; and others." From the Library of Congress.

September 11, 2001, Documentary Project

"Captures the reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that followed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriotism and unity mixed with sadness, anger, and insecurity are common themes expressed in this online presentation of almost 200 audio and video interviews, 45 graphic items, and 21 written narratives. This collection captures the voices of a diverse ethnic, socioeconomic, and political cross-section of America during trying times and serves as a historical and cultural resource for future generations." From the Library of Congress.

Iraq War 2003 Web Archive

"Included in the web archive are U.S. government and foreign government sites as well as sites of public policy and political advocacy groups, educational organizations, religious organizations, support groups for military personnel, anti-war groups, plus some sites for children, and selected news sources." From the Library of Congress.
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American Presidents

The Presidential Primary Sources Project

"Through the use of primary source documents and live interactive video discussions with National Park Service rangers and presidential historians from the National Archives and other presidential historic sites, our 2017 Presidential Primary Sources Program series will take students on a journey through our nation’s history and allow them to view a President’s key decisions through the life and times of their era."

American Experience: The Presidents

Companion web site to the PBS series.

American Presidents: Life Portraits

Companion web site to the C-span series.

David Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

John Adams: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Thomas Jefferson: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Monticello: The Home of Thomas Jefferson

James Madison: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Andrew Jackson: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide

From the Library of Congress.

Presidential Administrations, James Garfield