Research Guides: IDS 461: Seminar in American Studies (Duclos-Orsello): Primary Sources

What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs and oral histories. Primary sources may include letters, manuscripts, diaries, journals, newspapers, speeches, interviews, memoirs, documents produced by government agencies such as Congress or the Office of the President, photographs, audio recordings, moving pictures or video recordings, research data, and objects or artifacts such as works of art or ancient roads, buildings, tools, and weapons. These sources serve as the raw material to interpret the past, and when they are used along with previous interpretations by historians, they provide the resources necessary for historical research.

By the Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association History Section in the American Library Association.

Local and New England Resources

Salem in History
Massachusetts Historical Society
Large collection of primary sources, related to Massachusetts. To see online collections, cllick "Online" at the top of the page, then "MHS Collections Online."
Historic New England
Click on "Collections, Archives and Exhibitions" for primary sources.
Virtual Norembega : The Northern New England Frontier
Created by SSU's Professor Emerson Baker, this site includes archeology of New England, maps and documents, etc.
Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum
Boston Public Library, Special Collections
Boston Athenaeum

Art, Architecture & Music Sources

ARTstor
A digital library of more than million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
Lewis Walpole Digital Library
Digitized images from the Yale University Archives.
Music Online: American Song
Music Online: American Song is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
This collection contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960. All pieces of the collection are indexed on this site and a search will retrieve a catalog description of the pieces. An image of the cover and each page of music will also be retrieved if the music was published before 1924 and is in the public domain. If a piece of music is still in copyright, an icon will appear in place of the music pages.
Digital Archive of American Architecture
Images of 300 architecturally significant buildings from colonial times to the present. The collection can be searched by location, period, architect, building type and style.
Historic New England
"Founded to present tne cultural and architectural heritage of New England," the collections of Historic New England include images of historic properties, furniture, clothing, jewelry, art, textiles and more.
Picturing America (National Endowment for the Humanities)
This online collection of American art is searchable by image, artist and theme.

Online Primary Sources for American Studies

AMDOCS : Documents for the Study of American History
American Broadsides and Ephemera
These are digitized facsimilies from the American Antiquarian Society’s collections. It includes 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900, and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900.
American History in Video
This collection of online videos includes over 4,000 titles of documentaries, newsreels, and archival and public affairs footage concerning events in American history.
American Memory
American Memory is now integrated into the Library of Congress' digital collections of documents, letters, diaries, photographs and recordings.
The American Presidency Project
Extensive website devoted to the study of the President of the United States. Includes a wide variety of information including Public Papers of the Presidents, State of the Union, and audio reports of the great addresses of the Presidents. From the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The American West
A digitized collection of primary source materials related to the American West.
The Avalon Project
Digital documents in the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy & Government. From Yale University Law School.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
This site is comprised of "...250,000 digitized images of photographs, textual documents, illuminated manuscripts, maps, works of art and books from the Beinecke's collections."
CQ Historical Documents
U.S. historical documents from 1972-present.
Early Canadiana Online
A collection of scanned images of books, pamphlets, journals and documents concerning Canadian history from the first European contact to the late 19th century. The collection is particularly strong in literature, women's history, native studies, travel and exploration, and the history of French Canada.
Everyday Life and Women in America, c1800-1920
This digital collection of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides provides primary source materials for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history. It covers 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. Materials come from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History, Duke University and The New York Public Library.
Historic Government Publications from World War II
This website provides access to World War II publications published by the U.S. government in support of the war effort.
The Making of America
Digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Produced by Cornell University.
Modern History Internet Sourcebook
Includes hundreds of primary sources related to American Studies.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
Extensive digitized collection of archival materials from several museum, university and state collections on both sides of the Atlantic.
100 Milestone Documents
Important documents from the National Archives and Records Administration.
American Rhetoric
An archive of over 5,000 American speeches available in text, audio and video.
History Matters : the U.S. survey course on the web
Gateway to primary sources and websites relating to U.S. history.
Famous Trials
Provides material, such as: court documents; testimony; letters; biographical information on trial participants; and chronologies on significant trials in American and elsewhere.
Digital Schomberg (Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture)
This site offers access to the digital collections and exhibitions of New York Public Library's renowned Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Gale U.S. History in Context
Includes primary sources on topics as well as reference works, articles from journals, magazines and newspapers, as well as, video and audio clips.

Primary Sources for American Studies -- SSU Print Resources

The Complete Bill of Rights by Neil H. Cogan (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. KF 4744 1997
Publication Date: 1997

What They Said (Coverage: 1969-1995) Call Number: Ref. D410 .W46 1995

Historic Documents (Coverage 1972-present) Call Number: Ref. E 839.5 .H57

Documents of American Indian Diplomacy by Vine Deloria; Raymond J. DeMallie
Call Number: Ref. KF 8202 1999
Publication Date: 1999
Documents of American History by A. Commager (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E 173 .C66 1973c
Publication Date: 1974

Digitized Book Collections

Early English Books Online (EBBO)
"...contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700."
Early American Imprints. Series I : Evans, 1639-1800
Includes books, pamphlets and broadsides from 17th- and 18th-century America. Covers topics from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, slavery, temperance, and witchcraft.
Early American Imprints II, Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819
This is a comprehensive set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century.
Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO)
Digitized collection of 150.000 significant works of the 18th century written in England or printed in other languages, but published in the United Kingdom. Includes important works associated with America.
Wright American Fiction
Digitized collection of American books from 1856-1875.

Historical Newspapers and Periodicals

Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876
Reproductions of historic newspapers. The complete text of the papers is searchable. The collection is based largely on "Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820."
Early American Newspapers, Series II, 1758-1922
Reproductions of historic newspapers. The complete text of the papers is searchable. Based primarily on the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), the Library of Congress, Wisconsin Historical Society and more than 90 other institutions.
American Periodicals Series
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998
Digitized collection of 270 newspapers from 35 states covering the African American experience.
Boston Globe (1872-1982)
New York Times, 1851-2010
Historical Wall Street Journal, 1889-1996

Advertising

Ad*Access (Duke University Digital Scriptorium)
Contains over 7,000 advertisements from U.S. and Canadaian newspapers and magazines dated from 1911 to 1955.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 (Duke University Digital Scriptorium)
Contains over 9,000 images of advertisements, illustrating the emergence of adversting in the U.S. Can be searched by company, product, date, subject, etc.

Maps

Map Collections: 1500-2003 (Library of Congress)
Contains maps from the extensive collections of the Library of Congress, searchable by location, theme, creator, and subject.
Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection (University of Texas, Austin)
One of the best one map collections. Includes historical and thematic maps.