Research Guides: 19th Century U.S. History: Primary Sources

Antebellum Era

The Dred Scott Case Collection
The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This collection was expanded from 85 - 111 documents, over 400 pages of text. (Click on the last link on the page "The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection").
Lincoln/Net
This Northern Illinois University site presents primary source materials from Lincoln's Illinois years (1830-1861) and other resources for study of antebellum Illinois.
O SAY CAN YOU SEE: Early Washington D.C., Law & Family
Explores multigenerational black, white, and mixed family networks in early Washington, D.C., by collecting, digitizing, making accessible, and analyzing thousands of case files from the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, Maryland state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court
Secession Era Editorials Project
A project of the Furman University Department of History, this site provides editorials of the partisan press in antebellum America, currently including those concerning the Nebraska bill debates, Dred Scott, John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, and the attack on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by South Carolina representative Preston Brooks.

Slavery, Abolition & Race Relations

African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
Includes historical manuscripts and rare published works from the late 17th century through the abolition of slavery
Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora
This website is a digital archive for hundreds of historical images, paintings, lithographs, and photographs illustrating enslaved Africans and their descendants before c. 1900. (Formerly known as The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas : a Visual Record)
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Click on the link on the page to enter the database.
The Avalon Project, Documents Concerning Slavery
Primary sources compiled by Yale Law School
Black Abolitionist Archive
From the 1820s to the Civil War, close to 300 black abolitionists who were involved in the antislavery movement. This University of Detroit Mercy collection provides access to over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period

Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
This collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Over 15,000 items are available for searching.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
Contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. (from the Library of Congress) These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.
Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery & Justice
Digitized documents from a report on Brown University's historical relationship to slavery and the slave trade
Documenting the American South: North American Slave Narratives
This digital initiative, by the University Library at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, provides access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
The Dred Scott Case Collection
The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court. This collection was expanded from 85 - 111 documents, over 400 pages of text. (Click on the last link on the page "The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection").
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
This project of the University of Maryland draws on materials from the National Archives of the United States to document people's movement from slavery to emancipation.
Freedom on the Move: A database of Fugitives from North American Slavery
The goal is to compile all North American slave runaway ads and make them available for statistical, geographical, textual, and other forms of analysis.
Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past
This collection of 25,000 digitized items are from the Historical Center at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans, the Louisiana Division of the New Orleans Public Library, The Historic New Orleans Collection, and Tulane University’s Louisiana Research Collection.
From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection 1824-1909
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396 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, published from 1822 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics.
Georgetown Slavery Archive
A repository of materials relating to the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery.
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
This Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture site provides timelines and primary and secondary source materials on topics ranging from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Western Migration to Caribbean and Haitian Immigration
The Ku Klux Klan In Washington State, 1920s

ProQuest History Vault: Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new window
Documents in Series I: Petitions to State Legislatures, 1777-1867 include primary source materials digitized from the state archives of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The collection includes nearly all existing legislative petitions on the subject of race and slavery. Documents in Series II: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1777-1867 were collected from local courthouses, and show the realities of slavery at the grassroots level in southern society. This collection also includes State Slavery Statutes, a master record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789â1865.
ProQuest History Vault: Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1 & 2 This link opens in a new window
Primary sources included are from the papers (business and financial records, diaries, letterbooks, correspondence, etc.) of dozens (both prominent and average) slaveholding families from plantations in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia.
Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.
Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall. The resource is provided by Adam Matthew.

Records of Slave Ship Movement Between Africa and the Americas, 1817-1843
This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas from 1817-1843. Specifically, the data file contains information on the ship's port of arrival, date of arrival, type of vessel, tonnage, master's name, number of guns, number of crew, national flag, number of slaves, port of departure, number of days of voyage, and mortality.
Runaway Slaves in Britain: Bondage, Freedom and Race in the Eighteenth Century
The sources for this project are advertisements placed in eighteenth-century English and Scottish. newspapers by slave-owners. The project will also locate and make available related newspaper, legal and other materials.
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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The over 10,000 items in this Cornell University collection include pamphlets, leaflets, broadsides, newsletters, and other ephemera documenting anti-slavery efforts at the local, regional, and national levels, beginning in 1700.
Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Provides access to raw data and documentation which contains information on slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
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This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: records of slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas, slave ships of eighteenth century France, slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, Virginia slave trade in the eighteenth century, English slave trade (House of Lords Survey), Angola slave trade in the eighteenth century, internal slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, slave trade to Havana, Cuba, Nantes slave trade in the eighteenth century, and slave trade to Jamaica.
The Slave Narrative
Part of Washington State University's Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events site, this collection features informational resources as well as primary source material

Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
28 min video tutorial => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwbrp6Pwvf0

This portal for slavery and abolition studies brings together documents and collections from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today. It also includes significant coverage of US court records from the local, regional and Supreme Court level.
Close attention is being given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
We have access to Part II-IV: (2) Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, (3)The Institution of Slavery (1492-1888), (4) The Age of Emancipation. Provided by Gale-Cengage.
These collections cover the transatlantic slave trade, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S., Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions.It includes digital access to a variety of primary sources: legaldocuments, court records, plantation records, company records,first-person accounts, newspaper articles, government documents and much more. Also includes reference articles and links to websites, biographies, chronologies, bibliographies to give background and context for further research.

Slaves & the Courts, 1740-1860
Contains over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.
Texas Slavery Project
Examines the expansion of slavery in the borderlands between the United States and Mexico in the years between 1837 and 1845. Based at the Virginia Center for Digital History, the project provides dynamic maps that plot the flows of slavery throughout Texas and a population search engine. Also includes primary sources such as personal letters, newspaper articles, constitutions and legal documents
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
This database, sponsored by a number of research institutions, provides information on around 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries
Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture
This University of Virginia site explores the effects of this work on American culture
The Understanding Slavery initiative (USI)
A national learning project which supports the teaching and learning of transatlantic slavery and its legacies using museum and heritage collections. Six museums across the UK have worked in partnership to share expertise, develop resources, training opportunities and school sessions.
Voices from Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories
From the Library of Congress, American Memory Project. Almost 7 hours of recorded interviews took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. 23 interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom.

Civil War (1861-1865)

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Contains content written by over 2,000 authors and includes approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs as well as biographies.
American Civil War Research Database This link opens in a new window
(from Alexander Street)
Contains indexed, searchable information on over 4 million soldiers and thousands of battles, together with over 16,000 photographs

Civil War 150: National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is taking part in the commemorations for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln with a series of seven related exhibitions. Accompanying these exhibitions are weekly blog entries, podcasts and videos written and produced by experts on Civil War topics.
Civil War Images of Northern Virginia
This site, created by George Mason University's Library, Special Collections, provides images of wood engravings, lithographs, chromolithographs, photolithographs, and more; many stem from the time of the Civil War, and most depict Civil War battles and military maps
Civil War Medical Care
This New York Public Library collection contains photographs from the United States Sanitary Commission Collection, 1861-1872
Civil War Women
This Duke University Library site features primary source documents and links to other resources concerning women in the Civil War

Civil War Primary Source Documents This link opens in a new window
Comprised of over 110,000 pages, this database focuses on the Civil War as it was fought from 1861 to 1865 and represents both Northern and Southern perspectives.
It Includes a variety of primary source documents, such as, letters, diaries, administrative records, photographs, illustrations, artifacts, scrapbook journals, family portraits, and maps featuring hand-colored details of troop movements and local landmarks.

Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
Searchable full-text edition of the 1953 publication, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Includes speeches, correspondence, and more, compiled by the Abraham Lincoln Association.
Confederate Broadside Poetry Collection
This Wake Forest University collection consists of over 250 poems written by Southerners and Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War
Crisis at Fort Sumter
This site, developed by Tulane University, uses text, images, and sound to reconstruct policy decision making during from the time of Lincoln's election to the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861.
eHistory Primary Sources
This Ohio State University project provides access to documents, images, and other primary source material, with special strengths in Civil War, including the Official Records; “the 128 volumes of the Official Records provide the most comprehensive, authoritative, and voluminous reference on Civil War operations.”
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
This site offers sample documents from the Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 project developed at the University of Maryland.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
A nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation. Topics covered include Slavery and Abolition; Civil War Era; Abraham Lincoln.
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
A digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
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This project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.
A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln
This collaboration between the Chicago Historical Society (CHS) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute, with text by Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney, Director of Historical Documentation at the CHS, examines slavery; free and slave-based economies; and the legacy of the Civil War as destruction and as catalyst.

Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines This link opens in a new window
Includes 65,000 pages from 49 confederate, union, abolitionist, and British presses periodicals, including 15 campaign newspapers, most of which are illustrated.
Images of the American Civil War This link opens in a new window
Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera provides over 1400 images from the fields of battle, politics, and general society, enabling researchers to experience the events, both monumental and mundane, of the war that tested and defined the core meaning of America
The images, which are drawn from the fields of battle, politics, and general society, allow students and researchers to experience the events, both monumental and mundane, of this critical war.

Making of America
Dates covered: 1840-1900
A collaborative effort between Cornell and the University of Michigan makes available primary sources in American social history from each university's library.
North Carolina Civil War Image Portfolio
From the University of North Carolina, this collection presents images from woodcuts, engravings, lithographs, and photographs--most of these were made by people accompanying Union forces, or were made from sketches and other information they provided.

ProQuest Civil War Era This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to the full runs of eight newspapers from 1840-1865 and nearly 2000 pamphlets focusing on the entire Civil War era, from Manifest Destiny through the end of the Civil War.
Materials were specifically selected for regional and diverse perspectives they offer; newspapers include Richmond Dispatch, Charleston Mercury, New Orleans Times Picayune, Boston Herald, New York Herald, Columbus State Journal, The Kentucky Daily Journal, and the Memphis Daily Appeal. Pamphlets come from two important collections: Slavery and Anti-Slavery Pamphlets from the Libraries of Salmon P. Chase & John P. Hale and Civil War Pamphlets 1861-1865.

Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
This site, developed by Edward L. Ayres at the University of Virginia, provides a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, church and census records, newspapers, and speeches, to document one Northern and one Southern community during the Civil War era.

Emancipation/Reconstruction Era (1865-1887)

African American Pamphlets
Dates covered: 1818-1907 (The bulk were published between 1875-1900)
The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love.
An Era of Progress and Promise: Education and Religion in Post-Emancipation America
full text of the 1910 book
1863-1910
The book is a culmination of the findings of the Clifton Conference -- which took place from 1901 to 1908 to discuss educational and religious opportunities available to African Americans.It was compiled by W. N. Hartshorn of Clifton, Massachusetts, to celebrate the "religious, moral, and educational development of the American Negro since his emancipation."
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
This project of the University of Maryland draws on materials from the National Archives of the United States to document people's movement from slavery to emancipation.
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
This Harpweek site compiles over 200 excerpts from Harper's Weekly concerning the 1868 Johnson impeachment.

19th Century Primary Source Collections, A-Z

Eight Centuries (formerly 19th Century Masterfile) This link opens in a new window
Contains over 6 million citation for books, periodicals and government publications from over 70 print indexes to material published in the 19th Century.
American Periodicals 1740-1940 This link opens in a new window
Includes digitized images of over 1,800 American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal;regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking publications like The Dial (publication of the Transcendentalists), Puck (first successful humor magazine), and McClure's (creator of muckraking journalism).
American Pamphlets Series I 1820-1922: From the New York Historical Society This link opens in a new window
This Readex collection includes over 25,000 pamphlets covering 100 years of American life, from the Jacksonian Era up to the beginning of the Jazz Age. The publication of pamphlets exploded in the 19th century, creating a forum to express views and perspectives not seen in other print genres. The pamphlets in this digitized collection address a wide range of topics including slavery, suffrage, religious movements, the Civil War, and dozens of other divisive issues. These pamphlets contain speeches, orations, debates, sermons, treatises, tracts, narratives, poems, songs, memoirs, announcements, and legal notices.
C19: Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window
Draws on indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index and Periodicals Index Online to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.4 million books and official publications, 64,891 archival collections and 15.6 million articles from over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961 This link opens in a new window
Dates covered: 1824-1961
Login required (from Archive Direct/Adam Matthew) This series, issued from the National Archives (London), provides access to confidential papers issued by the British Foreign and Colonial Offices concerning North America, with a focus on Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
Duke University Libraries' site presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States.

Everyday Life and Women in America Online, c.1820-1920 This link opens in a new window
This collection documents in compelling detail the social and cultural forces that shaped the everyday lives of men and women in America from 1800 to 1920, addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home life, health and popular pastimes. Provides access to 75 rare periodicals ranging from Echoes of the South (Florida) the Household Magazine (North Carolina) Lucifer the Lightbearer (Chicago), The Heathen Woman's Friend (Boston) and Women's Work (Georgia); full run of Town Topics from the New York Public Library, 1887-1923, Pamphlets and monographs illuminating all aspects of family life all of which have been screened against Gerritsen, Shaw-Shoemaker, and other relevant projects to avoid needless duplication; contextual essays by scholars.
Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new window
Dates covered: 1543-1945
Login required (from Proquest/Chadwyck-Healey) (1543-1945) Contains more than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. The anti-feminist case is presented as well as the pro-feminist. Titles are also available in the USC Libraries Catalog.
The Gerritsen Collection has since become the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world.

Hearth Home Economics Archive
Dates covered: 1850-1950
This Cornell University site is a core collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines, published between 1850 and 1950 and selected by scholars for their historical importance.
Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Developed by Harvard University's Open Collections Program, this site provides resources on immigration and topics such as the Gold Rush, railroads, immigrant press, and attempts to restrict immigration, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act

Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954 This link opens in a new window
A digital archive of manuscript materials from the holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) in New York. This resource is provided by Adam Matthew.
Includes organization and institutional records and papers, as well as autobiographies, letters,notebooks, and scrapbooks dating from the 17th to the mid-20th century.Also includes full-text searchable books and pamphlets from the Soble and Rosenbach collections at the AJHS as well as supplemental resources including biographies, a chronology, interactive maps, scholarly essays, a selection of American Jewish Year Book articles, links to related websites,and a visual resources gallery that draws from two collections of photographs: the Baron de Hirsch Fund Records collection and the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work (New York) Records.

Lincoln/Net
Dates covered: 1830-1861
This Northern Illinois University site presents primary source materials from Lincoln's Illinois years (1830-1861) and other resources for study of antebellum Illinois.
Making of America
Dates covered: 1840-1900
A collaborative effort between Cornell and the University of Michigan makes available primary sources in American social history from each university's library.

Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 This link opens in a new window
Combines 19th- and 20th-century legal collections from America and Britain to form a comprehensive full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises. It contains more than 21,000 works from casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches and more.
The works, derived primarily from the special collections at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and York University in Toronto, cover every aspect of law and encompass a range of analytical, theoretical, and practical literature, with many being quite rare and generally unavailable at USC or anywhere in the southern California. The types of works included are classic treatises, casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches, and others.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. All of these titles are accessible through the USC Libraries Catalog.
Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere.

Transportation History Collection: Railroads
This site, produced by the University of Michigan Special Collections Library, contains a wealth of primary sources from the 19th and 20th centuries, including railroad company annual reports; the monthly periodical Locomotive World; pamphlets; and more.

Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century

United States and its Territories: The Age of Imperialism
Dates covered: 1870-1925
This University of Michigan Library site provides the full text of monographs and government documents concerning the Spanish-American war published in the United States, Spain, and the Philippines between 1870 and 1925.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 This link opens in a new window
(from Archive of Americana/Readex) The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 is a full-text database of key publications of the United States Congress. It documents the official activities of the committees of the House and the Senate, including the journals, reports, and documents. In addition, through the nineteenth century the Serial Set also included publications of the executive departments relating to important public issues, including reports on education, public health, and agriculture, as well as maps and color plates
It documents the official activities of the committees of the House and the Senate, including the journals, reports, and documents. In addition, through the nineteenth century the Serial Set also included publications of the executive departments relating to important public issues. It contains, for example, reports on education, public health, and agriculture, as well as maps and color plates. The database consists of approximately 369,000 publications published in 14,500 volumes and over 11 million pages.
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 This link opens in a new window
(from Gale) Historical records and briefs of the U.S. Supreme Court
Approximately 150,000 Supreme Court cases are featured, the majority consisting of those for which the Court did not give a full opinion. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs comprises over 150,000 cases from the generation before the American Civil War to the decade of the Vietnam War and Watergate. It covers every aspect of law: civil rights law; constitutional law; corporate law; environmental law; gender law; labor law; legal history and legal theory; property law; taxation; trademark and intellectual property law, among other subjects.
Women and Social Movements Library This link opens in a new window
Women and Social Movements in the United States brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's activism in public life.

Legal & Legislative History

Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive
This archive, developed by the University of Michigan Library, contains documents and images concerning Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent resegregation trends in American schools
The Dred Scott Case Collection
1846-1855
The records displayed in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant records of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court. The original Dred Scott case file is located in the Office of the St. Louis Circuit Clerk.

This collection is an expanded and updated version of the original Dred Scott Case Collection. The collection, was expanded from eighty-five to one hundred and eleven documents, over 400 pages of text. In addition, the collection is now a full-text, searchable resource that represents the full case history of the Dred Scott Case.
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Famous Trials of the 20th Century
Compiled by Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, this resource provides primary source and other materials concerning some of the 20th Century's key trials.

Nexis Uni (formerly LEXIS/NEXIS Academic) This link opens in a new window
Full text of state and federal legislation and laws. Also contains business, financial, medical, biographical, government and domestic and international newspaper resources.
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 This link opens in a new window
The Making of Modern Law is a fully searchable database of approximately 10 million pages and more than 21,000 works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on British Commonwealth and American law for research in British and United States legal history.
The works, derived primarily from the special collections at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and York University in Toronto, cover every aspect of law and encompass a range of analytical, theoretical, and practical literature, with many being quite rare and generally unavailable at USC or anywhere in the southern California. The types of works included are classic treatises, casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches, and others.
Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new window
The Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926 is a digital collection of more than 10,000 titles describing courtroom dramas published between 1600 and 1926.
The two million pages of searchable content is derived from primary source documents located in the law libraries of Yale University, Harvard University, and the Library of the Bar of the City of New York. Included in the collection are unofficially published trial accounts, official trial documents, administrative proceedings, and arbitrations.The collection offers up content describing scandalous courtroom dramas and the daily lives of everyday people around the world, providing a rare historical glimpse into a given era.

The Oyez Project
A multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States, its justices, and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955.

Proquest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Includes hearings (testimony), committee prints, reports, documents, and full text of bills and public laws; provides full-text access to the U.S. Statutes at Large from 1789 to the present. The U.S. Statutes at Large is a chronological compilation of federal laws, joint and concurrent resolutions, presidential proclamations, reorganization plans, and constitutional amendments.

Slaves & the Courts, 1740-1860
Library of Congress, American Memory Project.
Contains just 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. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.
Louisiana Supreme Court and Circuit Court Historical Archives
Includes Supreme Court Records 1813-1920 and some legal documents, dating between 1769 and 1812. Also includes Circuit Court records: Alexandria (Western District) 1813-1846 and Baton Rouge (Western District) 1813-1846

U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 This link opens in a new window
Historical records and briefs of the U.S. Supreme Court
Approximately 150,000 Supreme Court cases are featured, the majority consisting of those for which the Court did not give a full opinion. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs comprises over 150,000 cases from the generation before the American Civil War to the decade of the Vietnam War and Watergate. It covers every aspect of law: civil rights law; constitutional law; corporate law; environmental law; gender law; labor law; legal history and legal theory; property law; taxation; trademark and intellectual property law, among other subjects.