Pre-Colonial and Colonial Era
- American JourneysThis collaboration between the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day contains more than 18,000 pages of 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.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new windowIncludes a thematic layout with sections covering Cultural Contacts, Literature of Empire, the Visible Empire, Religion, Race, Class and Imperialism; thousands of images of unique source material including maps, manuscripts,pamphlets, paintings, drawings and rare books, interactive data maps, visually representing the history of world empires between the 15th and 20th centuries. This resource is provided by Adam Matthew.
- First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820Part of American Memory, this resource consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century.
- Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954 This link opens in a new windowA 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.
- Salem Witch TrialsThis "documentary archive and transcription project," a collaboration between several scholars and institutions, provides primary source material concerning these 1692 trials.
American Revolution & Early Republic
- American Founding Era Collection This link opens in a new windowThis Rotunda collection provides access to the papers of some of the major figures of the early republic: John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley and James Madison, John Marshall, Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry, and George Washington.
- Benjamin Franklin, The Papers ofYou can browse the complete Franklin papers according to their chronological order in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, edited and published at Yale.
- The Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776From the Massachusetts Historical Society. A list of resources and links to digital collections
- Discovering Lewis and ClarkMaintained by the Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation of Washburn, North Dakota, with the aim making this the most comprehensive and useful Lewis and Clark website on the Internet.
- Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789This collection, presented by American Memory, includes excerpts from Congressional journals, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
- Papers of George Washington Digital Edition This link opens in a new windowThis Rotunda collection includes all 59 volumes of the print edition published up to 2009, encompassing five series and the complete diaries.
- Prize Papers Online 1: American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War This link opens in a new windowContains approximately 7,000 interrogations of members of the crew of ships taken during the American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (ca. 1775-1784). It shows images of each interrogation (of two, three, sometimes even six or more pages). Answers to the fourteen most researched questions are transcribed and stored in a searchable database.
- John Jay, Papers of(1745-1829)
An online index and database of over 13,000 documents, including correspondence, memos, diaries, etc. written by or to the American statesman John Jay - Journals of the Lewis and Clark ExpeditionThis site provides searchable full text of the Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals as well as images, audio files, Native American perspectives, and other texts.
- Liberty Fund Online Library - The American Revolution and ConstitutionA large collection of electronic books from thinkers and politicians, including Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others.
- People of the Founding Era This link opens in a new windowThe collection, selection, and publication of the correspondence of great (and not so great) Americans has a history nearly as old as the nation's. Volumes of letters began appearing by the early nineteenth century, including those authored by obscure as well as by famous men.
- Primary Documents in American History - The American Revolution and The New Nation, 1763-1815A Web guide developed by the Library of Congress listing and linking to various documents related to the American Revolution.
- Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books This link opens in a new windowOrderly Books were the controlling document of day-to-day life in the military, most notably during the Revolutionary War.
- Sid Lapidus Collection on Liberty and the American RevolutionDonated to the Princeton Library, this collection includes more than 150 books, pamphlets and prints representing the following themes: 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.
- The War Department 1784-1800, Papers ofA project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
Slavery, Abolition & Race Relations
- African Americans and the End of Slavery in MassachusettsIncludes 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 DiasporaThis 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)
- The Avalon Project, Documents Concerning SlaveryPrimary sources compiled by Yale Law School
- Black Abolitionist ArchiveFrom 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 windowThis 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, 1936-1938Contains 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 & JusticeDigitized documents from a report on Brown University's historical relationship to slavery and the slave trade
- Documenting the American South: North American Slave NarrativesThis 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 CollectionThe 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 ProjectThis 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 SlaveryThe 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 PastThis 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.
- Georgetown Slavery ArchiveA repository of materials relating to the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery.
- In Motion: The African-American Migration ExperienceThis 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
- ProQuest History Vault: Slavery and the Law This link opens in a new windowDocuments 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.
- ProQuest History Vault: Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1 & 2 This link opens in a new windowPrimary 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 windowBased 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.
- Records of Slave Ship Movement Between Africa and the Americas, 1817-1843This 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 CenturyThe 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.
- Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturiesProvides access to raw data and documentation which contains information on slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- The Slave NarrativePart 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 window28 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. - Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new windowWe 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.
- Slaves & the Courts, 1740-1860Contains 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 ProjectExamines 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 DatabaseThis 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 CultureThis 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 StoriesFrom 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.
Antebellum Era
- The Dred Scott Case CollectionThe 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/NetThis 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 & FamilyExplores 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 ProjectA 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.
Civil War (1861-1865)
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American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowContains content written by over 2,000 authors and includes approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs as well as biographies.
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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
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Civil War 150: National Portrait GalleryThe 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.
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Civil War Images of Northern VirginiaThis 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
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Civil War Medical CareThis New York Public Library collection contains photographs from the United States Sanitary Commission Collection, 1861-1872
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Civil War WomenThis Duke University Library site features primary source documents and links to other resources concerning women in the Civil War
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Civil War Primary Source Documents This link opens in a new windowComprised 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.
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Collected Works of Abraham LincolnSearchable full-text edition of the 1953 publication, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Includes speeches, correspondence, and more, compiled by the Abraham Lincoln Association.
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Confederate Broadside Poetry CollectionThis Wake Forest University collection consists of over 250 poems written by Southerners and Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War
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Crisis at Fort SumterThis 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.
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eHistory Primary SourcesThis 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.”
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Freedmen and Southern Society ProjectThis site offers sample documents from the Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 project developed at the University of Maryland.
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Gilder Lehrman Institute of American HistoryA 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.
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The Geography of Slavery in VirginiaA digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
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A House Divided: America in the Age of LincolnThis 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.
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Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines This link opens in a new windowIncludes 65,000 pages from 49 confederate, union, abolitionist, and British presses periodicals, including 15 campaign newspapers, most of which are illustrated.
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Images of the American Civil War This link opens in a new windowPhotographs, 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
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Making of AmericaDates 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 PortfolioFrom 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.
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ProQuest Civil War Era This link opens in a new windowThis 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.
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Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil WarThis 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)
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African American PamphletsDates 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 Americafull 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 ProjectThis 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.
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Impeachment of Andrew JohnsonThis Harpweek site compiles over 200 excerpts from Harper's Weekly concerning the 1868 Johnson impeachment.
1879-1929: Post-Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, Progressive Era and WWI
- Alcohol, Temperance & ProhibitionThis Brown University collection presents broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets, and government publications gathered over three centuries to researchers interested in the history of alcoholism and how the media and arts spread ideas and information.
- The Blues, Black Vaudeville, and the Silver Screen, 1912-1930sThis collection consists of selected correspondence, financial records, contracts, and advertising materials from the Douglass Theatre's records in the Middle Georgia Archives' Charles Henry Douglass business records, and it documents the amusements available to Macon's African American population and the business dealings of this African American entrepreneur from 1912 to the 1930s.
- The Feather Trade and the American Conservation MovementThis online exhibit by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History provides information and images on the 19th-Century feather trade; hunting and collecting; and the rise of the Audobon Movement in the 1890s.
- First World War Portal This link opens in a new windowThe First World War Portal has three modules, Personal Experiences, Propaganda & Recruitment and Visual Perspectives & Narratives. Items include official and personal photographs, manuscripts, rare printed material, artwork, objects and film, this profound collection presents international perspectives on the conflict, the Home Front, the role of women during the war, and much more. The resource is provided by Adam Matthew.
- ProQuest History Vault: Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930 This link opens in a new windowThe files in this primary source collection 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.
- ProQuest History Vault: U.S. Military Intelligence Reports, 1911-1944 This link opens in a new windowContains Intelligence Reports for China, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, as well as Biweekly Intelligence Summaries for 1928-1938 and Combat Estimates for Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
- Trench Journals and Unit Magazines of the First World War This link opens in a new window(1914-1922) Includes digital scans of 1,500 publications written by men and women serving in the armed forces and various welfare organizations during WWI.
- The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory FireThis online exhibit, produced by Cornell University and its School of Industrial and Labor Relations, provides primary and secondary materials concerning the 1911 fire.
- ProQuest History Vault: Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Parts 1 & 2 This link opens in a new windowPrimary 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.
- ProQuest History Vault: World War I: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, and Diplomacy in the World War I Era,1915-1927 This link opens in a new windowThis module offers extensive documentation on the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I as well as materials on U.S. intelligence operations and the post-war peace process. AEF documents consist of correspondence, cablegrams, operations reports, statistical strength reports and summaries of intelligence detailing troop movements and operations of Allied and enemy forces. The vast majority of the AEF documents date from April 26, 1917-July 2, 1919.
1930s: Great Depression & New Deal
- American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940This American Memory site provides access to life histories compiled and transcribed by the staff of the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA)
- Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938Contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. 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.
- Federal Theatre Project Materials CollectionThis online presentation includes items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured here are stage and costume designs, photographs, posters, playbills, programs, and playscripts, including productions of Macbeth and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus as staged by Orson Welles, and Power, a topical drama of the period. Selected administrative documents from the project are also available.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and MuseumThis institution, part of the National Archives and Records Administration, provides a gateway to many resources about FDR, the New Deal, and more.
- New Deal NetworkThis site, originally developed by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, provides a database of primary materials, including images and texts, gathered from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress, and other sources.
- ProQuest History Vault: New Deal and World War II This link opens in a new windowThis collection of primary sources includes President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Office Files as well as FBI Reports of the Roosevelt White House; Civilian Conservation Corps Press Releases; Records of the Committee on Economic Security; and Department of Treasury records.
World War II (America's Involvement) 1941-1945
- DenshoWelcome to the Densho Website
Densho's mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished. We offer these irreplaceable firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images and teacher resources, to explore principles of democracy and promote equal justice for all. - Historic Government Publications from World War IIThis Southern Methodist University site provides access to documents from a wide range of government agencies, including the Office of Civilian Defense; the Department of Labor Children's Bureau; the War Production Board of the US Government Printing Office; and more
- Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life This link opens in a new windowOver 24,000 pages from twenty-five titles of relocation camp newspapers, from 1942-1945.
- A People at War (NARA)Digitized images and narrative about men and women, military and civilian, who served during World War II.
- ProQuest History Vault: World War II Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowIncludes records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the War Department Operations Division, U.S. Navy Action and Operational Reports, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Map Room Files, Records of the Office of War Information, Papers of the War Refugee Board, and several other collections documenting U.S. planning and participation in World War II.
- ProQuest History Vault: New Deal and World War II This link opens in a new windowThis collection of primary sources includes President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Office Files as well as FBI Reports of the Roosevelt White House; Civilian Conservation Corps Press Releases; Records of the Committee on Economic Security; and Department of Treasury records.
- WWII Homefront: Anti-Japanese Ephemerafrom the Authentic History Center website
- Service Newspapers of World War Two This link opens in a new windowThis digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 200 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict. The resource is provided by Adam Matthew.
- American Newsreels in Video This link opens in a new windowNews footage covering the years leading up to and during the Second World War. United Newsreel provides more than 35 hours of the American weekly newsreel produced by the U.S. Office of War Information from 1942 to 1946, complete with transcripts, while the Universal Newsreel provides more than 200 hours of content with full transcripts from Universal Studios’ biweekly series that ran from 1929 to 1946.
Cold War
- Cold War Internatinal History Project (CWIHP)Established at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., in 1991.
- Cold War: Global Perspectives on East-West Tensions, 1945-1991 This link opens in a new windowReports, publications, and news broadcasts offering firsthand analysis, descriptions, and viewpoints of every facet of the Cold War.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Services: Daily Reports (1941-1996) plus Annexes This link opens in a new windowThe original mission of FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. These translations, or transcriptions in the case of English language materials, make up the Daily Reports.
- The Presidency and the Cold WarThis National Portrait Gallery exhibition focuses on presidential decision-making during the Cold War. The development of new armaments such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could reach targets halfway around the world in less than thirty minutes, meant that the president of the United States could be required to respond to crises in minutes—not days, weeks, or months.
- Parallel History Project on Cooperative SecurityThis website contains thousands of pages of material on security-related issues of the Cold War.
The main issues of research interest are:
~The European Security Model, NATO Enlargement and Its Out-of-Area Problem,
~Regional Security in Asia, Latin America, and Africa,
~Threat Perceptions, Strategic Doctrines, Military Plans,
~Peacekeeping and Nongovernmental Organizations as New Security ~Factors during and after the Cold War - Wilson Center Digital Archive - Cold War HistoryThe Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) has amassed a collection of archival documents on the Cold War era from the once secret archives of former communist countries.
Civil Rights Movement
- ACLU American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990 This link opens in a new windowThe records of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on free speech, citizenship, race, discrimination, immigration, labor, radicalism, and related topics support the study of American legal history and complement the modules in the Making of Modern Law series. Documents include newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, court files, memorandums, telegrams, minutes, and legal case records.
- Alexander Street Press Oral Histories Online This link opens in a new windowOral History Online provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,700 collections of Oral History in English from around the world. The collection also provides keyword searching of more than 329,400 pages of full-text by close to 10,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to over 4,200 audio and video files and almost 19,000 bibliographic records.
- American Race Relations: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996 This link opens in a new windowReports, publications, and news broadcasts covering America's fight for racial justice, with firsthand analysis of race relations in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
- Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new windowThe Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas.
- Black Panther Party: The UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording ProjectThis Pacifica Radio/UC-Berkeley collaboration seeks to gather, catalog, and make accessible primary source media resources related to social activism and activist movements in California in the 1960's and 1970's; it provides links to key resources and sites with primary sources on the Black Panther Party and more
- Brown v. Board of Education Digital ArchiveThis 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
- Civil Rights Documentation ProjectDeveloped by the University of Southern Mississippi Library and partners, this resource provides oral history transcripts and a civil rights timeline.
- Farmworker Movement Documentation Project This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive multimedia digital collection and primary source project created to ensure that historical materials related to the United Farmworkers of America (UFW) and the life of Cesar Chavez would be preserved. Photographs, videos, documentaries, oral histories and fulltext of selected books. Searchable and browsable by topics.
- The Freedom ArchivesA non-profit educational archive located in San Francisco dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of historical audio, video, and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s.
- Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil RightsThurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland.
Since its inception in 1957, the United States Commission on Civil Rights has been at the forefront of efforts by the Federal Government and state governments to examine and resolve issues related to race, ethnicity, religion and, more recently, sexual orientation.
- Homophile Movement: Papers of Donald Stewart Lucas, 1941-1976 This link opens in a new window"Homophile Movement" refers to organizations and political strategies employed by the GLBT community prior to the era of confrontational activism of the 1970s.
- ProQuest History Vault: Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century This link opens in a new windowProvides access to 4 primary source modules: (1) Federal Government Records – Includes FBI Files on Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists, records from from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and organizations and the federal government; (2) Federal Government Records, Supplement - includes civil rights records from the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department during the Ford presidency and from the Ronald Reagan White House Office Records related to civil rights. (3) Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 1 - Includes papers and records of various individuals and civil rights organizations, including: Claude A. Barnett's Associated Negro Press, Mary McLeod Bethune's National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. (4) Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 2 - Includes the records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, the Robert F. Williams Papers, the papers of Chicago Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the Chicago chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, and records pertaining to the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
- ProQuest History Vault: NAACP Papers Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowThe collection, made up of 6 modules, contains nearly 2 million pages of internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country.
- Revolution and Protest Online This link opens in a new windowRevolution and Protest Online explores the protest movements, revolutions, and civil wars that have transformed societies and human experience from the 18th century through the present. Organized around more than thirty events and areas, representing a variety of time periods, regions, and topics, this collection will include at completion 175 hours of video, 100,000 pages of printed materials.
- The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project1910-1970
From the University of Washington. Civil rights movements in Seattle started well before the celebrated struggles in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, and they relied not just on African American activists but also on Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans. They also depended upon the support of some elements of the region's labor movement. - SNCC Digital GatewayDigital Library of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Vietnam War
- The Vietnam Center & ArchiveThis archive, developed by Texas Tech University, provides access to over 2.7 million pages of documents, including photographs, slides, negatives, oral histories, artifacts, moving images, sound recordings, maps, and collection finding aids
- ProQuest History Vault: American Politics and Society from JFK to Watergate, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new windowThe Kennedy files include documents from the 1960 presidential campaign and cover the major issues dealt with during his presidency.
- ProQuest History Vault: Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new windowThis ProQuest History Vault module covers U.S. involvement in the region from the early days of the Kennedy administration, through the escalation of the war during the Johnson administration, to the final resolution of the war at the Paris Peace Talks and the evacuation of U.S. troops in 1973.
- Vietnam War Era Ephemera CollectionThis University of Washington Library collection provides access to leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s
1960s
- Free Speech MovementThis site, produced by the University of California-Berkeley's Bancroft Library, documents key moments and figures in the Free Speech Movement of the mid-1960s
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new windowBritain and America saw dramatic changes in the period from 1950-1975. The resource is provided by Adam Matthew.