Broad primary source collections
These are large, topically diverse collections of digitized primary sources. They contain primary sources on a variety of subjects, in a variety of formats.
- Hathi Trust A large book digitization project where you will find a variety of kinds of primary sources.
- Digital Public Library of America Digitized archival collections from libraries, museums, and archives from around the country.
- Internet Archive The Internet Archive specializes in preserving cultural, intellectual, and historical artefacts of a digital nature, including software, videos, sound recordings, images, and more than half a trillion web pages. The archive also includes about 28 million digitized books and texts.
- Google Book Search This link opens in a new window Google Books searches across tens of millions of books and magazines and provides the full text for many titles no longer covered by copyright.
- Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new window Library of Congress Digital Collections serves as a portal to the 320 plus digital collections of the Library of Congress, providing links to each collection's home page. The collections include a wide range of materials such as books, collected papers, sheet music, images, and web archives.
- New York Public Library Digital Collections This link opens in a new window The New York Public Library Digital Gallery provides access to items digitized from the New York Public Library's collections. More than 200,000 of the images are in the public domain. In fact you can limit your to just public domain images.
- Digital Media Repository This link opens in a new window The Digital Media Repository offers digitized versions of a wide range of items including photographs, letters, posters, artwork, books, newspapers, and motion pictures. It also contains the Ball State University Board of Trustees minutes, building plans, course catalogs, and many other collections of university related items.
- The National Archives' (U.K.) online collections Links to more than 60 topical electronic collections of primary sources, featuring filters for the WWI, WWII, and other subjects.
- Cambridge Digital Library Over the course of six centuries Cambridge University Library's collections have grown from a few dozen volumes into one of the world's great libraries, with an extraordinary accumulation of material. The collections cover every conceivable aspect of human endeavour, spanning most of the world's cultural traditions.
- Avalon Project Key historic documents in full text.
- Internet Ancient History Sourcebook A collection of texts from ancient civilizations curated by Fordham University. Some texts are hosted by Fordham and some at other sites.
- Internet Medieval Sourcebook An online collection of primary sources mostly related to Medival Europe, hosted by Fordham University. Includes maps and some full-text documents.
- Internet Modern History Sourcebook A collection of texts from the Reformation through the 21st century curated by Fordham University. Some texts are hosted by Fordham and some at other sites.
- Eyewitness to History A collection of firsthand accounts of historical events made available by Ibis Communications, Inc., a publisher of educational materials.
Primary sources - newspapers, magazines, etc.
These resources contain digital reproductions of historical newspaper and magazine articles. They are topically diverse, but cover various times and places.
- New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Search the complete text of the New York Times from 1851 to 3 years prior to the current year. Includes PDF images of original articles with photographs and drawings, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, historical photos, stock photos, and advertisements. Note: An additional year of content is added annually.
- Independent Voices This link opens in a new window Independent Voices contains articles from more than 750 alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals. The publications were produced by feminist, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, and the extreme right-wing press. The contents come from libraries and donors in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. Copyrighted content is made available by the explicit permission of the copyright holder, assignee, or transferee.
- America's Historical Newspapers-Indiana State Collection and African American Newspapers This link opens in a new window Cross search or browse the content of nearly 300 Indiana and U.S. historical newspapers. You will find articles, eyewitness reporting, editorials, letters, advertisements, obituaries, and more.
- Chronicling America This link opens in a new window Chronicling America is a digitization project which provides access to historical newspapers and is a collaborative effort of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. It is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program. The database also includes a directory of newspaper titles from 1690 to the present which provides basic information about the title such as dates of publication and what libraries have print or microfilm copies of the title.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window The Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 provides indexing to many popular publications of the 20th century, containing all of the content of the original paper volumes.
- American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window The American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection database provides full text access to thousands of historical periodical publications. This database, which is made up of 50 collections, contains scans of each page of all publications, including illustrations. The results list takes you to the article level and allows you to browse the entire issue of the publication.
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
- Making of America This link opens in a new window Making of America primarily contains the full text of 19th century books and journal articles. The collection is strong in subject areas such as education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
- Poole's Index to Periodical Literature Poole's is and index to selected British and American periodicals, covering articles published within them from 1802 through1906.
Primary sources - other source types
These resources contain digitized primary sources of a variety of sorts - diaries, journals, letters, pamphlets, government documents, and more. They are focused on specific subjects.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (scholar's edition) This link opens in a new window Women and Social Movements in the United States provides access to an online journal of the same name, a chronology of U.S. women's history, more than historical 4,000 documents, a dictionary of social movements, and book and website reviews. Documents include 90,000 pages of federal, state, and local publications on the status of women between 1961 and 2005. Other documents are articles, editorials, book chapters, speeches, biographical portraits, proceedings, ephemera, photographs, charts, and tables.
- Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new window Early Encounters in North America contains accounts of encounters between explorers and Native Americans which took place between 1492 and 1834. The database draws from sources such as diaries, letters, and memoirs. This database will be of interest to historians, to naturalists and environmentalists who will find descriptions of flora fauna, and to ethnologists who will find descriptions of peoples.
- War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824 This link opens in a new window War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800‐1824 contains letters to and from the War Department. The database includes correspondence with Indian superintendents and agents, factors of trading posts, Territorial and State governors, military commanders, Indians, missionaries, treaty and other commissioners, Treasury Department officials, and persons having commercial dealings with the War Department, and other public and private individuals. Also included are related vouchers, receipts, requisitions, abstracts and financial statements, certificates of deposit, depositions, contracts, newspapers, copies of speeches to Indians, proceedings of conferences with Indians in Washington, licenses of traders, passports for travel in the Indian country, appointments, and instructions to commissioners, superintendents, agents, and other officials.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new window Empire Online contains primary sources which help students and researchers to explore colonial history, politics, culture and society. Materials include diaries, slave papers, memoirs, fiction, maps, images, and much more.
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800) This link opens in a new window Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans (1639-1800)is a key collection of 17th and 18th century American writing, all reproduced online in full-text. Primary sources include texts on early American diplomacy, foreign affairs, government, history, literature, philosophy, and religion. Based on Charles Evans’ renowned “American Bibliography” and Roger Bristol’s supplement, it includes nearly every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in American during that time period.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window Early English Books provides access to nearly every book published in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473–1700. It contains more than 17 million scanned images. Book come from more than 200 libraries.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new window Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 gathers archival material from key libraries in Britain and America. The collection includes a wide range of printed material, pamphlets, letters, and eye witness accounts. The database also includes visual materials such as photographs, memorabilia, posters, and artifacts.
- Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window Mass Observation online contains original manuscripts and typescript papers which were created and collected by the Mass Observation organization. The organization was created by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film maker Humphrey Jennings, and poet Charles Madge to produce what they referred to as an "'anthropology of ourselves." The database also includes printed publications, diaries, photographs, and interactive features. Although a depository of materials from the Mass Observation project, the database provides insight into everyday life in Britain from 1937 through 1967.
Finding archival collections through WorldCat
Another resource for finding archival collections is WorldCat - a union catalog that combines the holdings of tens of thousands of libraries.
- WorldCat This link opens in a new window WorldCat is the collected catalog of materials (such as books) owned by over 54,000 libraries worldwide. Great for exhaustive searches for books on a topic. Look for the "Request via interlibrary loan" in WorldCat records to borrow items from other libraries using Interlibrary Loan. Use the "Check OneSearch" link in the record to see if we have book first.
Use search terms that represent your topic: An author's name, or a term that represents a group of people, or that represents a historical event or period. Below the search terms, check the box for archival materials.
On the results page, click a collection's title (the titles are blue) to learn more about the collection. If it sounds interesting, click "Libraries worldwide that own item" to find out where the physical collection resides.
Once you know the name of the library or other institution that owns the item, use Google to find that library's homepage. There, look for a link to the library's archives, and see if you can find a digital archival collection. If so, search that collection for materials on your topic.
If you are interested in traveling to the library or archive in question to examine physical archival materials, it is a very good idea to contact the archivists to arrange a time to see the items and discuss conditions regarding their use.