Library Guides: History: US Primary Sources

Primary Sources Databases

Finding Primary Sources in the popular literature of the day: You may be able to find articles, speeches, and personal accounts that qualify as primary sources in the magazines, newspapers and popular literature of the day. Lehigh's library also makes available a significant number of online sources that provide the searchable full text of historic materials and publications. These resources are for use by the Lehigh Community only. Be sure to look at the Newspaper tab in this guide for other resources.

American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 1,100 periodicals published between 1740 and 1900.
Includes special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals.
African American Periodicals: 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 170 African American Periodicals published between 1825 and 1995.
Primary Source Collections provided by A.M. Explorer This link opens in a new window
Enables cross searching of 88 primary source collections covering a wide range of humanities and social science subjects.
Major themes include Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Empire and Globalism, Ethnic Studies, Gender and Sexuality, History, Politics, Literature, Theatre, and War and Conflict
Early American Imprints: 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to primary sources covering nearly every aspect of early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, politics and every day life. Coverage from 1639 to 1800.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 is based on Charles Evans American Bibliography and the Supplement to Evans American Bibliography by Roger Bristol. These bibliographies attempted to gather all American imprints (published works) from the 17th and 18th Centuries. These works identify historic publications that are in microfiche collection known as Early American Imprints, 1639-1800. The Early American Imprints: Series I: Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1659-1800 is an ongoing project of digitizing and making full text searching available for all of the 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images.
Early American Imprints: 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
In addition to its books, pamphlets and broadsides, this collection features many state papers and government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; congressional, state and territorial resolutions. Coverage from 1801 to 1819.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) provides full-text search capabilities and access to an image database of the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. Continues Readex's Early American Imprints: Series I: Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1659-1800. This primary source database is based on the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and now supplemented by thousands of new items.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Contains images of nearly every work printed in the British Isles and North America from 1470-1700, as well as works in English printed elsewhere. Includes transcriptions of about 50% of texts.
Based on titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) and the Early English Books Tract Supplement.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Digital access to nearly 150,000 items including books, broadsides, Bibles, tract books and sermons and printed ephemera and includes works by many well-known and lesser-known authors published between 1701 and 1800.
Full-text searching allows researchers access to information in many fields including history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more. The basic and advanced search tools available allow the researcher a variety of search types including an advanced "fuzzy" search to help find the variant/approximate spelling found in documents of this era and the ability to search by ESTC numbers.
Harper's Weekly: The Civil War Era 1857-1865 This link opens in a new window
Provides Harper's Weekly online for the years 1857 to 1865.
All the pages of Harper's Weekly (1857-1865) are viewable as scanned images, together with a series of four indexes: subject, illustrations, literature & publishing, and advertising.
Readers Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States. Reflects the history of 20th century America.
The database covers the years 1890 through 1982. For access to current general periodicals indexing, see Academic Search Premier
Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
Collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912, provided by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS).
Subjects covered in the collection reach all facets of American life, including science, literature, medicine, women's fashion, agriculture, family life, and religion.
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
A searchable archive of leading women’s interest magazines, dating from the 19th century through 2005. Includes Better Homes & Gardens, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Seventeen, and more.

U.S. Government Reports as Primary Sources

U.S. Congressional Serial Set This link opens in a new window
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set is an incomparably rich, and until this digitization, a largely untapped collection of primary source material detailing all aspects of American history. Lehigh's Federal Depository collection has had many of these materials in print form, however the indexing was limited and discovery was difficult and time consuming. With this online database one can easily research U.S. political, social, cultural, military and ethnic history, as well as international relations, exploration expeditions across the country and throughout the world, genealogy, commerce, industrial development and much more. Its contents come not only from the U.S. Congress, but also include key Executive Department publications and publication series. Lehigh's official subscription to this product contains the 19th and 20th Century documents beginning with Volume 1 in the first session of the 15th Congress (1817) and extending to 1980.

Archives and Manuscript Collections

ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Provides a search interface for primary source material held in archives, special collections, and manuscript collections around the world.
ArchiveGrid also helps researchers contact archives to request information, arrange a visit, and order copies.
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections This link opens in a new window
Access to records drawn from the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) and the OCLC bibliographic database that describe archival and manuscript collections in research, college, university and public and special libraries, archives, museums and historical societies in North America and worldwide.

Featured Resources

American Memory
provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music .It is a digital record of American history. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America
Making of America - Univ. of Michigan
a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
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Cornell University also provides a "Making of America" collection.

Primary Sources on the Web

Libraries, Archives, Museums and other institutions are digitizing enormous amounts of primary source materials from their collections and making them freely available on the internet. It is always useful to conduct a web search, using Google or other search tools to locate primary sources.

American Memory
Provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music .It is a digital record of American history. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America
Avalon Project
A collection of historical, diplomatic and legal texts from Yale Law School
Documenting the American South
19th century American South materials from the University of North Carolina
Valley of the Shadow
Details life in Augusta County, Va. and Franklin County, Pa. during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Contains letters, diaries, newspapers, speeches, census records and church records.
War Department Papers, 1784 - 1800
"After a traumatic and devastating fire in 1800, many historians thought that the early files of the United States War Department were essentially lost forever. Thankfully, the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University recently completed a decade long project to locate all of these records and place them online here. The collection is a very important one, because during this time period the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, and naval affairs." Holly Hill, Archives and Archivists listserve.

History

U. S. National Archives

Haithi Trust

Primary Sources Databases

U.S. Government Reports as Primary Sources

Archives and Manuscript Collections

Featured Resources

Primary Sources on the Web

Library and Technology Services

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