Primary Source Databases
- European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 This link opens in a new windowEuropean Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is a free archive of indexed publications related to the Americas and written in Europe before 1750. It includes thousands of valuable primary source records covering the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples.
- Internet ArchiveUse the search tool and limit by dates to pull up items.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new windowBrings together articles, books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women’s reform activities. ”Teaching Tools” has 21 comprehensive lesson plans with over 100 lesson ideas and six Document-Based Question units.
Advice on Searching for Primary Sources
You will get limited results if you try to search for "primary sources" in library databases since the Library of Congress does not use that subject heading. Try searching these subject headings instead:
sources
personal narratives
diaries
letters
documents
speeches
memoirs
Online Early American Primary Sources
- Adams Family PapersA collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society with manuscripts and digital transcriptions
- Adams Family Papers: Digital EditionA full digital collection of the Adams family papers
- American MemoryProvides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
- Anne Bradstreet PoetryThe poet page on the Poetry Foundation, which lists poems written by Anne Bradstreet along with biographical information.
- Archiving Early AmericaHere at Archiving Early America you will discover a wealth of resources — a unique array of primary source material from 18th Century America. Scenes and portraits from original newspapers, magazines, maps and writings come to life just as they appeared to this country's forebears more than 250 years ago.
- Avalon ProjectThe Avalon Project will mount digital documents (Ancient to Modern/Present) relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy, and government.
- Black Loyalists: Our History, Our PeopleThis is a digital collection of documents detailing "how Canada became the home of the first settlements of free blacks outside Africa."
- The Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region 1600-1925The Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, ca. 1600-1925 comprises 139 books selected from the Library of Congress's General Collections and two books from its Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The collection includes first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs.
- CommonPlace: The Journal of Early American LifeContains articles, images, and analysis on items from early American life.
- Evans Early American Imprint CollectionEvans Early American Imprints Online contains books, pamphlets, broadsides and periodicals published in America from 1639-1800, based on Charles Evans' comprehensive American Bibliography and enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography.
- First Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920 This compilation of printed texts documents the culture of the nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners; it includes diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives.
- Galloway, Grace Growden, 1727-1782A collection of letters and papers from, to, or referring to Grace Gowden Galloway, provided by the American Philosophical Society.
- New York HeritageDigital collections for NY history.
- Phillis Wheatley PoetryThe poet page on the Poetry Foundation, which lists poems written by Phillis Wheatley along with biographical information.
