LibGuides: Research by Type: Primary Historical Documents

Primary Historical Documents

America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. includes full-text history journals, articles, reviews, and dissertations, and the ability to search by time period.
Subjects: History, US History, Canadian History
American Journeys This link opens in a new window
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. Includes primary sources - rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives.
Civil War Primary Source Documents: This link opens in a new window
An archive of unique primary manuscripts chronicling the American Civil War as it was experienced. Providing both Northern and Southern perspectives, it covers all aspects of the war, including reactions and impressions from the home front. Includes letters, diaries, administrative records, photographs and illustrations. Personal accounts appear in various scrapbook journals and family portraits, and strategic initiatives are evident in maps featuring details of troop movements and local landmarks.
Documenting the American South This link opens in a new window
Provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs. Sponsored by UNC Chapel Hill.
Early American Imprints, Series 1 (Evans) This link opens in a new window
This digital collection contains virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America, from 1639-1800. Early American Imprints, Series I is based on Charles Evans’ renowned “American Bibliography” and Roger Bristol’s supplement. Including more than 36,000 printed works and 2.3 million pages
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment This link opens in a new window
This collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. The project brings coherence to a wide range of published and unpublished accounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters from 1534 to 1850.
Gateway to North America: People, Places, and Organizations of 19th-Century New York: This link opens in a new window
An archive chronicling the people and organizations of New York City during the 19th century. It is a unique collection of historical directories, member lists, travel guides and other rich sources.
ProQuest History Vault This link opens in a new window
Major collection areas in History Vault focus on the Black Freedom Movement of the 20th Century, Southern Life and Slavery, Women's Rights, International Relations, American Politics and Society with a strong focus on the 20th Century, and labor unions, workers and radical politics in the 20th Century. On the topic of civil rights and Black Freedom, History Vault contains records of four of the most important civil rights organizations of the 1950s and 1960s: NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE. History Vault's collections on Slavery and Southern plantations candidly document the realities of slavery at the most immediate grassroots level in Southern society and provide some of the most revealing documentation in existence on the functioning of the slave system. Many of the collections in History Vault were originally available in microfilm from the University Publications of America (UPA) research collections and others come from the University Microfilms International (UMI) research collections with additional collections scanned from the original documents.

Accessible Archives (History Commons) This link opens in a new window
Our Accessible Archives Collection now lives on History Commons. This collection provides full-text searchable databases for primary source material from 18th and 19th century periodicals. Includes eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records.
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Includes eyewitness reporting, editorials, letters, advertisements, obituaries, and more.
Subjects: Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922; African American Newspapers, 1827-1998; Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971; Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876, and five subject-specific newspaper collections
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Subjects: History, Literature, History of Science and Medicine, Law, News and Magazines, Politics, Religion, Education, Women's Studies, Art, American Studies
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Newspapers This link opens in a new window
The newspapers in this collection have been scanned as part of a pilot project using microfilm and microfiche. After using a microfilm/fiche scanner to create a digital image of each page, they process the resulting images so that each reel is contained in a single item with easily navigable files.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
19th Century U.S. Newspapers provides access to primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life, among other subjects

African American Experience, The This link opens in a new window
Includes African American history and its relation to U.S. history through published articles, essays, objects and artifacts, ideas and movements, images, documents, and other historical and culturally valuable sources. Developed by African-American librarians and subject specialists.
African American Historical Serials Collection This link opens in a new window
EBSCOhost: The African American Historical Serials Collection is an archive of periodicals that document the history of African American religious life and culture between 1829 and 1922. It includes newspapers and magazines, plus reports and annuals from African American religious organizations, including churches and social service agencies.
American Indian Experience This link opens in a new window
The American Indian Experience includes primary sources including audio, video, photographs, illustrations, maps, and rich media. Content covers historical and contemporary practices and tribulations of more than 150 Native American tribes from all regions of North America. Featuring articles and essays from Native American authors and contributors, it gives voice to the American Indian experience with respect to colonial conflict, trade economies, decisive wars, parsing of Native American land enabled by American policy, assimilation, and native claims to land, among other topics.
Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Primary sources in digital collections of historical documents. A multi-disciplinary resource, collections cover a broad range of topics. This resource includes the following primary document resources: American Indian Correspondence: Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries' Letters; Meriam Report on Indian Administration and the Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the U.S.; The American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism; The Greensboro Massacre, 1979: Shootout between the American Nazis & the Communist Workers Party; The War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824. Subjects: Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Particular strengths include: U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies.
Atla Historical Monographs Collection This link opens in a new window
Series 1 & 2: An archive of religious and theological literature from the late 13th century through 1922. The collection covers diverse religious topics and includes many volumes in Aramaic, Arabic, Greek and Hebrew.

Subjects: Philosophy, the evolutionary debate, the Reformation, spiritualism, prayer, ancient linguistics, archeology, devotionals, ethics, and more in a variety of languages. Biographies of 19th century theologians, providing perspective on how and why these leaders were valued in the 19th century; Books by and about women and the church; Books about Native Americans and their religion.
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America This link opens in a new window
Citations for books, essays, journal articles and government documents of the United States and Canada, pertaining to native North Americans, including culture, history and daily life. This resource is ideal for researching the contributions, struggles and issues surrounding North America's Indigenous peoples.

Subjects: Archaeology, Gaming, Governance, Legend, Literacy, Multicultural relations
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
A repository of important historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgender community and the changes in gender roles over the years. Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books and NGO, government and special reports.

Subjects: Women's studies, Men's studies, Evolution of the women's movement, Transgender community, (Changes in) gender roles, Femininity, Gender differences, Gender equity, Gender identity, Gender studies, Masculinity
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
Includes an expansive archive of historical materials, primary sources, and government documents, consolidates the wealth of material available on indigenous American life and law, and shares the tremendous influence that indigenous peoples and their cultures have had on the development of the United States.
Includes: Indigenous treaties; Treaty-related publications; Federal case law; Tribal codes; Constitutions; Jurisprudence; Scholarly articles; Title 25 of the U.S. Code; Title 25 of the CFR; Books and pamphlets; Bibliography; External resources
Native American Archives This link opens in a new window
Native American Archives collection provides more than 1.8 million pages of original historical documents pertaining to Native American history and life from the 18th through the 20th century. The collection is made possible in collaboration with the National Archives and Allen County Library.
North American Indian Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
This collection holds previously unpublished, rare, or hard to find primary historical documents concerning the history of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples, including integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Find women's eyewitness accounts of historical events from 1675- 1950. Women's writings and primary sources. Provided by NC LIVE.