LibGuides UFV: American History: Primary Sources

Selected Primary Sources in the UFV Library

Milestone documents in American history : exploring the primary sources that shaped America
Call Number: E 173 M62 2008
Milestone Documents of American Leaders by Paul Finkelman (Editor-In-Chief)
Call Number: E 173 M63 2009
Milestone Documents in African American History by Paul Finkelman (Editor-In-Chief)
Call Number: E 184.6 M55 2010
The Eleanor Roosevelt papers
Call Number: E 807.1 R48 A42 2010
Jim Crow America : a documentary history
Call Number: E 185.61 J527 2009

More Primary Sources

September 11th Archive
From the Library of Congress, archived by Internet Archive.
Underground Railway: Niagara's freedom trail
Material documenting the role of Canadian border towns in providing sanctuary to runaway slaves.
US Historical Panoramic Maps 1847-1909
From the Library of Congress American Memory Project.
Vietnam Project
From the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University
Witness and Response: September 11 acquisitions at the Library of Congress
"Features the collections that the Library has amassed and is still receiving. At its core, this exhibition is the story of how the 9/11 materials in this national institution arrived [there] and today reflect what America has experienced while providing assurance that the record will be [available] in the future for America's citizens and others to recall and scholars to study."
Women Working, 1870-1930
The prototype website of the Open Collections Program Women Working project. This site will provide access to digitized books (over 2000), manuscripts (10,000 pages) and images (1,000) from the collections of Harvard University Libraries and Museums on the topic of women in the U.S. economy from 1870-1930.

Primary sources for American history

Primary Sources: Definition and Resources
This SFU site provides information about Primary Documents in History and the Humanities.
Digital Civil War Collection
From the University of Tennessee.

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections: 1-5(EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Historical periodicals from 1691 to 1912. Mainly American content but some Canadian. Covers all subject areas.
Permitted Uses for this Database

American History
The Library of Congress' Digital Collections are a "gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections."
American Presidency Project
Established in 1999 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The following presidential documents have been organized into a searchable database:
-Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913)
-Public Papers of the Presidents, Hoover - Bush (1929 - 1993)
-Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Clinton - G.W. Bush (1993-2008)
Booker T. Washington Online Books
The complete contents, both text and illustrations, of the 14 volume The Booker T. Washington papers, published between 1972 and 1989.
Brown v. Board of Education
The University of Michigan Library's digital archive contains documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present.The site includes 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.
Catalog of Political Cartoons by Dr Seuss
Access to digitized cartoons penned by Theodor Seuss Geisel housed in the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress, this site provides access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
Cuban Missile Crisis
From George Washington University. Prepared for the 40th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis with a chronology, primary documents and historians' analysis of the Crisis.
Discovering American Women's History
This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
Documenting the American South (DAS)
The Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sponsors DAS, a collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century.
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers
A documentary history of Eleanor Roosevelt’s political writings and radio and television appearances.
Famous Trials
Legal historian Douglas O. Linder, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, has compiled a mix of transcripts, maps, pictures, audio clips, primary documents and essays about famous trials in history.
FindLaw
Access to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions by year.
Founders' Constitution
Rich collection of primary documents that are fundamental antecedents to the U.S. Constitution of 1789 and illustrate contemporary thought that gave rise to the Constitution.
Free Speech Movement
This web site located and maintained at the Bancroft Library, UC-Berkeley, is the preeminent source of primary materials on this social and political movement.
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition
Information on the history of Atlantic slavery and its aftermath.
Journals of the Lewis & Clark expedition (1803-1806)
From the University of Nebraska.
Making of America
"A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." Keyword searchable.
Martin Luther King Jr. Collection
From Morehouse College. Archival materials documenting much of King’s life and work spanning from 1944 to 1968.
Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project
From Stanford University.
National Archives
The National Archives holds historical U.S. government documents (federal, congressional, and presidential records) which include the original United States Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, United States Bill of Rights, and many other historical documents.
Primary Document Collections
Provides links to some of the best internet portals and collections of primary documents on the web.
Wilson Center Digital Archive
This site contains once-secret documents from governments all across the globe, uncovering new sources and providing fresh insights into the history of international relations and diplomacy with a focus on the Cold War, Korea, and Nuclear Proliferation.

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University of Washington Directory of Primary Websites

University of Washington assembled a significant list of American primary source websites. The directory is divided into the following subsections.

American History: Primary Sources

About Primary Sources

Selected Primary Sources in the UFV Library

More Primary Sources

Primary sources for American history

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University of Washington Directory of Primary Websites