Recommended Web Sites: Primary Sources

with the Internet Archive includes college yearbooks, viewbooks, catalogs, handbooks, literary magazines, and the school’s first history, They That Wait. These materials can be viewed online or downloaded.

A collection of images from over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines from 1911 through 1955. Subject areas include: radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene and World War II.

The digital image database of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University contains thousands of scanned images from the collection. Users may sort results by some 14 categories including format, creator, and publication, and use the single cartoon images to produce stylistic comparisons, investigate the history of themes, scan story sequences, and, with the zoom capabilities, make a close inspection of artistic techniques. Links to academic references, e.g., notes about comic strip exhibitions, add to the database's value for research.

2,500 primary source documents about the art and artist of Latin America and Hispanic art in the US. Most items are in Spanish with strongest coverage for Mexico, Argentina, the US and Brazil. However there is an English interface which will provide a citation, synopses, and annotation/critique. You will need to create a free personal account if you wish to download.

Features sites that focus on the archaeology, art, buildings monuments and cities, daily life, mythology and religion, and science of the ancient world.

This archival resource contains more than 25 million records from more than 1,100 museums, libraries, archives, etc.

Full text with illustrations of Harper's Weekly from 1857-1865, searchable by keywords, by literary genre, by occupations and role in society, and browseable by date.

In addition to indexing the Times of London (1790-1980) and The New York Times (1851-1922), this resource enables you to find the full text of every article in every issue of The Times (of London) from 1785-1870.

A joint project of the Universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Oxford to digitize substantial runs of 18th and 19th century journals.

Directs user to historical newspapers, many from the 1800s. Most are free. Currently covers Australia, Canada, and the United States. The US page is subdivided by state.

Images, maps, recordings, etc.

The National Endowment for the Humanities maintains this site with links to best history, language arts and social sciences sites. In addition to primary sources, there are online lesson plans and other digital learning materials.

This site contains a list of links to historic maps, along with links to more information on flags, maps, geography, timelines, specific days in history, holidays, distances, and money.

More than 144 first person narratives of average Americans in extraordinary times. Strong in the WWI period. A project of the Center for Social History and the New Media, and George Mason University. Also includes lesson plans and teacher resources in US History.

Explains primary sources Includes lesson plans.

This section contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the holdings of the National Archives of the United States. Also includes lesson plans and teaching activities.

100 milestone documents in American history.

Covers history from an English point of view. Includes lesson plans.

List of sites of primary sources and lessons plans that involve analyzing primary source materials from WWII. Grade levels specified.

The interactive website Sea of Liberty explores documents, letters, artwork, and photographs related to the ideas of liberty, freedom, and self-governance; allows students to create digital projects that draw inspiration from the past, and Showcase project ideas for others to see and learn from. In addition, educators enjoy access to resources related to teaching with primary sources, teaching historical thinking, and encouraging digital citizenship.

This is a collection of primary and secondary resources, webinars, and lessons for history and literature teachers. Lesson plans include background information, text analysis of primary and secondary sources, close reading questions, follow-up assignments, and vocabulary. Created by the National Humanities Center.

Content includes over 950,000 records with searchable full text. Developed by dedicated instructors and students of American history, the Accessible Archives content contains eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records.

From the Library of Congress, the American Memory project is a collection of digitized documents, maps, photographs, recorded sound, sheet music, moving pictures and text from the Library of Congress Americana collections. Click on Browse to search by format. There are over 70 collections included in the project.

(A part of the Smithsonian Institution) This huge collection of over 16 million primary source materials consists of diaries, letters, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio recordings, video recordings, and many more artifacts documenting American culture for the past 200-plus years.

Primary source documents from American history starting with Columbus and going through to the Civil Rights Act of 1991, provided by the Univ. of Oklahoma.

Sponsored by the UNC at Chapel Hill, this is an electronic collection that provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. Five different projects make up the site: Southern literature; first-person narratives; slave narratives; the Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; the church in the Southern Black Community.

Documents included come from six Founding Fathers projects: the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, the Adams family, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. As of June 2010, the site had been updated three times with a total of 7,826 documents added. Documents can be browsed by volume/dates, e.g., George Washington Papers/Revolutionary War Papers: 15 September 1778-31 October 1778. The site also offers a search function.

This site contains general U.S. History links, with a section dedicated to primary resources.

This site includes data that describes the population and economy of U.S. states and counties from 1790 to 1960. With this site you can: examine multiple topics within a census year, produce tables of data by state or county, sort data by selected categories, create ratios between any two data categories, and generate maps of selected data.

Do a "NAIL digital copies search" to find online images of many NARA documents. Very strong in 20th century pictures and documents on US themes.

Links to on-line presidential libraries that include digital archives from digital documents, photos, audio and video clips.

Smithsonian Annals of Flight (1964 - 1974); Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology (1965 - present); to Astrophysics (1956 - 1974); to Botany (1969 - 2001); to History and Technology (1969 – present); to Paleobiology (1969 - present); to the Earth Sciences (1969 - 2002); to the Marine Sciences (1977 - present); to Zoology (1969 - present); Smithsonian Folklife Studies (1980 - 1990); and Smithsonian Studies in Air and Space (1977 - 1990).

In addition to finding aids (guides to archival and manuscript collections), the NYPL Digital Library Collections contains texts and images from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Labor statistics and documents.

Focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images including: 7,500 pages of manuscripts, 3,500 books and pamphlets, 1,200 photographs.

This is a collection of primary and secondary resources, webinars, and lessons for history and literature teachers. Lesson plans include background information, text analysis of primary and secondary sources, close reading questions, follow-up assignments, and vocabulary. Created by the National Humanities Center.

A general site on the American Civil War that includes links to images and photographs from the Civil War as well as links to important Civil War documents.

A project that interweaves the histories of two communities on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line during the era of the American Civil War. It incorporates a narrative and electronic archive of the sources on which the narrative is based

The Primary Documents section includes government and official documents categorized by year. On the rest of the site, one can find WWI posters, poetry, audio, memoirs, diaries, and photographs, and more.

This Dutch site contains some secondary information, but numerous photographs, including a section of 250 color photographs.

contains a plethora of information, including conventions, treaties, official papers, diaries, personal memories, books, a biographical dictionary, images, and information on the maritime and medical fronts.

Archival, digital, microform, and oral collections, along with selected books

Search “Cold War” select “Cold War International History Project” – the purpose of this project is to integrate information on the Cold War from Soviet countries with information obtained through Western sources. The archives contain a variety of eastern and western information.

This museum contains a number of primary sources which can be accessed via the “online exhibits” tab. The site includes an artwork exhibit, a patch exhibit, and video materials.

A collection of U.S. military monographs, political papers, policy statements, treaties, and other documents for each branch of the service. Provides information from the different theaters of war, content divided by country and service, and links to other relevant sites

Seeks to collect and preserve letters and e-mails from soldiers during the various American conflicts, offers advice on preserving and storing war letters.

Over 450 interviews with individuals involved in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War who are Rutgers alumni and/or New Jersey residents

Includes links to many primary sources including information on soldiers, the Holocaust, the Japanese American experience, the atomic bomb, Japanese war crimes, and photographs, posters, and newspapers from the times.

This Library of Congress site contains memories and memorabilia collected from veterans (interviews, photographs, letters, etc.) from all American wars, WWI – Present.

Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WWII.

Eye-witness accounts of survivors, rescuers, and bystanders, along with speeches and letters from the perpetrators.

This site has a collection of web links, along with a chronological list of primary source documents.

A collection of primary sources for World War II, arranged chronologically in broad categories. Primarily, but not limited to government documents – treaties, declarations speeches, etc. Site also includes a search feature.

Sponsored by the UNC at Chapel Hill, this is an electronic collection that provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. Five different projects make up the site: Southern literature; first-person narratives; slave narratives; the Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; the church in the Southern Black Community.

Prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the colony of South Carolina experienced alienating conflicts with Great Britain related to the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Boston Port Bill. Over one hundred battles between the colonist Continentals and militia and the British Army and their loyalists were fought on the soil of South Carolina.

Your gateway to this state's digital cultural history – people, environment, arts, folklife, government, conflict, commerce, and religion.

is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles." Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust. For 18th Century, collections includes records of proceedings in Parliament, higher clergy, office holders in central government and the Survey of London.

Instant access to thousands of the greatest images from the British Library's collections which include manuscripts, rare books, musical texts and maps spanning almost 3000 years. The range of images available include illustrations, drawings, paintings and photographs of topics pertaining to all areas of British history and culture.

An excellent site for those researching British history, including genealogy and family history. Included are both freely accessible archives and others that are available via subscription only. Material in the archives includes parliamentary records, court proceedings, transportation registers, images from the British Museum, private papers and ephemera, diocesan records, newspapers, and more. These guides include suggested readings and links to important related websites.

18th and 19th century British journals.

One of the consequences of the Thirty Years' War was that the most important collection of books in the 17th century Holy Roman Empire, the Bibliotheca Palatina, was divided between two principal locations: Heidelberg and the Vatican. Since 2001, Heidelberg University Library has been working on several projects that aim to digitize parts of this great collection, the final goal being a complete virtual reconstruction of the 'mother of all libraries'.

European History Primary Sources (EHPS) is a joint venture between various organizations within the European University Institute (EUI), building upon the EUI's World Wide Web Virtual Library. This ambitious project attempts to create a single site compiling all digitized primary sources pertaining to European history. The various sites are arranged by nation, language, period, subject, and type of source, creating an easily usable index of digitized European primary sources. The site also features a search box that allows users to search all of the sites contained in the index.

This site offers access to the resources of 48 European national libraries in 36 languages. The resources, both digital and non-digital, include books, magazines, journals, audio recordings and other material. The European Library portal offers free searching, and delivers metadata records as well as digital objects: some free, others at cost.

Contains the digital holdings of libraries throughout the European Union and beyond. While the primary focus of the project is on books, documents of an archival nature are also included.

Extensive collection of classic theological works from all periods of church history.

The Islamic Heritage Project (IHP), part of Harvard's Open Collections Program, has digitized more than 600 primary-source "Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts." The IHP covers topics such as law, science, history, geography, literature, philosophy, and calligraphy and incorporates biographies and autobiographies. The collection's languages include Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Urdu, and Malay. Users can browse collections and maps by title, author, language, geographic area, or topic. Broad topics include Arabic language, Koran, Fatwas, Sufism, Rhetoric, Mathematics, Women, Poetry, and Medicine. Regions include the Arabian Peninsula, the Balkans, Central Asia, Egypt, Turkey, South Asia, North Africa, Iran, and Iraq.

This site contains historical panoramic maps, which were a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The historical map collection has over 38,000 maps and images online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North American and South American maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also represented.

Features sites that focus on the archaeology, art, buildings monuments and cities, daily life, mythology and religion, and science of the ancient world.