Research Guides: History Research Guide: Primary Sources

Research Librarian

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Contact:

Prof. James Tasato Mellone
Historical Cultural and Social Sciences Librarian
Rosenthal 326

718-997-3623

Subjects: Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Diversity Resources, Geography, History, Native American Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies

Primary Sources: Introduction

Primary sources are evidence that date from the time period being studied, immediate to the events under investigation. There are many kinds of evidence, written, material, or visual, physical or electronic, and so on. For instance:

Letters or Correspondence
Diaries or Personal Narratives
Memoirs or Autobiography
Documents or Records or Papers (personal, business, government, administrative, etc.)
Interviews or Speeches
Laws or Treaties
Films or Videos or Photographs
Art (pictures, paintings, Illustrations, posters, drawings, designs, blueprints, etc.)
Music or Scores or Songs or Radio or Audio
Material Culture (coins, vehicles, ships, equipment, homes, furniture, clothing, etc.)
Publications from a past time (non-fiction, fiction, etc.)
etc.

Reading secondary sources carefully to mine the primary sources that scholars have already cited is also an excellent method of learning about primary sources in a particular historical field or those being used to answer certain historical questions. Using any of the terms above, or their synonyms, may aid in searching for primary sources to discover them through library catalogs, indexes, databases, websites, etc.

The usual subheading for primary sources in library catalogs is “sources”. Sample subject headings include:

France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Sources

Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Sources

United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Sources

See the following for an overview on doing archival research:

Archival Research (Donna Davey, CUNY Graduate Cener Library)
"This guide will introduce you to the basics of archival research."

Primary Sources: General

Primary Sources: Africana Studies (includes African-American History)

American Slavery Documents (Duke University Libraries)
Columbia University and Slavery
Digital Library on American Slaver (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
Digital Schomburg Selected Links (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL)
"These selected sites offer access to free, high-quality databases of books, articles, oral histories, images, maps, interviews, and television programs. Some sites are specifically devoted to Africa and/or the African Diaspora, while others are more general but include materials of interest to research in the history and cultures of the black world.
The Freedmen's Bureau Project
"The Freedmen’s Bureau Project is helping African Americans reconnect with their Civil War-era ancestors. Join us in discovering your roots, and begin building your own family tree."
Georgetown Slavery Archive (Georgetown University)
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience (New York Public Library)
Legacies of British Slavery (Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery, University College London)
Database, Estates, Maps, Legacies
Manuscript Collections Relating to Slavery (New York Historical Society)
Mapping Black Media (CUNY Graduate School of Journalism)
"As part of the Center for Community Media’s (CCM) Black Media Initiative, we’re offering a map and directory of nearly 300 media outlets across the U.S. that primarily serve Black communities across the diaspora."
Slavery Images ((Prof. Jerome S. Handler & Michael Tuite, University of Virginia)
Slave Voyages (Emory University and others)
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, Intra-American Slave Trade Database
Slavery, Abolition, Emancipation and Freedom Primary Sources from Houghton Library (Harvard University)
Umbra Search African American History (University of Minnesota)
Understanding Slavery Initiative (Museum of London Docklands, and other UK museums)
Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally, 1764-1765 (Brown University)

Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: : Challenges and Triumphs in the Pursuit of Equality
Access Provider: ProQuest, Part of Clarivate
Description: Features select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Primary Sources, Open Access
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: Alexander Street, Part of Clarivate
Description: Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Primary Sources
Ethnic Newswatch This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: ProQuest, Part of Clarivate
Description: Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Newspapers
Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources
NESRI | Northeast Slavery Records Index This link opens in a new window
Former Title: New York Slavery Records Index
Access Provider: City University of New York
Description: The Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI) is an online searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers in the states of New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Format: Primary Sources
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: HeinOnline
Description: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture, and Law brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Primary Sources

Primary Sources: British History (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales)

Bodleian Libraries Digital Collections (University of Oxford)
British History Online
Broadside Ballads Online (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford)
Down Survey of Ireland
Duchas Project (Irish National Folklore Collection)
Early English Books Online, 1475 to 1700 (NYPL access)
To use this resource, apply for a NYPL digital library card: https://www.nypl.org/library-card
Englsh Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)
National Archives of Ireland
National Archives of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland)
Scriptorium: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online (University of Cambridge Digital Library)

Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection represents the largest single collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century English news media available from the British Library and includes more than 1,000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks, and newspapers from the period.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: A vast eighteenth-century library of the fully text-searchable corpus of books, pamphlets, and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800.
Format: E-Books, Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century including topics on political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources: The Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2020 This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Founded in 1843, The Economist is renowned for its consistent approach to internationalism and championing of minimal state in political and government affairs.
Format: Articles, Journals, Primary Sources

Primary Sources: European History - Medieval Europe

Byzantine Studies Electronic Resources (Liladhar R. Pendse, University of California Berkeley Library)
Contains links to digital primary sources, including a table of links to the Google Books digitized copies of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (50 vols., 1828-1897).
Modern Language Translations of Byzantine Sources, Digitized Greek Manuscripts (Princeton University Library)

Primary Sources: European History - Modern Europe

Gale Primary Sources: The Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Making of the Modern World
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Making of the Modern World covers the history of Western trade, encompassing the coal, iron, and steel industries, the railway industry, the cotton industry, banking and finance, and the emergence of the modern corporation. It is also strong in the rise of the modern labor movement, the evolving status of slavery, and the condition and making of the working class.
Format: Articles, E-Books, Primary Sources
Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century including topics on political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources

Primary Sources: Islamic History

Primary Sources: Latin American & Caribbean History

Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape (Library of Congress)
"The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943. It contains nearly seven-hundred recordings of poets and prose writers participating in sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory and at other locations around Spain and Latin America. To date, writers from thirty-two countries are represented in this collection which includes readings in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Náhuatl, Zapotec, Aymara, English and Dutch."
Archive of the Indies = Archivo General de Indias (Ministry of Culture, Spain)
Benson Latin American Collection (University of Texas Libraries)
Bracero History Archive (George Mason University and others)
Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Digital Collection (Hunter College)
"Welcome to the Centro Archives Digital Collections, a growing resource of material digitized from collections throughout the Archive's holdings. This site provides access to photographs, documents, artifacts, art, maps, oral histories, moving image and audio clips, and other material pertaining to the Puerto Rican diaspora."
CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, Digital Reseources (City College of New York, CUNY)
"First Blacks in the Americas," "A History of Dominican Music in the United States," and other digital resources
Digital Collections A-Z at Schlesinger Library (Radicliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University)
Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC)
"The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean... dLOC partners retain all rights to their materials and provide access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections."
Experiencing War: Hispancs in Service (Library of Congress)
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, Archives (UC San Diego Library)
Hispanic Reading Room (Library of Congress, HIspanic Division)
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande (Juan B. Rael Collection, Library of Congress)
The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza De Vaca, 1542, Translated by Fanny Bandelier, 1905 (The West, A Film by Stephen Ives, PBS)
La Lupe Queen of Latin Soul (Documentary, SalsaClub CSUF)
LANIC Digital Initiatives
"Through partnerships with organizations in Latin America and globally, LANIC's mission is to facilitate access to online information on, from, or about Latin America. To this end, LANIC hosts an extensive set of digital collections covering many different topics and content areas."
Latin American & Caribbean Digital Primary Resources
"This site hosts a database of listings that provide links to open access digitized collections of primary sources that relate to Latin America and the Caribbean. The materials listed are freely available to the public and were created or are hosted at an academic institution associated with SALALM (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials)."
Latin American Pamphlet Digital Collection (Harvard University Library)
Latin American Studies: Free Digital Resources (Johns Hopkins University Libraries)
"The following is a selected list of primary sources in Latin American Studies available on the Web."
Latino Americans (PBS documentary)
Latino Center (Smithsonian)
Latinx Diaspora in the Americas Project, LDAP (Samuel Proctor Oral History Program,Univeristy of Florida)
Mapping Violence (Brown University)
Mexican American Music of Today, Narrated by Selena (Miguel Kraul)
National Archives in Latin America (LANIC)
New York Public Library, Digital Schomburg (Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture)
Our Latin Thing, by Fania All Stars,1972 (Julian Tunjo)
Refusing to Forget (Prof. John Moran Gonzalez at University of Texas at Austin, and others)
Salt of the Earth, 1954 (ampopfilms)
The Squatter and the Don: A Novel Descriptive of Contemporary Occurrences in California, by C. Loyal, 1885 (Project Gutenberg)
Study of the Spanish-Speaking People of Texas (Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin)
Tejano Voices (Center for Mexican American Studies, University of Texas at Arlington)
Voces Oral History Center (University of Texas at Austin, Moody College of Communication)

Ethnic Newswatch This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: ProQuest, Part of Clarivate
Description: Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Newspapers
Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Former Title: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale Primary Sources: Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources
Gale World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean This link opens in a new window
Former Title: World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean
Access Provider: Gale-Cengage
Description: Gale World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean serves the needs of students and researchers by bringing together in a single place a rich collection of primary source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean.
Format: Articles, Encyclopedias, Journals, Primary Sources

Primary Sources: U. S. History

American Decades Primary Soiurces by Cynthia Rose (Editor)
ISBN: 9780787665876
Publication Date: 2003-12-05
"A 10-volume set spanning the 20th century...provides fresh insight into the decades most important events, people, and issues. Each volume...includes approximately 200 full or excerpted primary sources in 160-170 entries from the period representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also included are concise contextual information, notes about the author, further resources, and more than 250 photos and illustrations."

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1-5 This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: EBSCO
Description: American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Primary Sources
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: EBSCO
Description: European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is an archive of indexed publications related to the Americas and written in Europe before 1750.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Primary Sources
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times This link opens in a new window
Former Title: New York Times Historical
Access Provider: ProQuest, Part of Clarivate
Description: ProQuest Historical Newspapers is the definitive newspaper digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the 19th Century (1851-2018).
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Newspapers, Primary Sources

American Archive of Public Broadcasting
AP Archive Videos (YouTube Channel)
ArchiveGrid
"ArchiveGrid includes over 7 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,400 archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies."
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy (Yale Law School Library)
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U. S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
Published congressional records from the Continental Congress (1774) through the 43rd Congress (1875), digitized by the Library of Congress' American Memory Project.
Digital Public Library of America
Documenting the American South
Harvard Digital Collections (Harvard University Library)
Library of Congress: Digital Collections
Paley Archive (Paley Center for Media)
Database listing television and radio programs and advertisements.
Perseus Collection: 19th-Century American (Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University)
Serials in Microfilm (Internet Archive)
Digitized popular periodicals and trade magazines from the 19th and 20th centuries. American titles include: American City & County, American Machinist, The Atlantic, Chilton's Iron Age, Cosmpolitan, Farm Journal, Forbes, Harper's (Bazaar, Magazine, Weekly), Leslie's Weekly, Ladies Home Journal, Life, Living Age, McClure's, Motor Age, The Nation, New Outlook, New Republic, North American Review, Railway Age, Redbook, Scientific American, Time, Vogue, and more.
U. S. History: Primary Source Collections Online (Sam Houston State University Library)

Primary Sources: U. S. Civil Rights History (see also Africana Studies)

Civil Rights and Social Justice Collections (Queens College Library, Speical Collections & Archives)
Physical archival materials (documents, records, etc.) such as the Dean Savage Papers, J. Chester Johnson Papers, James Foreman Library Collection, Mark Levy Papers, Moshe Shur Papers, etc.
Civil Rights Digital Library (University of Georgia)
"The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale."
Civil Rights History Project (Library of Congress)
"This site guides researchers to collections in several Library divisions that specifically focus on the movement as well as the broader topic of African American history and culture. The Civil Rights History Project Collection (AFC 2010/039) contains more than 1200 items consisting of born-digital video files, digitized videocassettes, digital photographs and full-text transcripts for all interviews."
Civil Rights Movement Archive
" Our purpose is to freely make available the history of our movement from the perspective of those whose boots were on the ground — what we refer to as "up-from-below" and "inside-out" history.For many years, the name of this site was "Civil Rights Movement Veterans." The name was changed in 2019 to "Civil Rights Movement Archive" to reflect its growing importance as a repository of up from below and inside-out history as seen and interpreted by the participants whose boots were on the ground."
Civil Rights Movement Photographs (Queens College Library, Special Collections & Archives
"These original photographs document the involvement of Queens College students and other Northerners in the Civil Rights Movement of the early to mid 1960s, including Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Virginia Student Help Project, the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) Project, and the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR)."
The Crisis (NAACP)
The magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), full-image from Google Books, 1911-2011.
Digital Schomburg Selected Links (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL)
"These selected sites offer access to free, high-quality databases of books, articles, oral histories, images, maps, interviews, and television programs. Some sites are specifically devoted to Africa and/or the African Diaspora, while others are more general but include materials of interest to research in the history and cultures of the black world.
Eyes on the Prize (American Experience PBS,1986)
"Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network and also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and narrated by Julian Bond," - AVON
Eyes on the Prize Interviews: The Complete Series (Washington University Digital Gateway)
"Eyes on the Prize is a 14-part series...This series, which debuted on PBS stations, is considered to be the definitive documentary on the Civil Rights Movement...These interviews are part of the Henry Hampton Collection housed at the Film and Media Archive at Washington University Libraries. Each transcript represented the entire interview conducted by Blackside including sections which appeared in the final program and the outtakes."
FBI Records: The Vault (Federal Bureau of Investigation, U. S. Department of Justice)
FBI Civil Rights Files on dozens of people and organizations.
Freedom Song: Interviews from Eyes on the Prize, America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (American Archive of Public Broadcasting)
"This curated collection features the unedited interviews conducted during the making of the landmark PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 (1987)."
Freedom Summer Digital Collection (Wisconsin Historical Society)
"The Wisconsin Historical Society has one of the richest collections of Civil Rights movement records in the nation, which includes more than 100 manuscript collections documenting the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964."
King Papers Project (MLK Institute, Stanford University)
"Search the documents published in the print edition of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr."
Proquest Historical African American Newspapers (New York Public Library)
Apply for a NYPL digital library card to access this database: https://www.nypl.org/library-card
Scottsboro Trials Collection (Cornell University Law Library)
"Digitized copies of briefs, motions and other trial documents concerning the Scottsboro Trials"
Sovereignty Commission Online (Mississippi Department of Archives & History)
"Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Records, 1994-2006 comprises the digitized records of the defunct Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which functioned as the state's official counter civil rights agency from 1956-1973...The collection consists of approximately 133,000 pages of material..."
Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970 (University of Virginia)
"Aims to collect, digitize, and present in streaming video format over the World Wide Web television news footage from the period and to make these valuable materials available to scholars, teachers, and students. The current archive contains films from the nightly news from two local television stations in Virginia--WDBJ (CBS) Roanoke and WSLS (NBC) Roanoke. In this initial installment we have digitized over 230 films".
Tulsa Race Massacre Archive (Oklahoma State University Library)
"Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 Collection documents the history of the event through photographs that are all part of a rich archive of materials from the Ruth Sigler Avery Collection housed at the Oklahoma State University-Tulsa Library."
Tulsa Race Massacre Materials (African-American Resource Center, Tulsa City-County Library)
"Though resources on the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre can be found throughout the Tulsa City-County Library system, TCCL's African-American Resource Center (AARC) at Rudisill Regional Library, in particular, and the Research Center at Central Library house the greatest number of resources."
Tulsa Race Massacre materials at McFarlin Library: A Listing (University of Tulsa)
"A pathfinder to gather together Race Riot and Massacre materials."
Voices from the Civil Rights Movement (American Archive of Public Broadcasting)
"presents educational and noncommercial radio programs from the 1950s and 1960s that offer historic testimonies – in interviews, speeches, and on-the-spot news reports – from many movement participants, both well-known and unknown."

Primary Sources: U. S. Environmental History

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1-5 This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: EBSCO
Description: American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Primary Sources

Adirondack Experience Library
Aldo Leopold Archives (University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries)
America's Swamp: The Historical Everglades (University of Florida Libraries)
American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936 (University of Chicago Library)
Archives of Appalachia Digital Collections and Exhibits (East Tennessee State University)
Archives West
"This site, which until recently was known as Northwest Digital Archives, offers descriptions of archival and manuscript materials held by institutions in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Utah. This means that if an institution has a collection—whether it’s digitized or not—and has created a description of it, you can find out that they have it and use the available options for getting materials.".
Arizona Archives Online
Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archives (Washington State University Libraries)
David Rumsey Map Collection
Dust Bowl Information and Resources (West Texas A & M University, Cornette Library)
Environmental Studies: Documerica by Topic (U. S. National Archives & EPA)
Erie Canal Museum Collections
Everglades Digital Library: Reclaiming the Everglades (Florida International University Libraries)
Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 (American Memory, Library of Congress)
Forest History Society: FHS Archival Collections
Forest History Society: Photograph Collection
Gifford Pinchot Papers (Library of Congress)
Great Lakes Maritime History Project (University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries)
Jamestown Rediscovery, Historic Jamestowne
John Muir Papers (University of the Pacific Libraries)
Johnstown Flood Museum Archives
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife: Digital Maine Repository (Maine State Library)
Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station Records (University of Maryland Libraries)
Mississippi River Flood 1927 Archives (University of MIssissippi Libraries)
Missouri Disasters, 1785 - Present (Missouri State Archives)
Online Archive of California
Rachel Carson Papers (Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library))
Rocky Mountain Online Archive (University of New Mexico Libraries)
"The Rocky Mountain Online Archive is your source of information about archival collections in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming."
Sierra Club: History & Archives (Sierra Club Library)
Texas Archival Resources Online
U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Federal Land Records
U. S. Bureau of Land Management Records (U. S. National Archives)
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Digital Library
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Records (U. S. National Archives)r)
U. S. Forest Service, Maps
U. S. Forest Service, National Forest Service Library, Digital Collections
U.S. Forest Service, Southern Research Station Photograph Collection, 1897-1952 (University of North Carolina-Asheville Library)
U. S. Forest Service Records (U. S. National Archives)
U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Collections (NOAA Central Library)
U. S. National Park Service; Archives, Records, and Research
U. S. Tennessee Valley Authority Records (U. S. National Archives)
Upper MIssissippi Valley Digital Image Archive
Western Waters Digital Library

Primary Sources: U. S. Military History

Primary Sources: U. S. Public Health & Medicine History

Primary Sources: U. S. Social & Women's History

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: Alexander Street, Part of Clarivate
Description: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 is a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Images, Primary Sources

Primary Sources: U. S. Urban History

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1-5 This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: EBSCO
Description: American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection provides more than 1,800 titles dating from 1838-1852. The themes reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Journals, Primary Sources
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Access Provider: Alexander Street, Part of Clarivate
Description: Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history.
Catalogue Link: OneSearch.
Format: Articles, Primary Sources

1940s New York (Center for Urban Research, CUNY Graduate Center)
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
AP Archive Videos (YouTube Channel)
Boston Public Library: Online Resources - Images
Brooklyn Newsstand Full Content (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, etc.)
Center for Brooklyn History (Brooklyn Public Library)
Collection includes photographs, film-audio-video recordings, oral histories, maps, newspapers, city & telephone directories, art & artifacts, exhibitions (e. g. Brooklyn Resists 2021), and more.
Chicago Public Library: Digital Collections
Cities and Towns (Library of Congress)
CUNY Digital History Archive
David Rumsey Map Collection
Frederick Law Olmsted Papers (Library of Congress)
Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, 7 vols. (Hathi Trust Digital Library)
Free Library of Philadelphia: Digital Collections
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
HUD Policy Development and Research: Publications (U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - HUD)
HUD reports, executive summaries, case studies, and guidebooks (e. g. The New York City Committee on Slum Clearance Plans, 1951)
LaGuardia and Wagner Archives (LaGuardia Community College)
Library of Congress Digitial Collections
The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898 to 1906 (Library of Congress)
Also contains brief essays on New York City and America at the turn of the 20th century, the Actuality Film, and Pioneer Cameramen.
Mapping Inequality (University of Richmond)
"The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) has long been seen as both a savior to the housing sector and a force for racial segregation...thousands of area descriptions created by agents of the federal government's Home Owners' Loan Corporation between 1935 and 1940...Mapping Inequality brings one of the country's most important archives to the public. HOLC's documents contain a wealth of information about how government officials, lenders, and real estate interests surveyed and ensured the economic health of American cities.And with the help of ongoing research, we continue to learn at what cost such measures were realized."
Maps and charts prepared by the Slum Clearance Committee of New York, 1933-34 : together with maps and charts of the Land Utilization Committee of the New York Building Congress.. (Lehigh University Digital Collections)
Museum of the City of New York
National Archives: Digital Photography Collections
National Archives: Virtual Library
New York City Architecture: How to Research a Building
New York City Department of Buildings
New York City Department of Records (Municipal Library & Archives)
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery
New York City Newspapers at the New York Public Library
New York Historical Society: The Shelby White and Leon Levy Digital Library
New York Public Library, Digital Schomburg (Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture)
New York Public LIbrary DIgital Collections
New York Public Radio Archive Collections
New York Real Estate Brochure Collection (Columbia University)
Old Fulton Postcards
Online Archive of California
Paley Archive (Paley Center for Media)
Database listing television and radio programs and advertisements.
Pictures of American Cities (National Archives)
Proquest Historical African American Newspapers (New York Public Library)
Apply for a NYPL digital library card to access this database: https://www.nypl.org/library-card
Railroad Maps, 1828-1900 (Library of Congress)
Real Estate Record (Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections)
San Francisco Public Library: Digital Collections
Serials in Microfilm (Internet Archive)
Digitized popular periodicals and trade magazines from the 19th and 20th centuries. American titles include: American City & County, American Machinist, The Atlantic, Chilton's Iron Age, Cosmpolitan, Farm Journal, Forbes, Harper's (Bazaar, Magazine, Weekly), Leslie's Weekly, Ladies Home Journal, Life, Living Age, McClure's, Motor Age, The Nation, New Outlook, New Republic, North American Review, Railway Age, Redbook, Scientific American, Time, Vogue, and more.
Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives
Tenement Museum
Urban Planning, 1794-1918: An International Anthology of Articles, Conference Papers, and Reports (John W. Reps, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University)