American History: Digital Collections

A guide to resources that support research in American History

Digital Collections

African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922
This collection spans nearly 400 years, from the early 16th to the early 20th century. These essential books, pamphlets and broadsides, including many lesser-known imprints, hold an unparalleled record of African American history, literature and culture.
America in World War Two
Uncover the stories of American military personnel and civilians during the Second World War through their oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and military records. This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in the conflict, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India.
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I
Based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, this offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.
American History, 1493-1945
This unique collection of documents brings to life American History from the times of the earliest settlers until the end of World War II. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American history. Its quantity and quality offers a wonderful overview of American history alongside some deep research strands. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
American Indian Histories and Cultures
Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism
The American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism includes FBI documentation on the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest, as well as valuable documentation on the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff. Informant reports and materials collected by the Extremist Intelligence Section of the FBI provide insight into the motives, actions, and leadership of AIM and the development of Native American radicalism.
American Periodical Series Online 1740-1940
Over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically significant periodicals. Coverage 1740-1940.
American West
Over 300 manuscripts- ranging from the original manuscript journal and papers of James Audubon, and a twelve page letter of General Custer, to the logbook of a cattle trail driver and the Hinman papers describing the overland trail to California and the Gold Rush. A host of extremely rare or unique ephemeral material including advertisements, claim certificates, cheques, photos, wanted notices and news-sheets. Maps - an important and underutilised resource for teaching the American West - partly due to their size and unwieldy nature - partly due to their rarity. Includes many unique or extremely rare items - ranging from extra-illustrated volumes and association copies to city directories and pamphlets and leaflets.
Ancestry library edition
Contains coverage of the U.S. and the U.K. data including census, vital, church, court, and immigration records, as well as record collections from Canada and other areas. A collection of more than 4,000 databases and 1.5 billion names including U.S. federal census images and indexes from 1790 to 1930; the Map Center containing more than 1,000 historical maps; American Genealogical Biographical Index (over 200 volumes), Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage (over 150 volumes), The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1630, Social Security Death Index, WWI Draft Registration Cards, Federal Slave Narratives, and a Civil War collection.
Black Abolitionist Papers
This collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movements
Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movements focuses on unearthing and digitizing the histories of civil rights activism by the everyday citizens of Black, Latine, Indigenous, and Asian American/Pacific Islander communities. The program will include up to four collections, targeted for completion by the end of 2025.
Black Freedom Struggle (ProQuest History Vault)
The first Black Freedom module of the ProQuest History Vault consists of 37 collections from the records of federal government agencies, covering The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children, who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history.
Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Black Thought and Culture is a single source for the published works of numerous historically important black leaders. Along with well-known works, the collection features approximately 5,000 pages of unique, fugitive, and never-before-published materials. When complete, Black Thought and Culture will provide approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975. Black teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other leaders form the mainstay of this corpus. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art.
Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective
Full text of articles taken from issues of The New York herald, The Charleston mercury and the Richmond enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865. Begins with the events preceding the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter and concludes with the assassination and funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Includes news articles, eye-witness accounts and official reports of battles and events, editorials, advertisements, and biographies. Also includes articles describing other than military concerns of the day, such as travel, arts and leisure, sports, social events, etc.
Cold War Intelligence Online: The Secret War Between the U.S. and the USSR, 1945-1991
This collection of 2,360 formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher) provides readers for the first time with the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.
Colonial State Papers
Colonial State Papers provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
Digital National Security Archive (DNSA)
DNSA contains the most comprehensive collection of primary documents available. The database includes more than 875,000 pages and approximately 140,000 of the most important declassified documents regarding critical U.S. policy decisions.
Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement
At completion, Disability in the Modern World will include 150,000 pages of primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video. Content draws from the disciplines of disability history and disability studies, but also history, media, the arts, political science, education, and other areas where the contributions of the disability community are typically overlooked.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800
Online version of the microfiche set Early American Imprints, 1639-1800. Resource for aspects of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, e.g., agriculture, auctions, foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, and witchcraft.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 provides a comprehensive set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century. It is based on the noted “American Bibliography, 1801-1819” by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker. More than four million pages from over 36,000 items—including 1,000 catalogued new items unavailable in previous microform editions. Includes Series II Supplement.
Early Encounters in North America
Provides access to over 100,000 letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts concerning events that took place in North America between 1534 and 1860. The focus of the database is on description, travel, and accounts of interactions among various cultural groups.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
A comprehensive digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which has aimed to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of over 180,000 titles of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera. Subject categories include history and geography; fine arts and social sciences; medicine, science, and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; general reference. Also included are significant collections of women writers of the eighteenth century, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare. Where they add scholarly value or contain important differences, multiple editions of each individual work are offered.
Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1815
Bringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
Environmental Issues Online
This databases brings together multimedia materials (text, archival primary sources, video and audio) around key environmental challenges, including climate change, water/air pollution, biodiversity, conservation, agriculture, deforestation and more.
European Views of the Americas, 1493-1750
This database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. A wide range of subject areas are covered; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery. The original bibliography was co-developed by John Alden and Dennis Landis, Curator of European Books at The John Carter Brown Library.
Everyday Life & Women in America
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s
Organized alphabetically by organization, this collection covers a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, cultural, and economic issues. It sheds light on internal organization, personnel, and activities of some of the most prominent American radical groups and their movements to change American government and society
First World War
The First World War portal makes available invaluable primary sources for the study of the Great War, brought together in four thematic modules. From personal collections and rare printed material to military files, artwork and audio-visual files, content highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of a conflict that shook the world.

Includes modules: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Gale American Historical Periodicals 1-5
The collection includes unusual and short-lived magazines as well as better-known titles with long runs. Early periodicals in the collection focus on colonial life and the growing tensions between colonists and their oversea rulers leading up to the American Revolution. Common themes depicted in antebellum periodicals reveal a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, western expansion, and regional political differences were a daily reality for many Americans. The Civil War and Reconstruction eras are well represented, documenting the conflict and its aftermath from a variety of perspectives and allowing readers to bear witness to this pivotal period in American history. Early twentieth century titles document the second Industrial Revolution, immigration, women’s rights, World War I, as well as fashion and music during the Roaring Twenties.
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women’s rights, from the 19th century to the present.
Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945
The Gerritsen Collection was begun by Aletta Jacobs Gerritsen in the late 1800s. The online resource delivers two million page images exactly as they appeared in the original printed works. It includes monographs, periodicals and pamphlets in fifteen languages, and is searchable by keyword and Boolean operators.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
Indian Claims Insight
Indian Claims Insight allows users to research the history of U.S. Indian claims from 1789-present. Unique compiled docket histories provide legal researchers with the ability to quickly search the full text of all content related to each claim, which can be narrowed on-the-fly to pinpoint a topic. The compilation includes not only court documents, but also cited treaties, related congressional publications, and maps to facilitate the ability of researchers to fully understand the specifics of each case without leaving the docket history page.
Making of America, Cornell University
A digital library of primary sources in American social history, this site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
Migration to New Worlds
From government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel, Migration to New Worlds showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories supplemented by carefully selected secondary research aids.
NAACP Papers collections (ProQuest History Vault)
The collection is nearly two million pages of internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action
summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP’s work and
delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
Multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012. The content is sourced from the world’s preeminent libraries and archives. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Collections I - XII.
North American Indian Thought and Culture
A compilation of biographical information on indigenous peoples from all areas of North America. When complete, the database will include 100,000 pages of content, including biographies, autobiographies, oral histories, reference works, manuscripts, and photographs, presenting the life stories of American Indians and Canadian First Peoples in their own words and through the words of others. Coverage: 1677 to present.
Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880
Western settlers created what we think of as the American West. Explorers came and went, soldiers came and went, miners and others came and went. But the settlers came to stay. For settlers, the ways of reaching a destination in the frontier country were either wretched ordeals or wondrous adventures. Fortunately, many of these men and women recorded daily events and their thoughts with such picturesque zest that some accounts of westward journeys have elements of great literature within them
Political extremism & radicalism in the twentieth century
A compilation of rare and unique archival collections covering a wide range of fringe political movements. The collections cover a period of just over a century (1900s to 2010s) when the world saw the formation of several civil rights movements for the rights of minorities, women's rights, and gay rights. It also encompasses the rise and fall of a number of peripheral groups deemed ‘extreme’ or ‘radical’ by contemporaries, such as anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-war, communist or socialist, creationist, environmentalist, hate, holocaust denial, new left, survivalist, white supremacist, and white nationalist.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
This unique collection showcases the development of 'popular' medicine in America during the nineteenth century, through an extensive range of material that was aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals. Explore an array of printed sources, including rare books, pamphlets, trade cards, and visually-rich advertising ephemera.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926
Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana – A Dictionary of Books Relating to America From its Discovery to the Present Time, Sabin Americana, 1500–1926 is an online collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960 to 1974
The Sixties brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. With 150,000 pages of material at completion, this searchable collection is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history, culture, and politics. The database currently has over 34,000 pages.
Slavery & Anti-Slavery, A Transnational Archive
In addition to the standard primary sources one would expect—newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, for example—SAS includes a broad selection of documents from several different archives.
Includes Parts I-IV.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Slavery and the Law (ProQuest History Vault)
Includes race, slavery, and free blacks petitions to southern legislatures and southern county courts as well as State slavery statutes.
Struggle for Women's Rights, Organizational Records, 1880-1990
As the movement for women’s suffrage in America was accelerating, the National Woman’s Party (NWP) brought to the campaign a new militancy and daring. Originally a committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the NWP was founded in 1913 when Alice Paul and her colleagues broke away from NAWSA in dissent over strategy and tactics.
Trench Journals and Unit Magazines of the First World War
An archival research resource containing a vast collection of rare magazines by and for servicemen and women of all nations during the First World War. Over 1,500 periodicals written and illustrated by serving members of the armed forces and associated welfare organisations published between 1914 and the end of 1919 are included.
Visit the microsite.
U.S. Declassified Documents Online (formerly Declassified Documents Reference System)
U.S. Declassified Documents Online provides immediate access to a broad range of previously classified federal records spanning the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database.
We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
“We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death”: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961 is a source for African American history, radical studies, civil rights, political science and more, including surveillance reports, chronologies, and witness statements. These materials provide unique (and in some cases recently declassified) insight into the Freedom Rides, the Kennedy administration and the segregated South.
Witchcraft in Europe and America
The earliest texts in this comprehensive collection on witchcraft date from the 15th century and the latest are from the early 20th century. The majority of the material concerns the 16th to 18th centuries, the so-called "classic period." In addition to these classic texts, the collection includes anti-persecution writings, works by penologists, legal and church documents, exposés of persecutions, and philosophical writings and transcripts of trials and exorcisms.
Women and Social Movements, International— 1840 to Present
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women’s international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women’s international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs. Also contains numerous online publications of contemporary Non-Governmental Organizations.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
A set of learning modules in the form of mini-monographs, each of which is organized around a specific question about a single social movement. Each module contains fifteen to twenty documents that address the question.

Archives Unbound

Archives Unbound
Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Covers a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Collections are chosen for Archives Unbound based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.

Includes the following Collections:

Afghanistan and the U.S., 1945-1963: Records of the U.S. State Department Central Classified Files
American Indian Correspondence: Presbyterian Historical Society Collection of Missionaries’ Letters, 1833-1893
The American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism
Democracy in Turkey, 1950-1959: Records of the U.S. State Department Classified Files
Electing the President: Proceedings of the Democratic National Conventions, 1832-1988
Electing the President: Proceedings of the Republican National Conventions, 1856-1988
Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s
Foreign Relations Between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944
Intelligence Reports from the National Security Council’s Vietnam Information Group, 1967-1975
Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees: The West’s Response to Jewish Emigration
Japan at War and Peace, 1930-1949: U.S. State Department Records on the Internal Affairs of Japan
Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880
"We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death:" Freedom Riders in the South, 1961

American Memory

American Memory from the Library of Congress
Primary source and archival materials relating to American culture and history. Most of these offerings are from the Library's unparalleled special collections and include photos, movies, sounds, and documents.

Digital Sanborn Maps

Digital Sanborn maps 1867-1970
Digital Sanborn Maps is a collection of large-scale landbook maps which includes information such as the outline of each building, the size and shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures, and location of windows and doors.
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The maps also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Textual information includes construction details, ownership and building use.

Civil War Diaries and Letters

Civil War Diaries and Letters
This digital collection contains diaries and related items of soldiers from Iowa who fought in the American Civil War (1861-1865). The documents offer valuable insight on their day-to-day activities, accounts of battles, and feelings regarding the war and their time as soldiers. Several of the diaries include full or partial transcriptions.

World Digital Library

World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.
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The WDL makes it possible to discover, study, and enjoy cultural treasures from around the world on one site, in a variety of ways. These cultural treasures include, but are not limited to, manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, and architectural drawings.

Items on the WDL may easily be browsed by place, time, topic, type of item, and contributing institution, or can be located by an open-ended search, in several languages. Special features include interactive geographic clusters, a timeline, advanced image-viewing and interpretive capabilities. Item-level descriptions and interviews with curators about featured items provide additional information.

Navigation tools and content descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many more languages are represented in the actual books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other primary materials, which are provided in their original languages.

The WDL was developed by a team at the U.S. Library of Congress, with contributions by partner institutions in many countries; the support of the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and the financial support of a number of companies and private foundations.