Research Guides: U.S. History: Primary Sources

U.S. History
- Secondary Sources
- Primary Sources

Primary Source Databases and Web Resources

These catalogs and databases will help you to access a wide range of U.S. history primary source materials.

Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing for over 200 alternative and radical publications. Indexes journals covering cultural, economic, political & social change. 1969 to present.

American Memory
A project of the Library of Congress containing millions of digitized, freely available items.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and historically significant periodicals, covering 1740-1900.
American West This link opens in a new window
Online access to the Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library.
Contains books, manuscripts, maps, engravings, and many other primary sources related to the U.S. West, covering topics such as Native Americans, the Gold Rush, fiction, outlaws, and conservation.
ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Database of archival collection descriptions, including historical documents, personal papers, and family histories around the world
Archives of sexuality & gender This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Primary source documents from major international activist organizations and local grassroots organizations providing information on social, political, health and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities. Includes often-excluded groups, even within the LGBTQ community, and enables users to draw new connections across the development of LGBTQ culture and activism.
Arte Público Hispanic historical collection. Series 1 This link opens in a new window
Digital collection of historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic and Latino history, literature, political commentary, and culture. This collection accurately conveys the creative life of U.S. Latinos and Hispanics, shedding new light on the intellectual vigor and traditional values that have characterized them from the earliest moments of this country's history through contemporary times.
Bibliography of Indigenous peoples in North America This link opens in a new window
Citations to literature about native peoples of North America published from the sixteenth century to the present. Native North Americans include Aleuts; Eskimos or Inuit of Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, and eastern Siberia; and other native peoples (i.e. "Indians") of Alaska, Canada, the United States, and Mexico north of the northern boundary of Mesoamerica. All citations are to published materials: books, journal articles, essays, conference papers, and US and Canadian government documents.
Chicago Defender (1910-1975) This link opens in a new window
Leading newspaper of the black community.
The newspaper was a proponent of The Great Migration, the move of over 1.5 million African-Americans from the segregated South to the industrial North from 1915 to 1925. It reported on the Red Summer race riots of 1919, and editorialized for anti-lynching legislation and the integration of blacks into the U.S. military.

Chronicling America
Historic newspapers from 1836-1922 hosted by the Library of Congress.
Civil Rights Digital Library
The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Civil Rights 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 in Mississippi Digital Archive
The Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive includes a selection of digitized photographs, letters, diaries, and other documents. Oral history transcripts are also available, as well as finding aids for manuscript collections.
Colección de Puertorriqueña A broad and diverse collection of digitized resources from Puerto Rican archives, sponsored by the University of Puerto Rico. Website and resources in Spanish.
Congressional Record (Bound Edition)
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873 and is still published today.When searching over the Congressional Record (Bound Edition) on govinfo, you will be searching over the official business for each day's proceedings of Congress. This includes the House, Senate, and Extensions of remarks sections.

Digital national security archive This link opens in a new window
Collection of declassified US government documents. Includes primary documents, glossaries, chronologies, bibliographies, overviews, and photographs.

Discovering American Women's History Online
This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources that document the history of women in the United States.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) includes sixteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
18th century English-language publications in the humanities, arts, and sciences.
Digitized copies of significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the eighteenth century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. ECCO includes a variety of materials from books and directories, Bibles, sheet music, sermons, advertisements, and other works by both well-known and lesser-known men and women writers.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Articles, editorials, and reviews published in approximately 200 ethnic and minority newspapers, magazines and journals published in the U.S, dating back to the mid-1990s.
Searchable in both English and Spanish.

FARMWORKER JUSTICE MOVEMENTS
Website produced by Oregon State University students profiling the tactics and strategies of several U.S. farmworker social movements.

HathiTrust digital library This link opens in a new window
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Current UO students, faculty and staff should log into HathiTrust as the "University of Oregon". Additional functions, such as the ability to download the whole book are available only to users of member libraries. Using HathiTrust.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Digitized legal journals, reviews, U.S. government documents, regulations, laws, and treaties.
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window
Newspapers published between 1808 and 1980 that chronicle the daily life, cultural heritage and world views of Hispanic communities in the U.S.
Features Spanish-language newspapers and titles published bilingually in Spanish and English.
HistoryMakers This link opens in a new window
By recording, preserving and sharing the life stories of thousands of African Americans, from President Barack Obama to the oldest living black cowboy, The HistoryMakers is a leader in helping to educate and enlighten millions worldwide through refashioning a more inclusive record of American history.
Historic Oregon Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Historic Oregon Newspapers provides digitized versions of selected Oregon newspapers published between 1846 and 2017. Approximately 200 newspapers are included in this collection. Dates of coverage vary from newspaper to newspaper.
ProQuest history vault: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle. This link opens in a new window
Access to federal documents relating to African-American history and social movements. Includes material from different Presidential administrations, the FBI, and federal agencies such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Independent Voices is a digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Indigenous peoples of North America This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Digitized primary sources covering the cultural, political and social history of Native Peoples from the 17th through the 20th centuries.
LGBT+ source This link opens in a new window
Covers the world's literature regarding Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Transsexual issues.
Comprehensive coverage includes traditional academic, lifestyle, and regional publications, as well as non-periodical content such as non-fiction books, bibliographies and dissertations. Disciplines include athletics, health, law, sociology, family, religion, civil liberties, employment and entertainment.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
Los Angeles Times (1881-1997) This link opens in a new window
Historical analysis of the development of California and the Pacific Rim with a focus on immigration issues, coverage of the early days of the film industry, and coverage of Native American culture and society.

Making of America
Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.

Making of Modern Law. Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
U.S. and British legal treatises published between 1800-1926.
Making of Modern Law. Trials, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Based on holdings of the law libraries of Harvard and Yale, and the Library of the Bar of the City of New York, the product offers online access to these important collections.
Making of Modern Law. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Records and briefs brought before the U.S. Supreme Court in the period 1832-1978.

New York Historical Society Slavery Collections
The library of the New-York Historical Society holds among its many resources a substantial collection of manuscript materials documenting American slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world. The fourteen collections on this web site are among the most important of these manuscript collections.

New York times (digital reproduction, 1851-2015) This link opens in a new window
Digital reproduction of the NY Times, with full page and article images as well as searchable full text back to the first issue.
Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Provides full text coverage of more than 340 regional, national and international newspapers. Includes full-text television and radio news transcripts from CBS News, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, NPR, etc.
Eight centuries This link opens in a new window
Eight Centuries is a database covering source material dating from 1106 until 1960, aggregating indexes, catalogs, collections, and other finding aids. It provides access to articles, newspapers, books, U.S. patents, government documents, and images, with links to full-text where available.
Archives West This link opens in a new window
Descriptions of primary sources in the Northwestern United States, including correspondence, diaries, or photographs. Digital reproductions of primary sources are available in some cases.

Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy
A searchable, full-text online database of U.S. government foreign policy documents published by Wikileaks.
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The collection includes two parts: the "Kissinger Cables" (primarily 1973-1976) and "Cablegate" documents (primarily 2000-2010).

Readers' Guide retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window
General-interest, news, and opinion magazines published primarily in the United States. Dates of coverage are from 1890 - 1982.
Sabin Americana: history of the Americas, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Based on Joseph Sabin's bibliography. Contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Includes books, pamphlets, serials, etc. providing original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and more.
Digital Sanborn maps 1867-1970 This link opens in a new window
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Large-scale, detailed, black & white maps of 177 Oregon towns and cities, as well as municipalities in California, Washington, and Idaho
Originally created for fire insurance purposes, Sanborn maps have become a valuable tool for studying the history, growth, and development of cities, towns, and neighborhoods. Users can pan and zoom as well as download PDF versions of each sheet. The MAP Library also has paper versions of many of these maps.

Slave Voyages
This website provides access to data about the transatlantic and inter-American slave trades culled from archives throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
Southern Oral History Program
A collection of more than 5,000 interviews with southern people from all walks of life—from mill workers to civil rights leaders to future presidents of the United States.
United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919
Digitized records of the U.S. Army during World War I, including postwar occupation in Germany.

Gale in Context. U.S. history This link opens in a new window
If searches in this database retrieve incorrect results, clear cache/cookies to resolve the problem.
Coverage - scholarly articles, primary sources, encyclopedia entries, audio, video, - of topics in U.S. History, from the arrival of Vikings to Vietnam, Watergate and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Viva: A Bibliography of Women's History in Historical and Women's Studies Journals This link opens in a new window
Bibliography of articles about women's and gender history.

Wisconsin Historical Society Freedom Summer Collection
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. More than 25,000 pages from the Freedom Summer manuscripts are available online.

Women and social movements in the United States 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Primary sources dealing with U.S. women's history from 1600 to 2000

Young Lords Newspaper Collection
Newspapers of the Young Lords, an organization of Puerto Rican youth in Chicago in the second half of the 20th Century.
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In the 1950's, a variety of ethnic groups resided in the Lincoln Park area and by the early 1960's a substantial Puerto Rican community was established around the south-western borders of the neighborhood. At this time, Orlando Davila formed the Young Lords to counter the mounting antagonism against Puerto Ricans by other youth gangs. In 1964, Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez assumed the leadership of the Young Lords. In the late 1960's the Young Lords directed their activities to the social and economic concerns that were prevalent in the Puerto Rican community of Lincoln Park. The various newspapers published by the organization document their concerns and their actions.

In 2001, Omar Lopez, former Minister of Information of the Young Lords, donated the small amount of archival material that is part of the Young Lords Collection to DePaul's Special Collections and Archives Department.

This online collection is being updated as newspapers are scanned and cataloged. For more information about issues not yet available online, please contact Special Collections and Archives.

Microfilm and Archival U.S. History Collections at the UO

These webpages detail a wide range of primary source materials available in the UO Libraries.

Subject Guides to Special Collections
These guides offer brief descriptions of relevant collections in the UO Libraries' Special Collections and University Archives by subject. Links are provided whenever online inventories exist.
U.S. History Microfilm Collections
A list of U.S. history microfilm collections held by the UO Libraries.
Underground Newspapers
An index of the over 460 microfilmed underground newspapers from between 1965 and 1971 that are held in the UO Libraries.

Sources for Historical Statistics

These resources provide a wide array of historical economic, political, and demographic statistics about the United States.

Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
Fully searchable and downloadable edition of the standard source for facts about American history. Allows customized tables and spreadsheets
Statistical Abstract of the US This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive collection of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States.

Value of a Dollar 1860-2014 by Scott Derks
ISBN: 1916252923
Publication Date: 2014
Provides comprehensive incomes and prices for various professions and products. Links to the electronic edition.

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Japanese Studies and History Librarian

Kevin McDowell

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Subjects: Asian Studies, History, Medieval Studies, Political Science, Southeast Asian Studies

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