Need Help?
Phone or Email This link opens in a new window
FAQ This link opens in a new window
Video Tutorials This link opens in a new window
Make an Appointment This link opens in a new window
Search for Primary Documents Online
In Google, search for "primary sources" and your topic.
You could also try "primary documents" or "digital collection" or "digital library" in addition to "primary sources".
Search Tip:
Use words that would have been used during the time period you're researching. For example, African American was not always used. The language in documents in previous times may have included Negro, slave or black.
Online Sources for Primary Documents
-
African Americans and Jim Crow: Repression and Protest, 1883-1922 (Readex)This collection offers +1,000 fully searchable books, pamphlets, and speeches from the beginning of Jim Crow to post-World War I that provide insights into African American culture and life during this period of segregation and disenfranchisement. Topics include African American identity, relationships with peoples of other nations, and literature. (VIVA)
-
African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883 (Readex)This collection offers roughly 1,400 fully searchable printed works, books, pamphlets, and speeches from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of Jim Crow. It includes documents related to African Americans and citizenship, voting rights, literacy, land rights, employment, and more, including the gaps between written law and practice. (VIVA)
-
The Avalon ProjectA variety of law, history, and diplomacy primary documents from 4000 BCE to the modern era. From Yale University Law School.
-
Daily Life through HistoryA comprehensive, cross-disciplinary resource of social history from ancient times to the present including books, articles, images, maps, primary documents, and more; exploring how others lived and live their lives, and how their lives shaped ours.
-
Fordham University Women's History SourcebookFull-text primary source documents and secondary sources related to female historical figures.
-
Harper's Weekly: 1857-1912This 19th century illustrated newspaper, published from 1857 to 1912. NOVA has access to 1857-1877, which covers the Civil War through Reconstruction.
-
Indigenous Peoples of North America (Gale Primary Sources)A collection of manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, images of artwork, and more that increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada.
-
Oxford African American Studies CenterOver 8,000 articles by top scholars that focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American history and culture. Also includes images and primary sources.