Primary Sources, United States: Nineteenth Century

19th Century U.S. Newspapers provides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of papers from across United States.

Digital access to the periodical collections of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), considered to be the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.

This collection of sources focuses on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns in North Carolina, focuses on aspects of African American community. Among the types of materials included are pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, and official records.

This database contains the complete text of major African-American newspapers published in the United States during the 19th century.

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 provides access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers. Over 50 are from Kansas.

Access content from over 170 periodicals that cover a wide range of topics from 26 states.

“This collection consists of minutes of annual meetings, executive committee, committee of management, and purchasing committee; register of works of art in the American Art-Union; letters addressed to the American Art-Union, including many from agents around the country, and pertaining to the sale of subscriptions; letters from artists to the American Art-Union with index; and letterpress books containing copies of letters sent by the American Art-Union.”

This database provides access to Kansas newspapers published in Kansas from 1827 to 1998. Among those included are Emporia Gazette, Leavenworth Bulletin, Topeka Weekly Capital, and Sedan Lance.

Presents American Civil War letters, diaries, memoirs and biographies written between 1855 and 1875.

Advertisements reflecting the changing commercial tastes and consumer trends, attitudes towards race, the family and domestic sphere, and advancements in technology from 1850 to 1950.

Contains manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century.

Publications of a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.

American Periodicals Series Online includes digitized and images of the pages of over 1,100 American magazines and journals published from 1741 through 1940.

Search or browse U.S. congressional materials originating from 1789 and covering through 1838, including 1st Congress, 1st Session through 25th Congress, 2nd Session.

This digital collection of primary sources from the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library contains over 300 manuscripts, broadsides, maps, and rare printed works. Material in the collection ranges from 1722 to 1939, with the majority covering 1830 to 1839.

Provides more than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences.

Contains the photograph archives of the Associated Press. New content is added constantly and spans over 180 years.

The Baltimore Afro-American was one of the most circulated African-American newspapers on the Atlantic Coast. This database includes the from 1893 to 1988.

Over 550 works written by black authors from the Americas, Europe, and African.

Arranged by era and topic, this free website contains important documents in African-American history, with the earliest from 1790.

Black Thought and Culture includes non-fiction writings by important African Americans.

This combined index includes the American Periodicals Series, British Periodicals, and Poole's Index.

Search the Midwest's most important paper from 1849 to 1992.

This database contains U.S. Congressional publications related to civil rights since the Civil War.

Contains important articles from the New York Herald, the Charleston Mercury, and the Richmond Enquirer.

The Evans collection includes digital images of virtually every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America over a 160-year period.

Shaw-Shoemaker contains a comprehensive set of United States books, pamphlets and broadsides published between 1801-1819.

This collection includes published and unpublished accounts documenting the first impressions of North America by Europeans and of Europeans by native people.

This archive contains primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000. Among the periodicals included are Billboard, Variety, and Broadcasting.

Contains citations to European documents written about the Americas.

The Gerritsen collection includes 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, dating from 1543-1945.

Electronic access to Harper's Weekly, the illustrated "national newspaper," which was published weekly from 1857-1912.

This rather complicated to use database contains government information from all three branches of U.S. government. Ask if you need help.

A resource for census data, family records and local histories. This collection assembles every extant U.S. federal census, banking and military records, genealogies, primary source materials, and genealogical and local history serials.

Search the annual reports of American companies dating back to 1844.

Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition contains over 37,000 different time-series statistics providing a quantitative view into American history.

The Lily, the first newspaper for women, was issued from 1849 until 1853 under the editorship of Amelia Bloomer.

The Los Angeles Times provides historical analysis of the development of California and the Pacific Rim.

The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 provides full-text searching and digital images of 22,000 legal treatises on US and British law published from 1800 through 1926.

This collection offers online access to early state codes, city charters, documents relating to constitutional conventions, and other resources in American legal history. Dates of coverage include from 1620-1979.

Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926 contains books and pamphlets covering major and minor trials of English-speaking jurisdictions and English-language trials in other jurisdictions.

Starting in 1936, this Detroit paper is an excellent source to find primary sources concerning the civil rights movement.

Search autobiographies, Indigenous publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files created by American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples. The interface includes a timeline of events that are cross referenced by region and tribe to improve discovery.

Provides access to full page and article images with searchable full-text from 1851 to 4 years ago.

One of the most influential newspapers of its time, the New York Tribune reported on events, arts, sports, business and finance covering from 1841-1922.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories covers the experiences of new American immigrants 1840 to the present, with the majority focusing on 1890 to 1920.

Provides indexing to the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890 to 1982.

Contains the papers of the Race Relations Department at Fisk University, covering from 1943 to 1970.

Based on Joseph Sabin's bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana: A Dictionary of Books Relating to America From its Discovery to the Present Time, this collection includes books, pamphlets, serials and other works. about North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean.

A digital version of the more than 50,000 maps published within the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980.

Contains over 15,000 thematic and interactive maps based on the entire U.S. Census from 1790 to 2000.

A comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Provides thousands of tables and millions of data points across a wide variety of topics.

Contains personal letters, diaries, photos, and maps from the collections of the Kansas State Historical Society and the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.

Access all the reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

A comprehensive electronic guide to federal, state, local and international public documents, spanning over 200 years of publication, in a single searchable database.

This database contains the records and briefs brought before the U.S. Supreme Court from 1832-1978.

Explore popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930.

The entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition) from 1892 to the present. Vogue is a unique record of popular culture that extends beyond fashion.

The United State's most important business newspaper from 1889 to 17 years ago.

Includes all the articles published since the first issue of the paper in 1877 up to 7 years ago.

The organizational archives of one of the oldest scientific organizations in the United States. The topics covered here include many sciences, but also topics such as human rights.

This archive of the Academy provides primary sources on multiple aspects of natural and physical sciences, as well as medicine and human rights.

Resources document women’s experiences in the conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality since 1820. Material covers the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia.

Brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000.

Search the full text popular magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Women’s Day, Ladies’ Home Journal, Town and Country, Parents, Seventeen and more.

This collection of primary sources contains the official records of organizing committees as well as ephemera, souvenir artifacts and personal reflections collected by fair-goers.