LibGuides: History Research Guide: U.S.

Primary Sources: United States

Gilder Lehrman Center
The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, a part of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, is dedicated to the investigation and dissemination of knowledge concerning all aspects of chattel slavery and its destruction."
Jonathan Edwards Center
A valuable resource for research into Colonial America. "The mission of the Jonathan Edwards Center is to support inquiry into the life, writings, and legacy of Jonathan Edwards by providing resources that encourage critical appraisal of the historical importance and contemporary relevance of America’s premier theologian. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), pastor, revivalist, Christian philosopher, missionary, and college president, is widely regarded as North America’s greatest theologian.
Colonial North America (Project)
When complete, this digitisation project will make available all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America. These documents reveal a great deal about topics such as social life, education, trade, finance, politics, revolution, war, women, Native American life, slavery, science, medicine, and religion. In addition to reflecting the origins of the United States, the materials also document aspects of life and work in Great Britain, France, Canada, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
The Miller Center
The Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history. Website includes Presidential Oral Histories (interviews with past administrations staff) and secret White House tapes, (including 3400 hours of Nixon recordings!)
Freedom on the Move
Enslavers posted “runaway ads” to try to locate fugitives. Such ads provide significant quantities of individual and collective information about the economic, demographic, social, and cultural history of slavery.
Newberry Digital Collection
An Independent research library in Chicago. Collection includes the Edward E Ayer collection (one of the world's premiere sources of primary documents on American Indians).

Making of America
A searchable digital collection of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, consisting of approximately 5000 books and journal volumes with imprints between 1850 and 1877. The collection is strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion and science and technology.
The Valley of the Shadow
Includes letter, diaries, newspapers, speeches, census and church records of people living in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the Civil War.
Shapell Foundation
An independent organization dedicated to the research, collection, and exhibition of original manuscripts and historical documents. Focus is on the histories of the United States and the Holy Land, with emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. Holdings include American presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln; Mark Twain; Albert Einstein; Custer and the Little Big Horn; and Theodor Herzl.

Frank J. Davis’ frontline photographs
Frank J. Davis’ frontline photographs and images portray life during World War II, including images from Washington, DC, Italy, France, and Saipan.

Historic Government Publications from World War II
Provides researchers with access to a large collection of digitised World War II publications, or historic documents, published by the United States government in support of the war effort, held by the Central University Libraries, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Catalog of US Government Publications
President's Daily Brief
The PDB is a Top Secret document produced and given each morning at 07:45 to the President of the United States
The American Presidency Project
Includes: The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913), The Public Papers of the Presidents: Hoover to Obama (1929-2011), The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: Carter - G.W. Bush (1977-2009), The Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents: Obama (2009-2016), party platforms, candidates' remarks, Statements of Administration Policy, documents released by the Office of the Press Secretary, and election debates.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
Access to the first major scholarly effort to collect and publish the complete writings of Abraham Lincoln.
Historic Government Publications from World War II
Contains 343 Informational pamphlets, government reports, instructions, regulations, declarations, speeches, and propaganda materials distributed by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) during the Second World War
Core Documents of US Democracy
To provide American citizens direct online access to the basic Federal Government documents that define our democratic society, a core group of current and historical Government publications is being made available for free, permanent, public access. These titles contain information which is vital to the democratic process and critical to an informed electorate.

American Memory Project
Access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience are included.
Census Bureau
Statistics, including Census and Statistical Abstracts data on population and economy.
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.
Documenting the American South
A collection of texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a ... non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to include more well-rounded collections.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. ..A gateway to a growing treasury of digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, and books, as well as "born digital" materials such as web sites.
National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS)
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2012.
Youtube Library of Congress
The Library of Congress stores around 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings, but they aren't all immediately available on YouTube; instead, they're starting off with around 70 films. Currently, the videos include the National Book Festival author presentations, "Westinghouse" industrial films from 1904, as well as some of the earliest movies ever made by motion picture pioneer Thomas Edison. More videos and audio files will be uploaded progressively

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project 1936 to 1938
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s.
Documenting the American South ( North America Slave Narratives)
A free website from the University of North Carolina
Digital Library on American Slavery
Website from the University of North Carolina which includes the 'Race and Slavery Petitions Project', 'Runaway Slave Advertisements Project', 'Voyages: the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database' , 'Slave deeds of North Carolina' and 'Slavery Era Insurance Registeries'.
Legacies on British Slave Ownership
From The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership. Includes maps of holdings and a database of slavery reparations.