What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of memoirs). They reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period
U.S. History Primary Sources
American Memory Project from the Library of Congress - thousands of documents, photos, maps, films, sound recordings, etc. from the collections of the Library of Congress, including women's suffrage, African-American pamphlets, George Washington's letter books, life histories from the WPA, American Revolution broadsides and much more.
Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
Cornell Making of America Digital Library
Documents for the Study of American History
Duke University-Special Collections
Electronic Text Center
Electronic Texts
Famous Trials
Historic Audio & Video Archives from Webcorp Multimedia
Historical Text Archive
Internet Archive of Texts and Documents: The United States
JSTOR
Making of America
New Deal Network
Online Speech Bank
Primary Sources Research Colloquium
Scholarly Resources Microfilm
United States History
Documenting the American South:
This electronic text archive from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill contains primary source slavery narratives and first-person narratives of the South as well as a digitized library of southern literature.
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
A Hypertext on American History
This site contains over 100 historical documents relating to United States history, from the 1400s to the present. It includes letters, charters, essays, speeches, journal entries, inaugural addresses, autobiographies, biographies, and more. An outline of American history provides context for the primary source materials.
http://odur.let.rug.nl/
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
http://www.nps.gov/jeff/
Learn about the history of the city of St. Louis and the construction of the Gateway Arch through historic photographs at this site.
http://www.nps.gov/jeff/
Here is a list of sources for researching primary documents (newspapers, letters, diaries, and other documents) from U.S. history, from colonial times to 1900.
Online Text Archives
American Memory 16th-20th century
Library of Congress digital collection of books, maps, ephemera, music, spoken word, that "document the American experience." Full list of collections.
Early Encounters in North America 1542 - 1900's.
Includes transcriptions of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Authors include: Native Americans; European explorers; missionaries; travel and nature writers; settlers; and others.
Early American Imprints 1639-1800
Also available in McHenry Microforms, call no. PS503.E37 1974. Known as the Evans Imprints, this large document collection reproduces 42,000 early American publications; every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America.
Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610-1791
Also available in McHenry Microforms, call no. F1030.7.Z951 1960. Searchable text of the English translation of the original volumes.
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