American Studies: Primary Sources

This collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America in the 17th and 18th centuries includes items listed in Charles Evans’s American Bibliography and Roger Bristol’s supplement. The database is cross-searchable with Shaw-Shoemaker (Early American Imprints, Series II), American Pamphlets, Series I: 1820-1922, and American Broadsides & Ephemera.

Access requires on-campus authentication.

Material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection contains early contacts between Europeans and American Indians and the subsequent political, social and cultural effects of those encounters on American Indian life. It covers the period from early western frontier right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century.

Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment documents the relationships among Native American, African and European peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. Using diaries, memoirs, letters, travel accounts and other primary sources, this collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from many people, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. It consists of books, serials, manuscript collections, supreme court records and briefs, reference articles, and encyclopedias. The database is in four parts: Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: The Institution of Slavery and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

Rotunda’s American Founding Era Collection offers primary and secondary source documents from some of the most preeminent figures of that age. These digital editions of the papers of many of the major figures of the early republic are presented in a fully searchable and interoperable online environment. This platform includes the papers of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madision, Dolly Madision, Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, John Jay and more.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is a digitized library representing most of the significant English- and foreign-language texts published in Great Britain and the colonies during the eighteenth century. Subject access to this collection is provided by the British Library’s online English Short Title Catalogue.

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books, from the New York Historical Society, offers access to handwritten volumes documenting military orders, movements and engagements by brigade, regiment, company and other specific military units between 1748 and 1817. The content also provides detailed accounts of troops’ daily lives, documenting everything from court martial cases to the price of necessities charged by locals.

This database provides access to periodicals by and about African Americans. Representing 26 states, the publications offer a range of material, including academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations’ bulletins, annual reports and other genres.

Access requires on-campus authentication.

This collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America from 1801 to 1820 is based on the American Bibliography, 1801-1819 of Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker. The database is cross-searchable with Evans, 1639-1800 (Early American Imprints, Series I); American Pamphlets, Series I: 1820-1922; American Broadsides & Ephemera; Evans Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1800 and Shaw-Shoemaker Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1801-1819.

Access requires on-campus authentication.

Primary source material from 18th and 19th Century periodicals. Included in the collection is Godey's Lady's Book, The Civil War: A Soldier's Perspective, African American newspapers, American county histories and various other newspapers, gazettes and collections.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. It consists of books, serials, manuscript collections, supreme court records and briefs, reference articles, and encyclopedias. The database is in four parts: Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: The Institution of Slavery and Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

This collection of primary resources documents the history, culture, and politics of the 1960s and early 1970's. Included are diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.

This database provides access to periodicals by and about African Americans. Representing 26 states, the publications offer a range of material, including academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations’ bulletins, annual reports and other genres.

Access requires on-campus authentication.