Primary Sources

Gathered by Reverend Charles Burney, 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers is a collection of the newspapers and news pamphlets primarily published in London, with some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and examples from the American colonies. The original Burney volumes are now in a poor physical state and only available through restricted use.

Through 18th Century German Literature Online, first editions and first published complete editions by more than 600 German-speaking authors of the 18th century are now available online. The approximately 2,700 works with almost 4,500 volumes reflect the broad spectrum of German literature from the early stages of the age of Enlightenment to the later part of the period.

Pamphlets were an important means of public debate in the 19th century, covering key political, social, technological, and environmental issues. This collection of significant British 19th-century pamphlets held in seven UK research libraries includes the Knowsley Pamphlet Collection; the Cowen Tracts (personal collection of Joseph Cowen, Member of Parliament and social reformer); the Hume Tracts (personal collection of Joseph Hume, Radical Member of Parliament); and Earl Grey Pamphlets.

This database contains 1.2 million pages of periodicals published in Great Britain from 1800-1900. It includes publications on women, children, leisure and sport, humor, and material regarding the expansion of the British empire.

A collection of American newspapers, magazines, and other primary source materials, mostly from the 19th century, but with some 18th century items. Newspapers and magazines include the Virginia Gazette, Pennsylvania Gazette, The Liberator, Godey's Lady's Book, and a selection of African American newspapers. Books include a large collection of county histories, Civil War memoirs and regimental histories, and more.

Chronicles the history of African-American music through 1970, offering electronic access to coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, early slave spirituals, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.

Provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection features papers from more than 35 states—including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles.

Searchable monographs, pamphlets, broadsides, government documents and ephemera enable researchers to explore America's distant and not so distant past. Available here: Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Early American Imprints, Series I: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1800; Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Early American Imprints, Series II: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1801-1819.

This unique collection of primary source material documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, Module I covers "Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859" and Module II "Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945."

Digital images of historically significant American periodicals from 1740 to 1900, including literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and popular magazines. All typography, drawings, graphic elements, and article layouts appear exactly as originally published. Allows searching by article type (e.g., letter, obituary, poetry, recipe, ad, editorial cartoon, review).

This digital edition of the American Antiquarian Society’s extraordinary holdings of slavery and abolition materials delivers more than 3,500 works published over the course of more than 100 years. Long awaited in fully searchable form, The American Slavery Collection addresses every facet of American slavery—one of the most important and controversial topics in U.S. history. These diverse materials, all filmed in full-resolution color, include books, pamphlets, graphic materials, and ephemera; among them are a large number of invaluable Southern imprints.

A history database with 50,000 tracks, allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. Includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more'. Now includes African American Song.

Music Online: Listening is a multidisciplinary collection of audiovisual content that touches on the curriculum needs of virtually every department. Music Online: Listening allows students and researchers alike to analyze unique and valuable content from over 500 producers and distributors around the world.

More than 90,000 textual descriptions and 8,000 digital images of thousands of art slides in the collection of the department of Art, Music and Theater. Database will eventually include other humanities-based images found in the University community (e.g., archaeology slides in the Classics department collection). The database is for the exclusive educational use only of faculty and students at Georgetown University. A NetID is required for access. Materials, text and image are copyrighted.

Selected historical news stories, cables, and other documents from AP Middle East Bureaus in Ankara, Beirut, and Jerusalem from 1967-2005.

A collection of British policy papers, documents and marginalia from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers. Begins with early 20th century British interests in the Middle East, continues through the establishment of Israel and on to British diplomatic relations with Israel and the Arab States in the early 1970s. Part of Archives Unbound.

Digitized collections of the National Archives (UK) provided by Adam Matthew. Collections include:

Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966

Confidential Print : Middle East, 1839-1969

Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980

Central Asia, Persia, and Afghanistan, 1834-1922

Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980

Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981

Foreign Office Files for South East Asia, 1963-1980

This database includes archives and publications of the Chinese central government, its ministries and subsidiaries, and regional authorities. Contents include National Policies (2001- present), Regional Policies (2001- present), Speeches/Publications of Ministerial/Provincial Officers (2004- present), National/Provincial/Ministerial Government Annual Statements (1983- present), Foreign Minister's Spokesperson's Statements & Speeches (1997- present), and Foreign Minister's Press Conference (2001- present). With the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as its sources, the database provides official, authoritative research information on the Chinese government and other political issues in China.
The database is updated monthly or in a real time manner.

The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender.

We have access to the following Archives:

International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture

LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I

LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II

Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century

Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Collections in Archives Unbound cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history.

French-language literary, religious, philosophical, political, and scientific works from the 13th through the 20th centuries. Genres include novels, verse, theater, journalism, essays, correspondence, and treatises. Standard scholarly editions were used in converting the text into machine-readable form.

Comprehensive digital library containing images of artworks, photographs, architecture, decorative arts, rare books, and items from popular culture. Includes images from the Artstor collection, as well as other collections.

E-books on religion curated by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), covering the 13th century through 1893.

E-books on religion curated by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), covering 1894 through 1923.

Complete, full-text archive of The Baltimore Sun from 1837 to 1986.

FBI files on the Black Liberation Army, an underground African-American guerrilla group from 1970 to 1981. Part of Archives Unbound.

Black Studies Center contains both primary sources and scholarly research on African-Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself, including: the Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, the Black Studies Periodicals (formerly International Index to Black Periodicals [IIBP]), the full text of the Chicago Defender, and the Black Literature Index.

Border and Migration Studies brings together resources that explore significant border areas around the world, and related themes such as transnational migration, human trafficking, and border enforcement. The collection includes a mixture of previously published and original material, including monographs, archival documents, and videos.

Largely open access digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles.. Note: Selected premium content is not available.

The Hansard Digitisation Project, led by the Directorate of Information Services of the House of Commons and the Library of the House of Lords, provides electronic access to Hansard, the Official Report of debates in Parliament. Search by volume; Lords sittings; Commons sittings or Westminster Hall sittings. Included are Written Answers, Written Statements, Lords reports or Grand Committee reports, as well as lists of People, Constituencies, Offices, Acts, Bills and Divisions.

Facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts, archaeology, architecture, and the social sciences.

Cambridge Archive Editions Online is the first-ever digital presentation of the exceptionally well-known and respected series of British archival reprints, known as Archive Editions (UK). Britain's rich history with Middle Eastern countries via its East India Company trade routes up through the Persian Gulf & beyond is revealed in the 100+ individual titles on countries in the Middle Eastern collection. The Slavic & Balkan collection delivers a good introduction to the Balkan region, particularly concerning political & ethnic boundary issues. Titles in the East/Southeast Asian collection deliver insight with historic political & economic reports. All volumes are entirely composed of primary source material, from the British Foreign Record Office & other official British archival repositories.

More than 140 newspapers from 22 islands, including Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nevis, Puerto Rico, St. Bartholomew, St. Christopher, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Tobago, Trinidad, and the Virgin Islands.

Complete, full-text archive of The Chicago Defender, the most significant African-American newspaper, from 1910 to 2010. Acquired through a grant from the Resources Legacy Fund to honor Artemis G. Kirk, University Librarian Emeritus, for the library collections in the field of African-American, African and History of Slavery Studies.

Complete, full-text archive of The Chicago Tribune from 1849 to 1988.

China, America and the Pacific offers an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.

17 English-language periodicals about China published between 1817 and 1949. The collection includes missionary periodicals, academic journals established by Western-educated Chinese scholars, and journals of early Sinology. Major topics include the development of colleges and universities in China, missionary activities, and contemporary accounts of the Taiping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, and other events in China during the 19th and 20th centuries.

This full-text digital collection is based primarily on unique manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Library in London, and supplemented by additional sources from seven institutes, such as the Cambridge University Library. This project provides a wide variety of original source material detailing China's interaction with the West from Macartney's first Embassy to China in 1793 to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74. In addition, there are over 400 color paintings, maps and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as many photographs, sketches and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, customs, and events.

Includes a newspaper title directory (1690 - present) and searchable digitized images of selected local and regional newspapers (1880- 1922).

Fulltext collection of selected, Civil War era articles from the Charleston Mercury, the New York Herald, and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.

This collection represents thousands of papers that were presented to the Privy Council and the Board of Trade between 1574-1757, and that relate to the governance of, and activities in, the American, Canadian and West Indian colonies of England. Colonial State Papers also includes the Calendar of State Papers Colonial – an advanced bibliographic search tool providing over 40,000 records of bibliographic description for documents from many collections, including those of CO 1. Calendar of State Papers Colonial consists of bibliographic entries along with transcriptions, extracts and abstracts, in fully keyed XML.

Reproduces online in searchable, PDF page images important British Foreign Office and Colonial Office documents on Africa from the start of the historical modern British colonial enterprise in Africa through the first years of African national independence. Part of Archives Direct.

The collection covers Middle Eastern history from 1839-1969; countries included are: Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Persia, Suez Canal, Turkey, Jordan, Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Syria. The series originated out of a need for the British Government to preserve all of the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Part of Archives Direct.

This series consists of reports, studies, and surveys on various topics of interest to the Department of State. The reports vary from short memorandums to detailed, documented studies. The topics range from individual commodities or countries to the economic and political characteristics of whole regions. This collection consists of research and intelligence reports prepared during 1941-1961 on Japan. Part of Archives Unbound.

Provides access to post- World War II papers from the CIA, the FBI and many other agencies, which have been gathered from presidential libraries. Major domestic and international events of the post-World War II world are covered, including the Cold War, Vietnam, foreign policy shifts, and the civil rights movement. Documents display in a digital facsimile format or ASCII text.

Full-text collection of theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents and polemical treatises written by more than 300 Protestant authors.

Full-text collection of 16th- and 17th-century Catholic papal and synodal decrees, catechisms and inquisitorial manuals, biblical commentaries, theological treatises and systems, liturgical writings, saints' lives and devotional works.

This resource may contain content still classified by the United States Government. Individuals holding security clearances use at their own risk.
A full-text database of over 50 core collections of primary documents acquired by the George Washington University based National Security Archive. The collection has been acquired through extensive use of FOIA. Each core collection is focused on one topic, e.g. Iran-Contra, Terrorism and U.S. Policy. Each topical collection includes diverse policy documents supplemented by contextual and reference material on chronology, glossary and bibliography.

Based on the Evans American Bibliography, this collection contains the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets and broadsides printed in the United States or in the British American colonies from 1639 through 1800. It provides a foundation for research in early American history, literature, philosophy, religion, politics and nearly every aspect of life in early America.

Provides full-text access to the 36,000 American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the 19th century. In addition to books, pamphlets and broadsides, this collection features many state papers and government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; congressional, state aand government materials, including published reports; presidential letters and messages; congressional, state and territorial resolutions.

Offers more than 700 historical American newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia printed between 1690 and 1876. Focusing largely on the 18th century, Series 1 is based on Clarence S. Brigham's "History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820" and other authoritative bibliographies.

Features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions.

A partner database to Early English Books Online. Provides a subset of fully searchable texts from the titles available in EEBO.

Records of the British East India Company, digitized from originals held by the British Library. Module I (Trade, Governance, and Empire, 1600-1947) includes letters, meeting notes of the Council of India, and reports of early expeditions to South and East Asia. Module II covers Factory Records from South Asia and South-East Asia from 1595 to 1830. Module III covers Factory Records for China, Japan, and the Middle East from 1608 to 1870.

EVGeoCloud is a web-based platform that provides online access to catalogs of maps and geospatial data. Available datasets include:
--De Agostini WING
--Georgetown-Soviet City Plans
--ML Infomap India Dataset
--ML Infomap India- June 2014 Update Natural Earth II Raster
--Natural Earth- Cultural
--Natural Earth Physical

Fully searchable complete facsimile edition of The Economist from 1843 to 2006. Includes full-color images, multiple search indexes, topic and area supplements and surveys, a gallery of front covers and a selection of exportable financial tables.

Digital reproductions of every page of significant English- and foreign-language titles printed in Great Britain during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas and elsewhere. Searches the full text of books, pamphlets, essays, and other non-periodical materials including the complete works of major 18th-century writers.

This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology. Collections include: Section I: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969. Section II: Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire. Section III: The Visible Empire. Section IV: Religion & Empire. Section V: Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, 1607-2007.

A comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. A wide range of subject areas are covered. from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery.

Online access to paintings, music, films and books from Europe's galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

Includes full-text translations of foreign radio and television broadcasts as well as selected foreign news, periodical articles and government statements. Search by geographic region, article type or publication title. Browse "Events" to see chronological coverage of topics of interest. Coverage is continued by the World News Connection database.

Index to FBIS reports from 1941 to 1996. Lauinger's Government Documents department has the full text on microfiche of items listed in this database from 1941 through the mid-1990s. Full text is also available for 1974 to 1996 from FBIS Reports Online. For 1994 to the present, see the World News Connection database.

Foreign Office files for China, 1919 - 1980 makes available the complete British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for much of the Twentieth Century. The documents combine eyewitness accounts, weekly and monthly summaries, annual reviews, reports and analyses with a synthesis of newspaper articles and conference reports, economic assessments and synopses. Part of Archives Direct.

These three collections consist of the British Government's files on the countries of South Asia from shortly before Indian partition and independence up to 1980. As well as tracing the international connections between India, the Commonwealth and the wider world, this collection offers unique insights into political movements and cross-border tensions that were central to the modern state's preoccupation with stability and national unification. Part of Archives Direct.

Provides cross-searching capabilities for several Gale digital collections, including 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Library Newspapers, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003, Times Digital Archive 1785-1985, Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2006, Picture Post Historical Archive 1938-1957.

Digital library of French and francophone culture maintained by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Contains electronic texts, images, maps, animation, and sound files of French and other publications in history, literature, science, philosophy, law, economics, and political science. Almost all "classic" works of French literature are represented.

Portal to Google's massive library digitization project. Depending on copyright restrictions, you may either see full text or limited parts of books (tables of contents, book covers, sample chapters, etc.).

This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows scholars to compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections. We include letters; diaries and journals; account books; printed guidebooks; published travel writing; paintings and sketches; architectural drawings and maps.

Provides electronic access to all issues of Harper's Weekly (including all illustrations and advertisements) published between 1857 (first issue) and 1912, with the capacity to browse or search by date, by literary genre, and by a person's occupation. Provides four topical indexes: subject, illustrations, literature & publishing, and advertising.

One of the premier sources for legal and political information. Full-text law journals are a major part of the database, but HeinOnline also includes deep historical collections of U.S. federal government documents.

Contains a wide range of historical data from the earliest times to the present. Tables cover specific indicators such as employment, income, saving, poverty, construction, housing, consumer price indexes, and others.

This collection includes over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1688. HCPP delivers page images and searchable full text for each paper, along with detailed indexing. Access is available for the 18th-20th century collections.

Over 400 underground and alternative newspapers spanning the 1960s to 1980s. Includes campus zines, armed forces newsletters, feminist periodicals, and small press literary magazines.

Drawing upon the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be of great value to all those teaching or researching into the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.

Offers permanent access for researchers, historians and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. It includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages. E-book collections include Text Archive and Project Gutenberg.

Iraq 1914-1974 offers a broad range of original source material from the British Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers covering the period from the Anglo-Indian landing in Basra in 1914 through the British Mandate in Iraq of 1920-32 to the rise of Saddam Hussein in 1974. Includes major policy statements and other working documents as well as the minor documents and marginalia revealing the workings of the mandate administration, diplomacy, treaties, oil and arms dealing. Part of Archives Unbound.

The Ireland Collection, developed in cooperation with Queen's University Belfast, is an interdisciplinary collection of journals and other materials. It will contain a minimum of 75 journals, including journals with moving walls between 1 and 5 years and ceased journals from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Over 200 monographs and 2,500 manuscript pages will also be included. Complementing JSTOR's existing collections, the Ireland Collection adds titles and resources across the arts, humanities, and sciences in disciplines such as music, art, history, literature, archaeology, mathematics, and biology. The content is international in scope, while also providing a rich focus on Ireland.

Latin American Newspapers Series 1 offers unprecedented coverage of the people, issues and events that shaped this vital region between 1805 and 1922. Through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, matrimony notices and obituaries, this unique collection chronicles the evolution of Latin American culture and daily life over two centuries. Expanded and enhanced by Complements: Latin American Newspapers, Series 2 (search separately)

Complete, full-text archive of The Los Angeles Times from 1881 to 1988.

Primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction, including approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with images. Strengths are education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Complements the Making of America (Cornell) site.

This database includes over 21,000 legal treatises from the 19th and early 20th centuries on American and British law.

Collection of digital facsimile images of 61,000 works of literature on economics and business published from 1450 through 1945. Covers commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade and transport.
Includes:
Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450-1850
Part II, 1851-1914

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) is an essential resource for the study of Britain and its place in the world during the medieval and early modern period (c. 1100-1800).

Medieval Family Life contains full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts that comprise the Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor, and Armburgh family letter collections, along with full-text searchable transcripts from printed editions. Also includes family trees, chronology, a map, and a glossary.

Provides an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy. The main focus is accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. The core of the material is a magnificent collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries across Europe and dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries.

Provides links among three major Middle English electronic resources: an electronic version of the Middle English Dictionary (MED), a HyperBibliography of Middle English prose and verse (based on the MED bibliographies), and other related electronic resources including a collection of more than 50 Middle English texts.

Complete, full-text archive of the New York Times, from its first issue on September 18, 1851, through 2009. NOTE: The newspaper was titled the New York Daily Times from 1851 to 1857. In 1857, its name was changed to the New York Times.

Includes Access World News, America's Historical Imprints, Electronic Image Editions, and Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports and Index.

Indexes articles that appeared in the Niles publications: The Weekly Register, Niles' Weekly Register, and Niles' National Register. Published in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia, with national readership, the Register was an influential, widely read newsweekly. Citations are for the volume and page, which is on microfilm in Lauinger Library and digitally available via HathiTrust. If full-text is freely available (through Google Books, for example), it is linked to.

A "scholarly organization devoted to forging links between the material archive of the nineteenth century and the digital research environment of the twenty-first."

A multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the nineteenth century, NCCO is comprised of numerous collections, including a variety of material types--monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more--in one cross-searchable location. Collections now available are:

Asia and the West
British Politics and Society
British Theatre, Music and Literature: High & Popular Culture
Children's Literature and Childhood
Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture
European Literature, the Corvey Collection, 1790-1840
Maps and Travel Literature
Photography
Religion, Reform, and Society
Science, Technology, and Medicine, Parts I & II
Women and Transnational Networks

Provides cross-searching of several databases: various historical media archives (Argumenty i Fakty, Izvestiia, Krokodil, Literaturnaia Gazeta, Moscow News, Post-Perestroika Newspapers, Pravda, Societskoe Zdravookhranenie, Voennaia Mysl'); Current Digest of the [Soviet and] Post-Soviet Press; CIS & Baltic Periodicals; Russian Central Newspapers; Social Sciences & Humanities [periodicals]; individual titles (Far Eastern Affairs, International Affairs, Social Sciences, Voprosy Literatury); 2010 Presidential Election in Belarus, and Russian/NIS Newswires. Most sources are in Russian or English.

Searches opinion pieces and editorials from across the political spectrum. Full text available for America's Quarterly and Commentary only.

July 2023: Off-campus access to the OED is not working in certain browsers. More info.
The largest dictionary and the most complete historical record of the English language. Use for:
--How a word was used in a specific time period
--When a word or phrase (e.g., fagged out) was first used
--Where words come from (etymology)
--Sample quotations using a particular word

Search this website for debates, statements, bills, and questions by Members of Parliament from 1803 - present.

Search this website for debates, statements, bills, and questions by the Lords from 1803 - present.

Provides scholarly complete editions of classics (or selections from classics) in philosophy, literature, political science and economics. Examples of authors include Aristotle, Machiavelli, Shelley, Mill, Hume, Nietzsche, Bronte and Adam Smith. In English translation and/or the original language.

The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957 consists of the complete, fully searchable facsimile archive of The Picture Post, the iconic newspaper published in Britain from 1938-1957 that defined the style of photojournalism in the 20th century. The Picture Post Historical Archive provides humorous and light-hearted snapshots of daily life to the serious and history defining moments of domestic and international affairs.

Full text of the following historical African American newspapers: Chicago Defender, The Baltimore Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Los Angeles Sentinel, Atlanta Daily World, The Norfolk Journal and Guide, The Philadelphia Tribune, and Cleveland Call and Post. Click the "more" link below for direct links.

Contains nearly 2,000 slavery, anti-slavery, and Civil War pamphlets and the complete runs of eight regional newspapers covering 1840-1865. Cross-searchable with other historical newspapers and the American Periodicals Series.

ProQuest Congressional is the primary source for electronic government documents such as hearings, committee prints, CRS reports, legislative histories, the Congressional Record, federal regulations, and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Many documents are in full text and cover the years 1789 to the present; others are citations that are available in full text in print or microform in the library.

Complete historical coverage of The Atlanta Constitution, The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, The Times of India, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Click the "more" link below for direct links.

This collection includes Immigration and Naturalization Service records covering Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS’s regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.

This resource consists of personal papers of African Americans and records of civil rights organizations. Among the collections in this module are selections from the Papers of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), Mary McLeod Bethune Papers, Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Bayard Rustin Papers, Claude A. Barnett Papers (which includes papers from the Associated Negro Press), Papers of A. Philip Randolph, Records of the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), Records of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Papers of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers.

Use this article database to search for a wide range of topics from general interest and popular magazines of the past (1890-1982), such as the Saturday Evening Post and Life. For content published after 1983, use Readers' Guide Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson).

Index to the most popular general-interest magazines and journals published in the United States. For content published between 1890-1982, use the Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982.

Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery includes documents from the United States and Europe, as well as other parts of the world. In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, Slavery and Anti-Slavery contains documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm. Includes:
Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World
Part III: The Institution of Slavery
Part IV: Age of Emancipation

Electronic collection of music, songs, and aural traditions produced with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. It includes a variety of styles including folk, blues, bluegrass, old time country, American Indian, international, jazz, classical, Broadway, children's, and spoken words and sounds.

Journals, books, census reports, film booklets, and other documents covering the 18th century to the mid-20th century, principally from the Bengal region of India.

A web-based archive of archival materials and secondary research, this database presents documents that have previously only been available at the RGASPI archive in Russia. Digital versions of Yale’s Annals of Communism series supplement the RGASPI collection with additional scholarly commentary on selected documents concerning the history of Soviet and international communism from Russian state archives spanning the 75-year history of the USSR.

Online collection of eyewitness accounts from the world's oldest Holocaust museum, founded by Alfred Wiener as the 'Jewish Central Information Office' in 1939. Contains searchable personal accounts of life in Nazi Germany, along with photographs, propaganda materials such as school text books, limited circulation publications and rare serials. Part of Archives Unbound.

Searchable, electronic version of The Times, Britain's newspaper of record, essential for primary source research in British history, politics, and culture. Provides a complete full-text and full-image archive of The Times from 1785 to 1985.

This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. A wide variety of forms of travel writing are included, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource includes a slideshow with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs.

Over 53,000 video testimonies from survivors and witnesses to genocide from the USC Shoah Foundation. Principally interviews with Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, with additional testimonies of other 20th/21st century genocide attempts. Users must establish a free account for access.

O’Dell’s Annals of the New York Stage, the Oxford University Press Companion series, and Greenwood’s American Theatre Companies series are just a few of the many in-copyright sources included in the Theatre in Context Collection. Placed alongside thousands of playbills, posters, photographs, and related theatrical ephemera, users will be able to paint a more comprehensive picture of the life and evolution of dramatic works.

A collection of primary source materials drawn from more than 300 repositories. The collection includes conference proceedings, reports of international women's organizations, publications of women's non-governmental organizations, and letters, diaries, and memoirs of international women activists dating as far back as the middle nineteenth century. Covered topics include war and peace, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, women's rights and gender inequality.

Letters, diaries, and other writings providing a feminist perspective on the Ottoman Empire, French colonial Africa, U.S. administration of the Philippines and Panama Canal Zone, and other modern imperial movements. Can be cross-searched with Women and Social Movements International.

Brings together primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews, website reviews and teaching tools, all documenting the multiplicity of women's activism in public life.

UNESCO's World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

Coverage extends from the 15th to 20th century, providing information about the indigenous peoples of the region, the Conquest (la Conquista), colonial rule, religion, struggles for independence, and political, economic, and social progress and issues in newly independent nations. The archive is made up of more than 1.3 million pages of historical material across 33 archival collections from the United States and Europe. The historical collections provide original manuscripts, signed letters, expedition records, reports, maps, diaries, descriptions of voyages, ephemera, and more. Formerly known as World Scholar: Latin America and the Caribbean.