Primary Source Databases Research Guide

Digital records from the Library of Congress, free and open. Provides access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music relevant to American history. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America.

Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention

"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. DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used ..."

"The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 (EAA) presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture." --- Duke University Libraries

Google Books offers a free portal to books (and magazines). Google has now digitized over 15 million books, but only those prior to the copyright boundary of 1923 can be viewed in their entirety. Google Books provides partial views of many books published after 1923.

HathiTrust provides access to more than 14 million books. Unlike Google Books, HathiTrust provides online access to both historic and current U.S. Government Documents.

Large historic book and pamphlet portal that contains over six million works and features special collections such as Project Gutenberg, the Million Books Project, the Children's Library, American Libraries, Canadian Libraries, and the Community Books Collection.

A portal to roughly three dozen digital archives focusing on aspects of 17th & 18th century American history.

A portal to nearly one hundred digital archives focusing on 19th century American History.

A portal to over one hundred different digital archives providing primary source materials from 20th century America.

Provides access to over 100 different digital initiatives and archives and online libraries.