Primary Sources - by Subject

The most comprehensive online resource for congressional publications and legislative research, dating back to the 1800s.

Public radio and TV broadcasting from the past 60 years. A collaboration of the Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston.

The documents tab on the American History website includes documents originating beyond the borders and before the establishment of the United States, but all are related to the history of the country and are very interesting. The site also includes other tabs with a wealth of information and it is worth a visit.

Historical, cultural, artistic, and scientific works from the collections of U.S. libraries, archives, and museums

Select digizied content from the Evans collection. The Evans collection (1639-1800) includes an extensive number of books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in early America.

Official record of major US foreign policy decisions that have been declassified. Produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian. Search within the volumes or by administration.

Extensive collections of U.S. historical documents

Search over 10 million records of museum objects, archives, and library materials including more than 1.7 million online media files. (source: website).

This strong collection of general Americana from the Newberry Library (Chicago, IL) is known to be one of the strongest collections for American Indian and Indigenous studies.

Texts written in or about the Americas from 1492 to 1820

Photographs and information on over soldiers and battles, regimental rosters, officer profiles

Civil War era newspapers, pamphlets, and other primary source material

The documents tab on the American History website includes documents originating beyond the borders and before the establishment of the United States, but all are related to the history of the country and are very interesting. The site also includes other tabs with a wealth of information and it is worth a visit.

Conflict between abolition and slavery marked the 1850s, preceding the election of 1860 and the attack on Fort Sumter. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, and secession in maps, newspapers, political cartoons and song sheets. Part of the Library of Congress Primary Source Sets.

Archival and manuscript materials related to 17th- and 18th-century North America from Harvard Library

Print memorabilia about the United States from 1830 to 1880

Primary sources from two communities in the American Civil War

Rowan users only

Rowan users only

Rowan users only

Includes WWI letters, postcards, film, and more. Initiative of the European Union.

Primary source materials organized by topic

Rowan users only

Library of Congress

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 162

Southern Methodist University Libraries

Pamphlets, government reports, speeches, propaganda, and more from the Government Printing Office

UC-Berkeley, Bancroft Library

Washington State University

National Archives (U.S.)

UNC Greensboro

Collection of correspondences. Project from McMaster University.

The Avalon Project is provided by Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School. This collection contains law, history, and diplomacy documents pertaining to the Cold War.

Declassified historically significant documents from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Declassified materials from the Central Intelligence Agency

Not every link takes you to a primary source but many do. The site is maintained on a server at Mt. Holyoke College.

Historical materials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Oral histories from people affected by the Nevada Test Site during the Cold War

Hundreds of interviews from the PBS series of the same name

Cold War-related collections in the Wilson Center Digital Archive. Collections are organized to present the Cold War era through a variety of aspects, which is helpful as you attempt to deal with the very disparate subjects and issues that were part of the era.

Rowan users only

US Department of Defense records on military involvement in Vietnam from 1945-67

Rowan users only

The newspaper of the Black Panther Party. Twenty issues of the Black Panther Party newspaper from between 1968-1973. The papers are posted on Libcom.org.

Exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the history that led up to it, and its immediate impact.

Select a topic to see archival collections and reference resources, many of which are available online.

Oral interviews and collections of people who participated in the Civil Rights movement.

FBI records included in the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Library.

Manuscript collections documents the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964

Documents from this commission, which have been at the forefront of federal and state efforts for civil rights.

Set of primary sources that reflects popular views of and causes and affects of racial segregation.

The Krueger-Scott oral histories is the largest collection of oral history interviews conducted with African-American residents of Newark who came to the city during the Great Migration, as well as those whose local roots stretch back generations. The faculty, staff and graduate students at Rutgers University-Newark who have worked on the collection in collaboration with local cultural institutions are proud to have helped preserve, archive, and make public these remarkable oral narratives that describe an as yet unwritten history of 20th-century African-American life. (source: website)

From the University of Arkansas

The story of America's oldest and largest civil rights organization, told through letters, photographs, maps, and more. Part of the Library of Congress Primary Source sets.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.

Exhibition that includes personal accounts and oral hstories. A collaboration of AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the Library of Congress.

Content covering topics including civil rights, health, education, professional development, and entrepreneurship.

Books, pamphlets, and periodical related to the women's rights movement and the evolution of feminism. From the archives of Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen.

Includes the Margaret Sanger Papers; Struggle for Women's Rights, 1880-1990; Women at Work During WWII; and Women's Studies Manuscript Collection from the Schlesinger Library: Voting Rights, National Politics and Reproductive Rights

"Books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day."

Focused on "bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront." "Documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia."

Women activists' writings, including personal letters and diaries, and conference proceedings at which key decisions were made

Teaching-centered document projects, as well as primary source collections. Content curators also run an online journal, with new issues each fall and spring and featuring new document projects, book reviews, and more.

Organized by time periods and topics

Primary sources and teaching activities

Primary Sources in Teacher's Guide