Earlham Libraries Home: HIST 121: Introduction to U.S. History to 1865: 3. Primary Documents

Printed Sources

Earlham Libraries Catalog & Beyond This link opens in a new window
Find printed collections of primary documents. Try adding the word "Sources" to your search.

Primary Document Collections on the public web

Library of Congress - Digital Collections
From the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, American Memory provides access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
US National Archives
Provides access to over 1,200 digitized documents from the records of the US government. Searchable by keywords and tags.
Making of America
Contains over 3.8 million pages of original printed text from over 10,000 volumes of primary sources.
Women's Studies in Digital Archives
Identifies women's studies content available in broad digital collections of primary sources.
Documenting the American South
Primary source material "documenting the cultural history of the American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It offers diaries, autobiographies, travel accounts, titles on slavery and regional literature."
Founders Online
Correspondence and other writings of six major shapers of the United States and their associates.
American Presidency Project
Contains over 100,000 primary secondary sources regarding the presidency. Includes:
• The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913)

Historical Popular Magazines

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 1100 magazines published in the USA between 1740 and 1940 including special interest, children's, women's & general magazines, literary journals and more.
Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new window
Full text of 425 journals and magazines covering all topics dating back to the 1800s. Coverage ends at 1995.

Historic Newspaper Archives

New York Times (Historical Newspaper Archive) This link opens in a new window
access limited to Earlham students and employees

Full-text page images of the newspaper, including advertisements, editorial cartoons, etc. Coverage is from 1851 up to the past three years and includes the New York Times Book Review and Magazine
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
More than 270 African American newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
View newspaper pages from 1836-1922.
Find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Historic newspaper search hints

Because language changes, be sure to use search terms used at the time the materials were created, even if those terms are now obsolete. For example, the following historic terms will produce more results than their modern-day counterparts:

Modern Usage vs. Historic Usage comparison table
Modern Usage	Historic Usage
gas, service station	filling station
African American	Afro American, Negro
voting rights	suffrage

From:Chronicling of America-(The Library of Congress) - http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/help/

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection - AAS

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
EBSCO and the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), the premier library documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction, provide digital access to the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.