Primary source databases

Age of Exploration provided digitized primary sources from the earliest voyages of Vasco de Gama, through the spice trade, colonization of the Americas and Australasia, the search for the Northwest and Northeast passages, and the race for the poles. Content includes manuscripts and early printed materials, maps, diaries, ships' logs, speeches, films, correspondence, and biographies.

A digital collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America from 1639 to 1819, it includes Early American Imprints Series I: Evans (1639–1800) and Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801–1819), based on the bibliographies by Evans, Bristol, Shaw, and Shoemaker. Scanned pages are available in JPEG, TIFF, and PDF formats.

American History, 1493-1945 provided digitized primary sources from the earliest settlers to the end of World War II. Content includes correspondence, diaries, government documents, business records, books, pamphlets, newspapers, broadsides, photographs, artwork and maps, and manuscripts.

American Journeys indexes the full text of more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later. Read the words of explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers as they lived through the founding moments of American history. Includes more than 150 rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives. 1000s-1840s.

Ancestry Library Edition provides access to genealogical records from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other regions. The resource includes more than 4,000 databases and 1.5 billion names, featuring U.S. federal census images and indexes from 1790 to 1940, historical maps, and collections such as the American Genealogical Biographical Index, Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620–1630, Social Security Death Index, WWI Draft Registration Cards, Federal Slave Narratives, and Civil War records. Additional materials include vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court documents, directories, photos, and maps.

The Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides primary sources on social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ communities around the world. Includes LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 and Sex and Sexuality: 16th to 20th Century.

Colonial America provides digitized primary sources from the British National Archives' Colonial Office files and related documents. Content includes manuscripts, correspondence, military records, charters, government records, legal cases, trade accounting, and maps. 1606-1822.

Confidential Print: Africa provides digitized primary sources from the British National Archives collections of confidential correspondence from colonial, Dominion, and Foreign Offices relating to Africa. Content includes reports, descriptions of leading personalities, political summaries, economic analyses, maps, and dispatches and letters.

Confidential Print: Middle East provides digitized primary sources from the British National Archives collections of confidential correspondence from the Middle East, Turkey, and the former Ottoman Empire. Content includes reports, descriptions of leading personalities, political summaries, economic analyses, maps, and dispatches and letters.

A digital publishing initiative that provides online access to primary sources related to southern history, literature, and culture. The collection includes texts, images, and audio files drawn primarily from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill libraries. Materials originate from collections such as the Southern Historical Collection, the North Carolina Collection, the Rare Book Collection, and Davis Library. DocSouth currently offers fourteen thematic collections containing books, diaries, letters, maps, posters, artifacts, literary works, oral history interviews, and songs. Coverage spans from the 1500s to the present.

East India Company provides digitized primary sources related to the company and its broad powers and privileges. Contents include charters, treaties, statutes, meeting minutes, correspondence, personnel lists, factory and trading post records, military documents, account books and ledgers, and diaries. 1600-1947.

Frontier Life provides digitized primary source documents that arose from European movements to Africa, Australasia, and North America. Topics covered include agriculture and business; family life and religion; indigenous peoples and the natural world; government, politics, law, and the military; health, medicine, technology, and industry; and exploration and travel. 1600s-1800s.

Provides searchable access to full-page images and text of Harper’s Weekly, a major illustrated newspaper chronicling events of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Content includes news, editorials, illustrations, and literary works, with features such as a Thesaurus-based index and full-text search. Coverage spans 1857–1877.

The Library of Congress provides digitized American historical materials organized into more than 100 thematic collections. Original formats include manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music. Each collection includes explanatory features to help users find and understand the materials. Collections can be browsed individually, searched individually (with full-text searching available for many written items), or searched across multiple collections. Coverage spans from the 1400s to the present.

Making of America is a digital collection of primary sources documenting American social history from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. Originally developed by Cornell University and the University of Michigan, the collection includes digitized books and journals from the 19th century, with scanned page images and full-text search capability. Cornell’s contribution, now hosted on HathiTrust, contains 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles. Subjects include education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Coverage primarily spans the mid-19th century.

Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. The University of Michigan collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Content is available in text, GIF, and PDF formats. Coverage spans approximately 1840–1900.

The Making of the Modern World is a Gale Primary Sources collection that documents the history of Western trade, industrialization, and the development of capitalism from 1450 to 1945. It includes millions of pages of primary source materials such as books, pamphlets, and correspondence. Subjects covered include economics, political science, and social history. The collection provides resources on topics such as the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, labor movements, and major 20th-century events including the World Wars.

Migration to New Worlds provides primary documents on the movement of peoples from Europe and Asia to the Americas and Australasia, primarily covering the 1800s to 1924. Content includes newspapers and magazines, correspondence and personal accounts; shipping papers and ship plans; photos, postcards, and posters; financial reports and legal papers; manuscripts; and maps.

NCCO indexes the full text of books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, maps, diaries, photographs, statistics, literature, government reports, treaties, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages as HTML and PDF, plus some image formats. Subject areas include British politics and society, religion, education, international relations, economics, and English, French, and German literature. 1789-1914.

Popular Medicine in America provides digitized primary sources on remedies and treatments in the 19th century, including phrenology, herbal medicine, and hydrotherapy in books, pamphlets, posters, and advertising.

Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions provides digitized correspondence of the Poor Law Commission, Poor Law Board and Local Government Board on life and conditions in work houses and and the administration of the new poor relief system. Topics covered include sanitation, housing, charities, education, race, immigration, political movements, and trade. 1800s-early 1900s.

Archival Resources of the Virginias (ARVAS) indexes finding aids (collection descriptions) to manuscripts and archival materials held by more than 50 historical societies, libraries, museums, colleges, universities, and other cultural heritage institutions across Virginia and West Virginia. This includes finding aids for manuscript collections, record group (university records), maps, textiles, oral histories, and art and artifacts held by Special Collections and University Archives at Virginia Tech. Finding aids from VT and other institutions may link to digitized versions of these materials, but the majority of these collections have not yet been digitized. Finding aids represent materials dating from the BC era to the present, but primarily include collections from the 1600s onward.