LibGuides: HUHC 012 C&E Social Sciences: Primary Source Websites

About primary source websites

Below are selected websites containing primary source material (some of these sites contain secondary source material as well). Most of the descriptions provided are taken directly from the website and are in quotes. As with any website, you should carefully evaluate the site for quality and credibility. Some of these sites provide a link describing terms of use and how to credit and/or cite materials.

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Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy (Yale University) Rich repository of digital documents relating to Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Hanover Historical Texts Collection (Hanover College) "makes available digital versions of historical texts for use in history and humanities courses."
Internet History Sourcebooks (Fordham University) Vast, well organized collection of historical texts covering world history.
United Nations Digital Library
United Nations Treaty Collection
Wilson Center Digital Archive "contains once-secret documents from governments all across the globe, uncovering new sources and providing fresh insights into the history of international relations and diplomacy. The Digital Archive is overseen by the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program and focuses on the interrelated histories of the Cold War, Korea, and Nuclear Proliferation."
World Digital Library "project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world. The WDL makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from all countries and cultures."
Yad Vashem Digital Collections "In 1993, Yad Vashem established the International Institute for Holocaust Research as an autonomous academic research unit. Since its inception the goal of the Institute has been to encourage and support worldwide scholarly research on the Holocaust and Holocaust related topics."

16th-Early 20th Century Maps of Africa (Northwestern University) "This collection features digital copies of 113 antique maps of Africa and accompanying text dating from the mid 16th century to the early 20th century."
Africana Posters (Northwestern University) "These posters represent a sampling (approximately 600) of our growing collection of over 4000 Africana posters housed at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies. The subjects covered here include politics, health, religion, liberation struggles, art exhibitions, and social issues."
Depictions of Africa in French Humour Magazines (Northwestern University) "Early European caricatures and depictions of Africa and Africans in French periodicals. Such materials should be viewed in the context of the time and place in which they were created. The images are presented as specific, original artifacts recording the attitudes, perspectives and beliefs of a different era. Related URL connects to the whole publication."
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Genocide Archive of Rwanda "digital collection of items related to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, pre-genocide history and post-genocide reconstruction processes."
Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960 (Northwestern University) "The collection depicts the breadth of African experience; documents African life; European life in Africa in all its manifestations; and the African landscape, in particular as it changed over time. Included are photographs showing the building of East Africa’s railways, the growth of its urban centers and the development of European colonial administration. There are outstanding examples of portraiture. The collection provides an unsurpassed resource for the study of the history of photography in East Africa. "
Ifeoma Onyefulu : Photographs (Northwestern University) "View images from the photographer's publication, A is for Africa (New York : Cobblehill Books, Dutton, 1993; originally published in Great Britain 1993 by Francis Lincoln Ltd., London)."
Images of Colonialism (Harvard Library) "This visual record of early European contacts with Africa and Asia is a primary visual resource for historical and socio-cultural studies. Made up largely of late-19th and early-20th century trade cards and illustrated European newspapers, this collection offers insight into European perspectives on varying aspects of colonial experience by documenting how popular perceptions of Asia and Africa were created and disseminated. The collection can also be used to draw contrasts between colonial attitudes among the French, British, German, and Dutch colonizers and the realities in the colonies."
Internet African History Sourcebook (Fordham University)
Livingstone Online (University of Nebraska, Lincoln) "digital museum and library that allows users to encounter the written, visual, and material legacies of the famous Victorian explorer David Livingstone (1813-73). The site draws on recent scholarship and international collaboration to restore one of the British Empire's most iconic figures to the many historical and cultural contexts in which he worked, traveled, and is remembered."
Vernon McKay Photographs (Northwestern University) "These images of African daily life date from the mid-20th century. Photographs come from the following countries and territories: Basutoland, Belgian Congo, Dahomey, French Equatorial Africa, French Guinea, French Togoland, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger (French), Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Ruanda-Urundi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Southwest Africa, Tanganyika, and Tunisia."
World Digital Library: Africa

African American Perspectives "gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, Emanuel Love, Lydia Maria Child, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington, among others."
Behind the Veil "A selection of 410 recorded oral history interviews chronicling African-American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s."
Black Abolitionist Archive "From the 1820s to the Civil War, African Americans assumed prominent roles in the transatlantic struggle to abolish slavery. In contrast to the popular belief that the abolitionist crusade was driven by wealthy whites, some 300 black abolitionists were regularly involved in the antislavery movement, heightening its credibility and broadening its agenda. The Black Abolitionist Digital Archive is a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files."
Black Freedom Struggle "featuring select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history"
Booker T. Washington: A Resource Guide Part of Library of Congress Digital Resources Collections.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938 "contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves."
Civil Rights Digital Library "The struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s is among the most far-reaching social movements in the nation's history, and it represents a crucial step in the evolution of American democracy. The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale." (University of Georgia)
Civil Rights History Project "On May 12, 2009, the U. S. Congress authorized a national initiative by passing The Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-19). The law directed the Library of Congress (LOC) and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to conduct a national survey of existing oral history collections with relevance to the Civil Rights movement to obtain justice, freedom and equality for African Americans and to record and make widely accessible new interviews with people who participated in the struggle. The project was initiated in 2010 with the survey and with interviews beginning in 2011."
Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery "Learn more about enslaved Africans and their descendants living in the Chesapeake, Carolinas, and Caribbean during the Colonial and Ante-Bellum Periods. Analyze and compare archaeological assemblages and architectural plans from different sites at unprecedented levels of detail. DAACS is a community resource, conceived and maintained in the Department of Archaeology at Monticello, in collaboration with the research institutions and archaeologists working throughout the Atlantic World."
Digital Archive: Brown v. Board of Education "This archive contains documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present. The archive is divided into four main areas of interest: Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent resegregation trends in American schools." (University of Michigan)
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Frederick Douglass Newspapers, 1847 to 1874 "presents newspapers edited by Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the African American abolitionist who escaped slavery and became one of the most famous orators, authors, and journalists of the 19th century. Douglass believed in the importance of the black press and in his leadership role within it, despite the struggles of earlier black newspaper enterprises."
Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress "presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The online collection, containing approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1865. Many of Douglass’s earlier writings were destroyed when his house in Rochester, New York, burned in 1872."
Harlem Renaissance Library of Congress primary source set.
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience "n Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents more than 16,500 pages of texts, 8,300 illustrations, and more than 60 maps. The Web site is organized around thirteen defining migrations that have formed and transformed African America and the nation." Provided by the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture.
North American Slave Narratives ""North American Slave Narratives" collectsbooks and articles that document the individual and collective story ofAfrican Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth,nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all theexisting autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves publishedas broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included aremany of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significantfictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920."
Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement "The voices of the civil rights movement swelled into a wave of protest that profoundly changed America. This collection of interviews seeks to make this massive movement local and understandable by reducing it into its smallest parts—the people that participated, in small and large ways. These people were former slaves who taught their children the value of education, or high school principals who insisted on punctuality. Drawing together interviews from a variety of Southern Oral History Program collections, this cluster includes interviews with students and teachers at West Charlotte High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the successes of integration are encountering the realities of a segregated past; the difficult transition to integrated schooling for students at the all-black Lincoln High School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and the roles of black workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This collection gives voice to the voices, loud and soft, of the movement to desegregate public life in the South" (University of North Carolina)
Rosa Parks Papers "The papers of Rosa Parks (1913-2005) span the years 1866-2006, with the bulk of the material dating from 1955 to 2000. The collection, which contains approximately 7,500 items in the Manuscript Division, as well as 2,500 photographs in the Prints and Photographs Division, documents many aspects of Parks's private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. "
Slaves and the Courts, 1740 to 1860 " consists of 105 library books and manuscripts, totalling approximately 8,700 pages drawn principally from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with a few from the General Collections. The selection was guided in large part by the entries in Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases by Paul Finkelman (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985), which was based on research in the Library collections. The documents comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance."
Slave Voyages "This digital memorial raises questions about the largest slave trades in history and offers access to the documentation available to answer them. European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action."
Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories "The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond. "
Who Speaks for the Negro: An Archival Collection "In 1965, Random House published Robert Penn Warren’s book titled Who Speaks for the Negro? In preparation for writing the volume, Warren traveled throughout the United States in early 1964 and spoke with large numbers of men and women who were involved in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. He interviewed nationally-known figures as well as people working in the trenches of the movement whose names might otherwise be lost to history. In each case, he recorded their conversations on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The published volume contains sections of transcripts from these conversations as well as Warren’s reflections on the individuals he interviewed and his thoughts on the state of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement." (Vanderbilt University)

Block Prints of the Chinese Revolution (Princeton University Digital Library) "ephemeral collection of very rare 30 block prints fall into several categories: some are color prints with a minimum of text, others are black and white illustrated sheets, some of which include current news, while others have a more general content."
Chinese Pamphlets (Center for Research Libraries) "Political communication and mass education in the early period of the People's Republic of China Mass education materials published in Hong Kong and in Mainland China, particularly Shanghai, in the years 1947-1954. These cartoon books, pamphlets, postcards and magazines, on topics such as foreign threats to Chinese security, Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, industrial and agricultural production, and marriage reform, were produced by both Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Gongchantang (Communist) supporters."
Digital South Asia Library (University of Chicago) Contains maps, statistics and images.
Felice Beato Collection (Photographs) "Felice Beato was the first photographer to devote himself entirely to photographing in Asia and the Near East. He photographed in Japan, India, Athens, Constantinople, the Crimea, and Palestine. He settled in Yokohama and from 1863 to 1877 made hundreds of ethnographic portraits and genre scenes in Japan."
Freer Gallery of Art and Arhur M. Sackler Gallery Archives "The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives is a manuscript and photograph repository dedicated to furthering the study of Asian and Middle Eastern art, archaeology and culture as well as turn-of-the-century American art. Our mission is to collect, preserve, organize, describe, and make available documentary materials that support the holdings and activities of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Archives houses over one hundred and forty collections, amounting to over one thousand linear feet. We have over 2462 images online and are adding more daily."
Images of Colonialism (Harvard Library) "This visual record of early European contacts with Africa and Asia is a primary visual resource for historical and socio-cultural studies. Made up largely of late-19th and early-20th century trade cards and illustrated European newspapers, this collection offers insight into European perspectives on varying aspects of colonial experience by documenting how popular perceptions of Asia and Africa were created and disseminated. The collection can also be used to draw contrasts between colonial attitudes among the French, British, German, and Dutch colonizers and the realities in the colonies."
Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) "JACAR has built and operates an online database for releasing Asian historical records, that are historical documents of Japan concerning to the modern Japanese relations with other countries, particularly those in Asia. The documents of the archive are provided by the National Archives of Japan, the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and the National Institute for Defense Studies of the Ministry of Defense of Japan. "
Japanese and Chinese Prints and Drawings (Princeton University Digital Library)) "This group of Japanese and Chinese prints and drawings was donated by Gillett G. Griffin, curator emeritus of graphic arts, in honor of Dale Roylance. It represents a small portion of the Far Eastern works on paper held by the graphic arts division. Also included are several sketchbooks, which were collected together with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings."
Modern Korean History Portal Wilson Center Digital Archive
Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts "premier collection of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and other Islamic manuscripts in the Western Hemisphere."
Sino-Soviet Relations Wilson Center Digital Archive
South Asia Open Archives "South Asia Open Archives is a free open-access resource for research and teaching - a rich and growing curated collection of key historical and contemporary sources in arts, humanities and social sciences, from and about South Asia, in English and other languages of the region. SAOA's collection currently contains hundreds of thousands of pages of books, journals, newspapers, census data, magazines, and documents, with particular focus on social & economic history, literature, women & gender, and caste & social structure."
Southeast Asia Visions (Cornell University Library) "Southeast Asia Visions is a collection of European travel accounts of pre-modern Southeast Asia from Cornell University Library's John M. Echols Collection. The site provides online access to more than 350 books written in English and French."
Rob Linrothe Image Collection (Northwestern University) "Rob Linrothe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University. Here he shares his images of Tibetan, Chinese, and Indian monuments, field photography, and architecture. The collection has a strong focus on Tibetan sites, particularly petroglyphs, stupas, and monasteries in the Ladakh and Zangskar regions. Linrothe has also photographed the architecture and sculpture of monuments such as Borobudur in Indonesia and Sanchi in India. Rob Linrothe specializes in Buddhist art of the Himalayas. His recent fieldwork has focused on pre-modern mural painting in the Ladakh and Zangskar regions of Western Tibet (northwest India), as well as the contemporary revival of monastic painting in the Amdo province of Eastern Tibet (China)."

19th Century Social History Pamphlet Collection "Collection of pamphlets relating to 19th century Irish social history, particularly the themes of education, health, famine, poverty, business and communications."
Archive of European Integration "electronic repository and archive for research materials on the topic of European integration and unification. Its focus is the post-War development, activities, and foreign relations of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the European Economic Community (EEC), the European Community (EC), and the European Union (EU).The AEI collects certain types of independently-produced research materials and official European Community/European Union documents."
British History Online "founded by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust in 2003. Our collection currently contains over 1,270 volumes and is always growing. To 31 July 2020 we're making all transcribed BHO content freely available for individual users. This adds 200 volumes of primary materials. As a result, BHO's full complement of 1280 volumes is now available for research."
British WWI Trench Maps "Maps of the Western Front in the Great War depicting British and German trenches." National Library of Scotland.
Digital Repository of Ireland "view historical and contemporary content from across institutions, domains, and formats. From the same search window, you can browse artworks and hear fascinating life histories, read cherished old letters and listen to music and archived broadcasts, or dig through business records and ephemera. There are sound files, sharp and luscious photographs, videos, historical documents, high quality images, publications, and more."
Digital Scriptorium "consortium of American institutions with collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts."
Digital Vatican Library "provides free access to the Vatican Library’s digitized collections: manuscripts, incunabula, archival materials and inventories as well as graphic materials, coins and medals, printed materials (special projects)."
EuroDocs "European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation.The sources cover a broad range of historical happenings (political, economic, social and cultural). The order of documents is chronological wherever possible."
Europeana "provides access to millions of books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for."
France Angleterre "800 medieval manuscripts of France and England"
French Revolution Digital Archive (Stanford University) "multi-year collaboration of the Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) to produce a digital version of the key research sources of the French Revolution and make them available to the international scholarly community. The archive is based around two main resources, the Archives parlementaires and a vast corpus of images first brought together in 1989 and known as the Images de la Revolution française."
German History in Documents and Images "comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. It comprises original German texts, all of which are accompanied by new English translations, and a wide range of visual imagery."
La Caricature (1830-1835; Charles Philipon, founding editor) (Northwestern University) "La Caricature was a satirical weekly published French periodical that was distributed in Paris between 1830 and 1843 during the July Monarchy. This collection contains works from when Charles Philipon (1800–61) was director and main author. The complete volumes of La Caricature can be found in HathiTrust Digital Library. These are individual plates only. Related URL connects to the complete volume."
La Caricature (1880-1893, 1899; Albert Robida, founding editor) (Northwestern University) "La Caricature was a satirical weekly published French periodical that was distributed in Paris between 1830 and 1843 during the July Monarchy. This collection contains works from when Auguste Audibert was editor. The complete volumes of La Caricature can be found in HathiTrust Digital Library. These are individual plates only. Related URL connects to the complete volume. "
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (University of Vermont) "contains images of 21 unbound manuscript items and 10 bound manuscript items from the Silver Special Collections Library of the University of Vermont."
Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871 (Northwestern University) "Charles Deering McCormick of Special Collections contains a collection of about 8,000 items relating to the Siege and Commune of Paris of 1870-1871. This collection is the largest held on this subject in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. This diverse and visually exciting array includes original photographs, caricatures, posters, etchings, lithographs, books, newspapers, manuscripts and realia created during and in reaction to l'année terrible: the epoch-changing year that witnessed France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the downfall of the Second Empire, the hardship and suffering of the four-month siege of Paris, and the bloody civil war that snuffed out the Commune uprising. "
Une cité moderne : dessins, by Rob Mallet-Stevens "Images from the publication : Une cité moderne : dessins / de Rob Mallet-Stevens ; preface de Frantz Jourdain. Author: Mallet-Stevens, Robert, 1886-1945."

Alfredo Montalvo Bolivian Digital Pamphlets Collection (Cornell University)
Archive of Spanish Literature on Tape (Library of Congress) "dates back to 1943. It contains nearly seven-hundred recordings of poets and prose writers participating in sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory and at other locations around Spain and Latin America. To date, writers from thirty-two countries are represented in this collection which includes readings in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Náhuatl, Zapotec, Aymara, English and Dutch. "
Brazilian Government Documents (Center for Research Libraries) "Latin American Materials Project (LAMP) at the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) has digitized executive branch serial documents issued by Brazil’s national government between 1821 and 1993, and by its provincial governments from the earliest available for each province to the end of the first Republic in 1930."
Castro Speech Database (Latin Aermican Network Information Center) University of Texas
Central American Broadsides (University of Kansas) "features broadsides from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library's William J. Griffith Collection of Guatemala and Central America. Dating from the 1820s to 1922, the broadsides are primarily Guatemalan, with a smaller number from Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Many pertain to national and local politics and include election materials, political manifestos, and government pronouncements."
Digital Collection of Mexican and Argentine Presidential Messages From the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (University of Texas).
Digital Library of the Caribbean "provide access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections."
Early Images of Latin America (Tulane University) "provides over 1,800 images from the Latin American Library’s Image Archive documenting people, places, landscapes, urban and rural scenes in various countries of the region from the mid-19th century to c. 1910. Images come from an array of sources, such as promotional albums compiled as travel souvenirs for tourists, studio portraits, personal photographic albums, glass lantern slides and stereoscopic images, as well as images captured by professional and amateur photographers. The geographic scope of the collection includes Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay, with particular focus on the cities of Buenos Aires, Havana, Lima, Mexico City, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, San José de Costa Rica, and Tegucigalpa."
Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC): Digital Initiatives "LANIC hosts an extensive set of digital collections covering many different topics and content areas." (University of Texas)
Latin American Posters Collection (Princeton University) "posters included in this collection were created by a wide variety of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, and other types of organizations across Latin America, in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and services."
The Luso-Hispanic New World in Early Prints and Photographs From the New York Public Library Digital Collections
Mesoamerican Manuscripts (Princeton University) "A miscellany of items digitized from Princeton University Library's three collections of Mesoamerican manuscripts: Garrett-Gates Mesoamerican Manuscripts Collection (C0744), Garrett Collection of Mesoamerican Manuscripts (C0744), and Princeton Collection of Mesoamerican Manuscripts (C0940). The Garrett-Gates and Garrett collections form part of the larger Robert Garrett Collection (C0744)."
Panama and the Canal "Panama and the Canal is a joint project from the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries and the Panama Canal Museum. Panama and the Canal builds from the former Panama Canal Museum's rich collection of Panama and Canal Zone materials and the extensive holdings on Panama and the whole of Latin America from the George A. Smathers Libraries' Latin American & Caribbean Collection, Government Documents Collection, and Map & Imagery Library. "

Bin Laden's Bookshelf (U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence) "In the weeks following the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by United States forces, U.S. Intelligence Community analysts sifted through the recovered digital and hard copy materials in search of clues that would reveal ongoing al-Qa`ida plots, identities and locations of al-Qa`ida personnel, and other information of immediate importance. Following a rigorous interagency review, on May 20, 2015 the ODNI began a multi-stage public release of documents recovered from the compound used to hide Osama bin Laden."
Digital Library of the Middle East "offers free and open access to the rich cultural legacy of the Middle East and North Africa by bringing together collections from a wide range of cultural heritage institutions. Developed by an engineering team from CLIR and Stanford Libraries, the platform federates and makes accessible data about collections from around the world."
Filaha Texts Project "written works collectively known as the Kutub al-Filāḥa or ‘Books of Husbandry’ compiled by Arab, especially Andalusi, agronomists mainly between the 10th and 14th centuries."
Hamid Naficy Iranian Movie Posters Collection (Northwestern University) "The Hamid Naficy Iranian Movie Posters Collection contains 249 posters, which have been digitized and cataloged individually. These posters document the social history of film in Iran and offer a unique visual representation of the political and social climate there between 1966 and 2014."
Internet Islamic History Sourcebook (Fordham University)
Islamic Heritage Project (Harvard University) "digital collection of Islamic manuscripts, published texts, and maps from across Harvard's libraries and museums. "
J. Williard Marriott Digital Library Middle East Collections (University of Utah) "include manuscripts in Arabic, Coptic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish dating from as early as 800CE/183AH, and more than 3,000 printed books from and about the Middle East."
Middle East 1916-2001 : A Documentary Record (Yale University) Part of the Yale University Avalon Project.
Middle East in Early Prints and Photographs (NYPL) "classics of illustrated travel and regional archaeology, as well as the Library's earliest works of photography in the Middle East region"
National Security Archive (George Washington University) This page provides access to early cold war documents relating to U.S. propaganda activities in the Middle East.
Princeton Digital Library of Islamic Manuscripts
Saddam Hussein's Iraq (Wilson Center) "contains a wide range of Iraqi government files including transcripts of high-level meetings, speeches by Saddam and senior officials, correspondence between ministries, and records of the Presidential Diwan."
Saddam Hussein Sourcebook-National Security Archive (George Washington University) "Declassified Secrets from the U.S.-Iraq Relationship"
Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran (Harvard University) "Explore the lives of women during the Qajar era (1796-1925) through a wide array of materials from private family holdings and participating institutions. Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran provides bilingual access to thousands of personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, publications, everyday objects, works of art and audio materials, making it a unique online resource for social and cultural histories of the Qajar world."

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History Please note: last update is 2010 and contains some non-working links; however, the site still provides access to many primary source documents
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy (Yale University) Rich repository of digital documents relating to Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Has particularly good collection of documents relating to U.S.
Canadiana Online "dedicated to the preservation and access of Canada’s documentary heritage since 1978." The site is organized into three broad searchable categories; monographs, serial publications and government publications. Please note that some items may require a paid subscription.
Canadian Pamphlets and Broadsides (University of Toronto Libraries) "provides access to the pre-1930 Canadian pamphlet and broadside holdings of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library by supplying both page images in full colour, and full searchability of the contents of each item. To date the site consists of 597 broadsides (single sheets, printed on one or both sides) and 2,062 pamphlet titles which amounts to 71,508 page images. The collection includes items printed in Canada, by Canadian authors, or about Canadian subjects, mainly of a non-literary nature."
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers "access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages."
Digital History (University of Houston) Collection of digital materials organized by topic.
Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina) "provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs. "
FBI Records: The Vault Searchable, digitized FBI files covering a range of topics.
History Matters: Many Pasts "contains primary documents in text, image, and audio about the experiences of ordinary Americans throughout U.S. history. All of the documents have been screened by professional historians and are accompanied by annotations that address their larger historical significance and context." Center for New Media, George Mason University and the American Social History Project, Graduate Center, CUNY
Japanese American National Museum Provides a link to archive of internees
Library of Congress: Primary Source Sets collections of digitized primary materials from the Library of Congress collections.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Long Island Postcard Collection (Hofstra University) "The collection, which ranges from c.1890s-present, includes canceled and unmarked postcards that cover a variety of subjects, including advertising, historic buildings, scenic views, and popular tourism destinations. Among the types of postcards represented in the collection are undivided and divided back, white border, linen, real photo, photochrom, and large letter postcards. While the majority of the postcards feature views from either Nassau or Suffolk Counties, there are also a number of cards depicting images of Brooklyn and Queens."
Lyndon B. Johnson Film Collection (Hofstra University) "This collection contains 73 films documenting the political activities of Lyndon B. Johnson starting in 1958 (when he was still majority leader of the Senate) and ending in the culmination of his Presidency in 1969. They include his duties as Vice President to John F. Kennedy during 1963, the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination, Johnson’s inauguration in 1963, and his second term following the election of 1964. The majority of the films include footage of Johnson’s Presidency between 1963- 1969 as captured by the White House Naval Photographic Unit. The films are produced in the fashion of monthly reports on both President Johnson and his family and chronicles life around the White House as well as both personal and presidential travels."
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"ilms are available to the public for research at Hofstra, following the rules of the Special Collections Room. We welcome you to visit the library and view this unique window into understanding the personality and leadership style of President Lyndon B. Johnson."
National Archives: Finding Primary Sources serves as a guide to locating primary sources in the National Archives; geared to both teachers and students.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Our Documents (National Archives) "list of 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings. The documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965."
Smithsonian Digital Catalog "online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major collections from our museums, archives, libraries, and research units. There are 13.5 million catalog records relating to areas for Art & Design, History & Culture, and Science & Technology with over 3.1 million images, videos, audio files, podcasts, blog posts and electronic journals."
World War II Poster Collection (Northwestern University) "View more than 300 World War II-era posters issued by various U.S. government agencies. They represent the government's effort, through art, illustration and photographs, to unite the American people in a time of adversity."
WPA Digital Collection, 1935-1943 (Northwestern University) "Images taken from: Narrative report, July 1935 to April 1936. Illinois: Works Progress Administration, Illinois, Women and Professional Division, 1936."

CQ Historic Documents This link opens in a new window Hofstra University network account required to access this database