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American History

Finding Primary Sources

For detailed information on finding primary sources in the humanities and social sciences go to the Primary Sources guide.

  • General Collections
  • Images
  • News and Magazines
  • Government Documents
  • Digital Book Collections
  • Letters and Diaries
  • Other Collections of Note

General Collections

 
 
Library of Congress: Digital Collections
Collections chronicling historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America plus American Memory: Remaining Collections.                   
 
 
Atlanta Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Defender, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
 

Government Documents

 
African American Perspectives
This collection 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.
 
 
 
 
A collection of primary source documents, videos and other information pertaining to the life on various frontiers that arose from the movements of Europeans to Africa, Australasia and North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Also check out the following subject guides for additional primary resources:

SUNY Potsdam Libraries: History U.S.

University of Washington Libraries: American History

 

An American Civil War recruitment poster for the Lilly Hoosier Battery, posted by Colonel Eli Lilly in 1862.

World War I poster by American painter Kenyon Cox (1856-1919). "The sword is drawn, the Navy upholds it!"

Japanese Americans in front of poster with internment orders, War Relocation Authority.

"I Want You for the U.S. Army" by James Montgomery Flagg '(1917). Lithograph, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.