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American History Primary Sources: Documents & Manuscripts

Get help with American History research
54 databases

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  • Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s
    This collection covers a wide range of viewpoints on political, social, cultural, and economic issues. It sheds light on internal organization, personnel, and activities of some of the most prominent American radical groups and their movements to change American government and society. Organized alphabetically by organization. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation Library. Coverage: 1956-1971. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984
    Between the 1920s & 1980s, the Justice Department and the FBI engaged in widespread investigation of those deemed politically suspect. This collection includes source materials for the major social movements and key figures in early twentieth century black history, and provides a window into the development of America’s first systematic domestic surveillance apparatus. Source Library: Federal Bureau of Investigation Library. Coverage: 1920-1984. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Fight for Racial Justice and the Civil Rights Congress
    The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was formed in 1946 by a merger of three groups with ties to the Communist Party: the International Labor Defense, the National Negro Congress, and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. The records in this collection represent the files of the national office of the CRC, including case files, publications, correspondence, etc. Coverage: 1946-1955. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Final Accountability Rosters Of Evacuees: Japanese-American Relocation Centers (1944-1946)
    The rosters that form Final Accountability Rosters Of Japanese-American Relocation Centers, 1944-1946, provide demographic information on the “evacuees” resident at the various relocation camps. They consist of alphabetical lists of evacuees resident at the relocation centers during the period of their existence. Final Accountability Rosters Of Japanese-American Relocation Centers, 1944-1946, is part Archives Unbound- American Studies. Coverage: 1944-1946. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Frontier Life
    This multi-archive collection captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of people living at the edges of the Anglophone world from 1650-1920. Coverage: 1650-1920. artwork images primary sources primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Gale Primary Sources
    Combined interface for searching three primary-source databases simultaneously: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), The Making of the Modern World, and British Library Newspapers 1800-1900. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Greensboro Massacre, 1979: Shootout between the American Nazis and the Communist Workers Party
    On November 3, 1979, a rally of black industrial workers and Communists was planned in Greensboro, North Carolina, against the Ku Klux Klan. During the rally, a caravan of Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party drove by the area where the anti-Klan activists were congregating. The confrontation led to gunfire and the deaths of five protest marchers. This collection of documents from the FBI, local and state police, and other law enforcement agencies sheds new light on the motivations of the Communist organizers, the shootings, subsequent investigations, and efforts to heal the Greensboro community. Coverage: 1979-1981. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Homeland Security Digital Library
    A compendium of materials available for scholarly research in the area of Homeland Security. The digital library collection is focused on strategy and policy in the various subject areas of Homeland Security Research. Sources of information include governmental departments and agencies, academic institutions, think tanks, conference sites, non-governmental organizations, institutes and organizations, and other entities. Coverage: Details not available. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and Company
    Comprises more than 8,000 legal, political and diplomatic documents of the Panton, Leslie & Co. trading firm. For many years Panton, Leslie & Co. dominated trade with the Creeks and Seminoles. They eventually captured much of the trade with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and were important in the trade with the Cherokees. The partners harbored antipathy toward America and used their influence with the Indians to advance Spanish territorial claims against the U.S. and to encourage the Indians to resist white settlers and American attempts to acquire land from the tribes. Source Library: University of West Florida. Coverage: 1763-1901. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees: The West’s Response to Jewish Emigration
    The Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) was organized in London in August 1938 as a result of the Evian Conference of July 1938, which had been called by President Roosevelt to consider the problem of racial, religious, and political refugees from central Europe. Source Library: U.S. National Archives. Coverage: 1938-1947. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi
    This collection contains extensive FBI documentation on James Meredith’s battle to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and the white political and social backlash, including his correspondence with the NAACP and positive and negative letters he received from around the world during his ordeal. Source Library: Federal Bureau of Investigation Library. Coverage: 1961-1962. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Jewish Life in America, c1654-1954
    Based on a variety of original manuscript collections from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, this resource offers insights into the everyday lives of the American Jewish population over three centuries. The database includes documents and manuscripts; full-color, searchable images; interactive maps with historical census data; biographies; essays; and an interactive chronology. Materials can be organized and viewed by key themes, such as business & industry, civil rights, politics, everyday life, culture & the arts, etc. Coverage: 1654-1954. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Making of America
    19th century journals and books from the United States. Coverage: 1800-1900. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Making of the Modern World
    Digital facsimile images of primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth from the period 1450-1914. Full-text searching across works in the areas of history, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies and more. Coverage: 1450-1914. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Mountain People: Life and Culture in Appalachia
    This collection consists of the diaries, journals, and narratives of explorers, emigrants, military men, Native Americans, and travelers. In addition, there are accounts on the development of farming and mining communities, family histories, and folklore. These accounts provide information on the social, political, economic, scientific, religious and agricultural characteristics of the Appalachian region. Coverage: 1700-1950. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Personal Justice Denied: Public Hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment, 1981
    This publication consists of the testimony and documents from more than 750 witnesses: Japanese Americans and Aleuts who had lived through the events of WWII, former government officials who ran the internment program, public figures, internees, organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League, interested citizens, historians, and other professionals who had studied the subjects of the Commission’s inquiry. Many of the transcripts are personal stories of experiences of evacuees. Coverage: 1981. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Price Control in the Courts: The U.S. Emergency Court of Appeals, 1941-1961
    This collection provides a unique look into the creation and activities of the temporary Emergency Court of Appeals, established by Congress and given exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of price control regulations under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. Coverage: 1941-1961. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • ProQuest Congressional
    Provides indexing and full text of federal bills, laws, and regulations as well as information on Congress, voting records, legislative histories from 1789 to the present, and current legislative activities. Also contains the full text of the U.S. Serial Set and American State Papers from 1789-2003. Also includes indexing and full text of published and unpublished Congressional Hearings from 1829 to present. Includes the Congressional Record from 1873-present and its predecessor publications from 1789-1873. Coverage: 1789-present. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • ProQuest Executive Branch Documents
    ProQuest Executive Branch Documents contains documents produced by Federal government departments, agencies, and commissions, spanning the years from our nation’s founding through the mid-20th century. These documents touch upon all aspects of U.S. social, political, and economic life, as well as major events in U.S. history, and provide points of comparison between the U.S, and selected foreign countries. Coverage: 1789-1952. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • Records of the Persian Gulf War
    This collection contains materials related to the diplomatic and military response by the United States (as part of a multi-national force) to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Source Library: George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. Coverage: 1990-1991. primary sources documents manuscripts

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  • War Department and Indian Affairs, 1800-1824
    Until the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1824, Indian affairs were under the control of the Secretary of War. This collection includes letters to and from the War Department, including correspondence from Indian superintendents, territorial & state governors, military commanders, Indians, missionaries, and other public and private individuals. Additional attachments include vouchers, receipts, depositions, contracts, newspapers, copies of speeches, passports for travel in the Indian country, etc. Source Library: U.S. National Archives Coverage: 1800-1824. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961
    Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the segregated South to test the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia, which outlawed racial segregation in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. The Freedom Rides bolstered the credibility of the Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to violent disregard for the law in the southern United States. Source Library: Federal Bureau of Investigation Library. Coverage: 1961. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600 to 2000
    Includes primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews, Web site reviews, and teaching tools, all documenting the multiplicity of women’s activism in public life. Also includes a searchable online edition of the highly respected research tool “Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary” (5 volumes, 1971–2004), fully integrated into the broader Women & Social Movements database. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • Women and Social Movements: Development and the Global South, 1919 to 2019
    This database examines efforts to foster gender equity through expanded economic and social participation of women on a global scale. Covering a century, the database highlights and evaluates activism through individual efforts, organizational initiatives, and socio-cultural projects led by or for women in the Global South. Coverage: 1919-2019. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • World Trials Library
    The HeinOnline World Trials Library Includes more than 3,500 trials including complete sets of American State Trials, Howell’s State Trials, and the Nuremburg Trials. It contains trial transcripts, critical court documents, and trial-related resources such as monographs which analyze and debate the decisions of famous trials, as well as biographies of many of the greatest trial lawyers in history. primary sources documents manuscripts
  • World’s Fairs
    This resource digitizes primary source material from hundreds of international fairs and expositions spanning 1829-2015. Coverage: 1851-2015. artwork images primary sources primary sources documents manuscripts primary sources historical newspapers periodicals

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