Databases of Primary Sources via TXST Website
The lists below provide links to several key databases from the university libraries as well as sources available on the internet.
University Libraries has many databases containing primary sources for historical research. Those dealing with Early American history are on this page. Our collection of Primary Sources (Historical) databases may be a helpful place to start.
Library Databases
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17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
The largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English newspapers and pamphlets. Content is mainly from London, however there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers.
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19th Century US Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full page views and text searching of numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S., with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life.
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American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new windowEarly american magazines and journals including Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, Vanity Fair and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's. 1740-1940.
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British Periodicals I This link opens in a new windowPopular magazines and journals of the period that were highly influential in their mix of news/politics, miscellany, art, photography, literature and comedy/satire. 1681-1908.
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Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 and Caribbean History & Culture, 1535-1920 This link opens in a new window
Contains virtually every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in the American colonies or the United States between 1639 and 1920.
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Early American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Select historical newspapers. 1690-1876. Caribbean and Hispanic Newspaper Collections are selected by default. Use the database filters to remove if desired. Use Browse Publications to limit to particular states, newspapers or date ranges.
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Contains every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. 1700-1799
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European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
An index to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. 1493-1750
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Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920 This link opens in a new window
Historical material revealing early American home life from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, Duke University and the New York Public Library.
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Founders Online This link opens in a new window
Correspondence between America's founding fathers debating the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. View the complete list of titles.
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Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowVariety of primary sources from the 15th to the 21st centuries. Includes 19th Century UK Periodicals; 19th Century US Newspapers; Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO); The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths-Kress Library of Economic Literature, 1450-1850; 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers; Archives Unbound; Times Digital Archive; Illustrated London News Historical Archive; Sunday Times Digital Archive; American Civil Liberties Union Papers, 1912-1990; Archives of Sexuality & Gender; Archives Unbound; Associated Press Collections; British Library Newspapers; Sabin Americana, 1500-2013; Religions of America.
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HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
A digital collective of books and journals from numerous academic and research libraries around the world.
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Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window
Hundreds of Hispanic American newspapers, including many long scattered and forgotten titles published in the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new windowInternational, scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences disciplines. 1802-2002
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Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new windowPrimary and secondary source material critical to the understanding of the society, politics, religious beliefs, literature, customs and momentous events of the from the discovery of the Americas to the early 1900s. 1500-1926.
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Legislative & Executive Reports This link opens in a new windowReports, documents, and maps either produced or ordered by Congress, as well as presidential communications and treaty materials. 1789 to present.
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Sources in U.S. History: The American Revolution This link opens in a new window
Documents the revolution and war that created the United States of America from a variety of primary and secondary sources, ranging from personal narratives to popular magazines. 1765-1783
Other Online Sources
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Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr Jr.The Massachusetts Historical Society presents the complete four volume set of Revolutionary-era Boston newspapers and pamphlets collected, annotated, and indexed by Harbottle Dorr, Jr., a shopkeeper in Boston.
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BalladsAmerican Antiquarian Society collection of late 18th to early 19th century ballads published by Boston newspaper editor Isaiah Thomas.
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Foner Underground Railroad Journals: Sydney Howard Gay’s “Record of Fugitives”The Record of Fugitives in its entirety consists of two notebooks and several pages of addenda.
These materials are presented on this website in three different view formats. Using the navigational options to the left, researchers can examine individual pages of the record, with each image accompanied by its transcribed text. To read the record in this way, click on "Book 1" to get started. It is also possible to view and download the entire document in either an image (facsimile) or textual (transcription) version. -
New Netherland ArchivesThe New Netherland Research Center is making available digitized versions of translations and transcriptions of documents relating to New Netherland. Written in an archaic hand, these seventeenth-century documents were damaged by fire and water, but they are our best source of knowledge about the former Dutch colony. Available on this website are government records held by the New York State Archives, private and corporate papers from the collections of the New York State Library, and selected documents from other repositories. Scanned originals of many of these documents are available on the websites of the New York State Archives and New York State Library.
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Records of the American ColoniesSpecialized collection within Hathi Trust
Records of the American Colonies Published documents--legislation, court proceedings, records, correspondence, etc.--from the 13 original colonies and their predecessors.
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Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive & Transcription ProjectThe Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project consists of an electronic collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692 and a new transcription of the court records.
From University of Virginia -
Slave VoyagesThe Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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Worlds of Change (Harvard Library Digital Collections)Worlds of Change, a collection of more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America. This material was digitized as part of a multi-year project, formerly known as Colonial North America at Harvard Library.