Primary Sources

American History

American Memory (from the Library of Congress) is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States.

American Periodical Series

Over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals.

America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1819

Early American Newspapers including titles from all 50 states.

Archive of Americana

This family of historical collections contains books, broadsides, ephemera, government documents, and newspapers printed in America over three centuries.

Black Thought and Culture

This resource provides access to the published works of numerous historically important black leaders. Along with well-known works, the collection features approximately 5,000 pages of unique, fugitive, and never-before-published materials. Subjects indexed include colonialism, socialism, Marxism, democracy, capitalism, the Labor movement, segregation, poverty, education, religion, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, the New Deal, the World Wars, the Black Liberation movement, the South, the Scottsboro and Herndon trials, black nationalism, miscegenation, the black athlete, civil rights, apartheid, the Black Panther party, the Negritude movement, the NAACP, birth control, the vote, urban ghettoes vs. the rural South, strategies of protest and demonstration, and hundreds more.

CQ Public Affairs Collection

Provides in-depth reports on vital issues, statistical and historical analyses, historic documents and primary source materials, as well as a directory of key government, non-profit, and private organizations in each of the major policy areas. Organized by 22 key public affairs subject headings, such as Advocacy and Public Service, Education, Energy, the Environment, Health, and Transportation.

Daily Defender

Full text of this influential Black newspaper from 1956 - 1975.

Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes ten thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs. The University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sponsors Documenting the American South, and the texts and materials come primarily from its southern holdings.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Online access to the digital images of books published between 1701 and 1800. This collection includes ancient and contemporary history, accounts of voyages and discoveries, historical biographies and memoirs, genealogical collections, gazetteers, works on church antiquities and tourist guides of Britain. Topics include chronologies, recreation (travel, sports, parlor games), military history, maps, local history, and topography.

Evans Digital Edition (1639-1800)

Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans. The definitive resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th- century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable.

FBI's Freedom of Information Act Reading Room

The FBI Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Reading Room is located within the J. Edgar Hoover Building at FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Thousands of pages of frequently requested FBI documents that have been released under the provisions of the FOIA are stored in the Reading Room.

Florida Memory Project

"The Florida Memory Project presents a selection of historical records that illustrate significant moments in Florida history, educational resources for students of all ages and archival collections for historical research. The Project utilizes selected original records, photographs and other materials from the collections of the State Library and Archives of Florida."

Gilded Age

The Gilded Age brings primary documents and scholarly commentary together into a searchable collection that is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history.

HarpWeek

Civil War and Reconstruction content from Harper's Weekly, 1857-1877, with index.

Historical Atlanta Daily

This database offers full-page images and article images from the Atlanta Daily from 1932 up until 2003.

Historical Chicago Defender

Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Defender in May 1905 and by the outbreak of the First World War it had become the most widely-read black newspaper in the country, with more than two thirds of its readership based outside Chicago. When Abbott died in 1940, his nephew John Sengstacke became editor and publisher of the Defender, which began publishing on a daily basis in 1956.

Historical Los Angeles Sentinel

Database includes full-page-images and article images from 1946 - 2005.

Historical Los Angeles Times

Database offers full-page images and article images from the Los Angeles Daily Times (1881-1886) and the Los Angeles Times (1886-1984). The collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue in PDF format.

Historical New York Amsterdam News

The Amsterdam News was founded as a six-page weekly covering local news by James Henry Anderson in 1909. Under the ownership of C. B. Powell and Philip M. H. Savory from 1938, it became the largest black community weekly in the United States. Contributors to the newspaper have included W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins and Malcolm X.

Historical New York Times

This database offers full-page-images and article images from the New York times from its first issue in 1851 to three years before the current date. The collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. The database is an ongoing project.

Historical Pittsburgh Courier

This database provides full articles from the Pittsburgh Courier dating from 1911 to 2002.

Historical Wall Street Journal

The paper is considered the preeminent publication for business news and information on financial markets worldwide. Each issue of every newspaper is indexed thoroughly, so researchers can access not only top news stories but also detailed information from all the paper's sections. For each article cited in the database, an abstract of up to 75 words helps the researcher know if the complete text will meet his or her needs. This resource offers the complete pages images from the entire run of the paper, dating back to the first 1889 issue.

History Resource Center: U.S.

Contains a vast collection of primary sources, magazine and newspaper articles, and reference works covering U.S. history.

In the First Person: An index to letters, diaries, oral histories, and other personal narratives

In the First Person is a new library index that lets users perform in-depth field and keyword searches across all letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, and autobiographies within scholarly materials that are freely available on the Web and Alexander Street databases. The search returns citation information and links to full text, audio, and video whenever available.

LexisNexis U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection | 1789-1969 |

This resource is an ongoing collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the directive of Congress, captures every aspect of American life from the early 19th century onward, from farming, to westward expansion, scientific exploration, politics, international relations, business, and manufacturing. It includes Congressional reports and documents as well as executive agency and departmental reports ordered to be printed by Congress. [To access this database, click on "Historical Full Text" from the menu choices.]

Making of America

MoA is "a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints."

The Nation Archive

The Nation is America's oldest weekly magazine and one if its premier journals of opinion since its inception in 1865. The Nation has long been regarded as one of the country's definitive journalistic voices of writing on politics, culture, books and the arts and continues to stand as the independent voice in American journalism. James Baldwin, Ralph Nader and Hunter Thompson published their first pieces in The Nation. Other contributors have included Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Emma Goldman and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Nation has a proud literary history as well, having published the work of W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Henry James, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann and hundreds of other major writers. This database contains indexing & abstracting and full text for the complete archive of The Nation beginning with its first issue in 1865 through to the present.

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center draws on the acclaimed social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, as well as core reference content from other Gale and Macmillan Reference USA sources to provide a complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Access viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

Original Sources

This site includes original source documents, critical selections, and acclaimed works across U.S. and World History, Literature, Social Sciences, Political Science, Law, Science, Mathematics, Religion, Philosophy, and Language. It comprises more than 350,000 documents and more than 5,000 complete books.

Periodicals Archive Online (Formerly: PCI Full Text)

Periodicals Archive Online is a major online periodical archive which makes the full image of periodical articles, from 1770 to 1995, available in digital form.

Shaws Digital Edition (1801-1819)

Books, broadsides, pamphlets, and other imprints listed in the bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.

Women and Social Movements in the United States Scholar's Edition

The resource, which examines perspectives on women's social movements from colonial times to the present, brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities.

World History

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents from Western Europe

"These links connect to Western European (mainly primary) historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. They shed light on key historical happenings within the respective countries (and within the broadest sense of political, economic, social and cultural history). The order of documents is chronological wherever possible."

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1974 - 1996

FBIS Daily Reports consists of translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals and government statements from nations around the globe.

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Parliamentary Papers are the most detailed primary source for 19th-century Britain, its colonies and the wider world. They are the working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy. They influenced public opinion and social and political philosophy, and provided a forum for the ideas of hundreds of thinkers, among them Jenner, Arnold, Trollope, Mill, Faraday, Babbage, Telford and Brunel.

In the First Person: An index to letters, diaries, oral histories, and other personal narratives

Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Imperialism

The Internet Modern History Sourcebook is one of series of history primary sourcebooks. It is intended to serve the needs of teachers and students in college survey courses in modern European history and American history, as well as in modern Western Civilization and World Cultures. Although this part of the Internet History Sourcebooks Project began as a way to access texts that were already available on the Internet, it now contains hundreds of texts made available locally.

Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO)

Provides access to a large and growing resource of essential medieval and early modern sources online.

Original Sources

Times Digital Archive

Researchers can search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.

Archives and Museums with library collections

A number of archive collections located at FAU and other Florida institutions are available for online searching. It is recommended that anyone wishing to conduct archival research contact the appropriate archivist in advance of an in-person visit.

FAU Special Collections and Archives

FAU currently maintains ten collections. Of particular interest to Florida historians is the Bessie DuBois Collection. This collection consists of books and brochures relating to many aspects of Florida history. The books are separated from the rest of the collection and stored in closed stacks. The brochures are stored separately, next to FAU's Floridiana Collection. They contain mostly travel brochures compiled by counties' chambers of commerce from many regions of Florida. Also contained in the collection are brochures from historical and environmental sites throughout the state. There are also fishing guides, books on ship wrecks and lighthouses, cookbooks and children's literature located in the collection which represent Mrs. DuBois interests. The bulk of these items were written between the years 1950-1970 with items ranging from 1934-1986.

The Florida Historical Society, Cocoa, FL

For more information about memberships, the holdings of the Library or upcoming speakers, call (321) 690-1971.

Historical Society of Palm Beach County

The Historical Society's mission is to collect, preserve, and share the history of Palm Beach County. The organization maintains an active research facility in the Paramount Building in Palm Beach. The collections, which are continually growing, relate to the heritage of all communities in Palm Beach County.

Jupiter History Web

"The "Jupiter History Web" site is a volunteer project in cooperation with the Town of Jupiter Information Systems Department. Web server space for this site is provided by the Town of Jupiter. The project goals include building a store of historical information for the Town Archives and placing it on the web for all to share, but our mission extends beyond the Town limits."

Loxahatchee River Historical Society

"Mission Statement: To collect, preserve, interpret, and promote the history of Florida, particularly emphasizing the southeast region and the area between the headwaters of the Loxahatchee River and the Jupiter Inlet."

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens

A lesser known resource of the Morikami is the Donald B. Gordon Memorial Library of English and Japanese language materials. While they do not loan their books or periodicals, visitors are welcome to copy what is available. Please call prior to your visit, (561) 495-0233, ext. 254.

PALMM Collections

Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM) is a cooperative initiative of the state universities of Florida to provide digital access to important source materials. Selected PALMM Projects: Eric Eustace Williams, Florida Heritage Collection, Florida Historical Legal Documents, Literature For Children, Ringling Collection, Visual Collections, and World Map Collections.

University of Miami's Richter Library Archives & Special Collections

The Archives and Special Collections Department houses an outstanding array of scholarly resources including collections of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, architectural drawings, prints, broadsides, posters, audio-visual materials, newspapers and journals, and other research materials." (Source: Archives web site). Of interest to Florida historians is the Souvenirs of Miami: 100 Years of Promotional Literature site.

For a complete list of all available databases, visit our Electronic Collection.


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