Historical Primary Sources: Collections by Time Period, Subject, Format, and Geographic Region

Full-text of 18th and 19th century publications including selected African American newspapers (eg. North Star), Civil War era magazines and newspapers, Godey's Ladies' Book, major early American newspapers (eg. Pennsylvania Gazette), and major Civil war articles from the north and south.

An online resource for researching the individuals, regiments, and battles of the American Civil War. Updated semiannually.

A work in progress, this edition of American Film Scripts Online contains more than 1,100 scripts together with detailed information on the scenes, characters and people related to the scripts. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Historical videos (1894-2015) from commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Full-text of American magazines published from 1741 into the 20th century. Database can be browsed by title, editor, or publisher, and searched using a sophisticated search menu.

Explore the music of Americans of diverse origins and all walks of life through these recordings of songs and instrumentals. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Covers non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. full-texts of books, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Created and maintained by the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County staff, this database indexes selected articles on local topics from area newspapers, currently including the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Cincinnati Post, the Cincinnati Herald, the Business Courier, Cincinnati Magazine, and the Downtowner.

Profiling the ten most populous cities in the United States during ten critical eras of political development including their government and politics, industry, commerce, labor, and race and ethnicity.

Ohio. 1857-1922. Local histories and atlases at the county level published during the last quarter of the 19th century to the early years of the 20th century. Included are tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

Listen to recordings and view liner notes and essays from New World, Composers' Recordings, Albany, Cedille and other labels focusing on music of the United States.

Full-text of previously classified federal records from presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies, including the Department of Defense, CIA, FBI and others. Collection spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Declassified documents covering U.S. policy decisions from 1945 to present.

Provides the full-text of 440 works of 80 U.S. novelists and short-story writers, 1774-1850. This database comprises first editions of American novels and short stories written before 1850 by authors significant during their lifetimes.

Full-text of most printed matter (books, pamphlets, and broadsides, etc.) issued the United States and Canada from 1640-1800. If the full-text is not included, it is not extant anywhere.

Full-text page and article images of selected American newspapers from roughly 1690-1922.

Letters, diaries, memoirs, and other kinds of personal accounts of encounters between native cultures and colonizers in North and South America (although Canada and the United States dominate). Perspectives include traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Comprehensive bibliography (not full-text) to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Content covers European exploration, portrayals of Native American peoples, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and slavery. Based on the bibliography European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750.

Full-text page and article images of Harpers Weekly, an important 19th century political and social magazine. 1857-1871.

Collected from governmental and non-governmental resources. Contains statistics on social, behavioral, economics, government, finance, demography, education, law, natural resources, climate, religion, migration, trade and more. Allows for customization of data into tables.

Published annually since 1972, the Historic Documents Series now contains 35 volumes of primary sources. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy and organizational management.

Contains campaign newspapers for the 1860 Presidential campaign and magazines and newspapers sympathetic to the Confederacy, Union, and Abolitionism. 1860-1865.

Posters, photographs, and ephemera depicting Civil War battlefields, the home front, politics, and general society. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Archives of the Federal Writers' Project. Writers, artists, historians, sociologists, and others were hired through this federal government program during the Great Depression to document and preserve American life. The collection includes city and county guides; ethnic, sociological, and labor studies; folklore studies; and even poems and plays. 1930s.

Collection of newsreels highlighting world cultures and contemporary issues. Some videos contain multiple short vignettes about news around the world and others are longer single topic explorations. Some were also reenactments 1935-1967. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

Description and bibliography of books, pamphlets, and broadsides printed in Ohio. Many titles will be available through HathiTrust and Google books online as well as in print in Miami's collection or through OhioLINK.

Diaries, journals and narratives of explorers, emigrants, military men, Native Americans, and travelers are complemented by accounts of the development of farming and mining communities, family histories and folklore. Covers the colonial era and the settlers conflicts with Native Americans through the evolution of a farm- and forest-society to Civil War divisions and post war industrialization, railroads and mining and modern day poverty.

Full-text of the complete run of New York Times including with page images, individual articles, ads, and illustrations in downloadable PDF. It includes, and is searchable by, display and classified ads, cartoons, photos, maps, graphics, etc., editorials, obituaries, and commentary, as well as articles. 1851-3 years ago.

Personal narratives including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories (some audio content). Much of the material is previously unpublished. Content includes perspectives both on North America and on the immigrants. 1800-1950.

Contains autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files. Provides American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples perspectives. 18th century-present.

Unpublished and published sources of women's diaries and correspondence. They provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they ate, what they read, and how they amused themselves. Colonial - present.

5 simultaneous users. Contains a comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes articles from Oxford's reference works, primary sources with specially written commentaries, images, maps, charts and tables, timelines, and biographies.

U.S. Congress documents including hearings, legislation, and regulations. Provides bill tracking and legislative histories. ProQuest Congressional offers information and primary-source documents by and about the United States Congress. Indexes some social media from various government bodies. 1789-present.

Oxford campus users only. Index only to popular magazines (primarily United States) in the 20th century. 1890-1982.

Primary source collections of 18th and 19th century text, including papers of Dolly Madison and George Washington, papers from Kristina Rosetti, Matthew Arnold, Emily Shore, Herman Melville (text of his novel Typee), and an 19th century novel about slavery by a slave. Contains supplemental and interpretive materials.

Brings together the following collections into one searchable database: North American Women's Letters and Diaries; British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries; The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories; Black Thought and Culture. Each of these databases has a separate description in this Databases A-Z list.

Full-text of handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate the standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans and reflected the prevailing social mores across the twentieth century. Titles include: "Official Preppy Handbook" and "Facts about Marriage Every Young Man & Woman Should Know" 1900-present

Primary source database focusing on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1960s to today along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines.

Full-text image and indexing of the Washington Post from its beginning in 1877 through 17 years ago. Includes full-page and article images of all articles and display and classified ads, comics and cartoons, photos, maps, graphics, etc., editorials and commentary, literary criticism as well as articles.

FBI documents and files Including surveillance reports, chronologies, witness statements and relating to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) "freedom ride." By riding interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups, the Freedom Riders challenged the southern states that ignored federal anti-segregation laws.

This database includes documents from the President's Commission on the Status of Women, Institute for Women's Policy Research, papers of women active in the women's movements as well as selected speeches diaries and other publications.

ARTFL (American and French Research on the Treasury of French Language) provides full-text searching of French language texts in literature, philosophy, arts, and sciences. Sources date from the 13th to the 20th centuries. Searching must be performed in French.

full-text of diaries and letters of British and Irish women in the UK and abroad. Most have been published, but also some are in manuscript form. Coverage 15th century - sometime in the 20th century. See advanced index. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.

A weekly English language publication providing comprehensive coverage of national news, current events, economic developments, and cultural events in Russia.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains over 125,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides, and other printed matter printed in England or its Colonies or in English anywhere during the years 1475-1700.

The complete texts of eleven major, historical editions of Shakespeare's works, the pre-Folio quartos, and many adaptations, burlesques, and sequels.

The Eighteenth Century Collections Online is a comprehensive digital collection of nearly 140,000 English-language titles covering all subjects published between 1701 and 1800 in the United Kingdom and North America (and including foreign-language titles printed in the UK). It allows both full-text searching of more than 33 million pages of material and sophisticated searches by subject, author, publisher, and back-of-the-book indexes.

The English Short Title Catalog (ESTC) catalogs and describes works printed in any language in England or its dependencies and works printed in English anywhere in the world, 1473 to the end of the eighteenth century.

English Verse Drama provides full-text access to plays by English authors from the 13th to the end of the 19th century, based on entries in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Materials included are intended for the stage and wholly or primarily in verse.

Comprehensive bibliography (not full-text) to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Content covers European exploration, portrayals of Native American peoples, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and slavery. Based on the bibliography European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750.

Full-text, transcribed and translated intercepted media (official news services as well as other types) from sources outside the United States.

Published annually since 1972, the Historic Documents Series now contains 35 volumes of primary sources. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.

Krokodil was a satirical magazine published in the Soviet Union. Founded in 1922, it was first published as a supplement for Rabochaia gazeta. In 2001-2004 the title Krokodil was changed to Novyi Krokodil, but in 2005 the old title was back. Published continuously until 2008, Krokodil was at one time the most popular newspaper for humorous stories and satire, with a circulation reaching 6.5 million copies.

Pravda ("Truth") was the official voice of Soviet communism and the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1918 and 1991. Founded in 1912 in St. Petersburg, Pravda originated as an underground daily workers' newspaper, and it soon became the main newspaper of the revolutionary wing of the Russian socialist movement. Throughout the Soviet era, party members were obligated to read Pravda. Today, Pravda still remains the official organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, an important political faction in contemporary Russian politics.

This resource covers writers from Britain, the British Empire, and North America and includes over 170,000 pages of text. It includes poetry, prose, drama, letters, and diaries.

Brings together the following collections into one searchable database: North American Women's Letters and Diaries; British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries; The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories; Black Thought and Culture. Each of these databases has a separate description in this Databases A-Z list.

The Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) contains primary and secondary source material related to Joseph Stalin's personal biography, his work in government, and his conduct of foreign affairs. A majority of these documents are scanned page images and corresponding bibliographic records in Russian created by the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). The archive also contains full transcriptions of all of the volumes in Yale University Press' acclaimed Annals of Communism (AOC) series.

Full-text page and article images of the daily edition of the Times, London newspaper. The daily edition of the Times has always been published by a separate publisher from the Sunday edition. Major newspaper not only for Britain, but also for articles on the British colonies and much of Europe. 1822 - 2006

Primary source database focusing on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1960s to today along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines.

Online collection of streaming videos that gives users access to critically acclaimed documentaries from filmmakers worldwide. Documentaries topics include, a survey of human history from the earliest civilizations to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Focus is Africa and the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

Latin American Women Writers contains full-text prose, poetry and drama by Latin American Women. Authors are from Mexico and South and Central America. Materials are in Spanish and Portuguese as well as French, Italian and English.

Contains the full-text of poetry, fiction, and drama written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latin authors working in the United States.

This collection includes approximately 200 full-length feature films from leading independent distributors such as Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, MK2, and Global Lens. There are also some 50 award winning short films. All films were presented at major film festivals, many were nominated for awards, and many have won major awards. Films include the Oscar-nominated Twilight Samurai, directed by Yoji Yamada, Oscar-nominated The Scent of Green Papaya, directed by Tran Anh Hung, Oscar-nominated Dogtooth, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner The Piano Teacher, directed by Michael Haneke. Collectively the films in the database have won more than 1,000 awards.

Online collection of streaming videos that gives users access to critically acclaimed documentaries from filmmakers worldwide. Documentaries topics include, a survey of human history from the earliest civilizations to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Focus is Africa and the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.

A wide range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through to the Black September war of 1970-1. Topics covered include the background to the establishment of the State of Israel as a Jewish national home, Black September, Jewish terror groups, and more.

A broad range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers covering the period from the Anglo-Indian landing in Basra in 1914 through the British Mandate in Iraq of 1920-32 to the rise of Saddam Hussein in 1974. Topics covered include the British administration in Baghdad, the Arab uprising of 1920, Iran-Iraq relations, and more.

A searchable full-text collection of fiction and poetry written in English by authors from South and Southeast Asia and their diasporas. Focusing on works composed during the late-colonial and post-colonial eras, the collection also features author interviews and manuscript materials that will shed additional light on the rich literary heritage and emerging traditions of this region.