Primary Sources: Pre-19th Century

Pre-Nineteenth Century Primary Sources: Library Resources

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new window
Digital access to the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals chronicling American society, culture and politics, published between 1691-1820 (Series 1 and 2).
The fifty thematic subsets include digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals provide rich content detailing American history and culture from the mid-18th century through the late-19th century. These specialized collections cover advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more.
Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
NOTE: Register with your Miami University email address.
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.<
Periodicals include Godey's Lady's Book and the Pennsylvania Gazette. Civil War articles from The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury, and the Richmond Enquirer. African-American papers, including Freedom's Journal, The Colored American, The North Star the Frederick Douglass Paper (1851-59), and others.
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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.
The collection includes the first American magazines, early literary and cultural reviews, the first scholarly journals, and many popular magazines that continue to be published to this day, including Atlantic, Ladies'Home Journal, Vanity Fair, Puck, and Scientific American. This is a work-in-progress and is updated daily. For additional indexing use the 19th Century Index and Index to Early American Periodicals.
Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new window
Index to many genealogical and public records for the United States, including census records, vital records, and other documents focusing on individuals.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
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.
Early American Imprints: The Digital Evans This link opens in a new window
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.
Based on the American Bibliography compiled by Charles Evans, with updates and corrections, EAI offers rich indexing (author, title, subject, genre, publishing location, language, more) and easy access to the print culture of Colonial and early republican America. Complemented by the two full-text collections, Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment This link opens in a new window
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.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
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.
EEBO titles appear as digital images and can be downloaded as pdf files. The database is searchable, but see also the English Short-Title Catalogue that allows more complex searches and is keyed to EEBO titles. Some 25,000 of the EEBO titles are being digitized with SGML coding as part of the Text Creation Partnership. Included here are titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661); titles in the Tract Supplement will be added starting in 2007-08.
Early English Books Online (Text Creation Partnership) This link opens in a new window
The Text Creation Partnership creates standardized, accurate XML/SGML encoded electronic text editions of early print books. Text is transcribed and marked up from the millions of page images in ProQuest's Early English Books Online, Gale Cengage's Eighteenth Century Collections Online, and Readex's Evans Early American Imprints.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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.
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
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.
Perseus This link opens in a new window
An evolving digital library of resources for the study of the ancient world. Includes full-text of main Greek and Latin texts, and selected secondary works, as well as a massive library of art objects, archaeological sites, buildings, atlases and text tools.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
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.
Full-text is available for many publications including testimony from congressional hearings (1824-Present); committee reports (1817-Present); bill texts and status (1989-); Statutes at Large/U.S. Code (1789-); Congressional Serial Set (1789-2003); Federal Register (1980-); and the Congressional Record, including the Annals of Congress (1789-1997). It also provides information about members and committees.
Rotunda This link opens in a new window
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.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
This collection brings together legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes statutes passed by every colony and state on slavery, federal statutes dealing with slavery, and reported state and federal cases on slavery. It also includes U.S. Congressional documents, pamphlets, books, law review articles, and some modern legal histories.

Last Updated: Aug 1, 2024 11:55 AM
URL: https://libguides.lib.miamioh.edu/PrimSourceSubj
Print Page

Subjects: American Studies, History