Primary source materials are original historical documents, such as letters, treaties, newspapers and legal documents. These types of resources are invaluable to the practice of historical research. The following web sites are excellent sources of primary material.
American Periodicals Series Online, 1740-1900
This
collection includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines
and journals published from colonial days to the beginning of the 20th
century. The collection will be comprised of more than 1,000 titles,
including Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, the first American
professional journals, and several popular magazines still in
publication, such as Vanity Fair, Harper's, and Ladies' Home Journal.
Content is still being added to this new database.(ECU Users Only)
American Radicalism Collection
This
remarkable website includes electronic texts and digital images
associated with American extremism of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. The site is maintained by Michigan State University Library.
Documenting the American South
"Documenting
the American South (DAS) is a collection of sources on Southern
history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the
first decades of the 20th century." Created by the University of North
Carolina, DAS includes over 900 books and manuscripts organized into 5
separate collections, including first person accounts, slave
narratives, and material on the Southern homefront during the Civil War.
Duke University Digitized Collections
This
superior digitized collection contains several collections related to
southern history, especially slave narratives and documents on women's
history and the civil war. Other non-south collections are also superb.
The site is maintained by the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript,
and Special Collections Library.
Eastern North Carolina Digital History Exhibits
Six
exhibits covering aspects of ECU and regional history, featuring
"digitized pamphlets, news articles, book excerpts, photographs,
broadsides, letters, plant specimens, and other resources. The major
sources for the digitized materials you see in these exhibits are
Joyner Library's North Carolina Collection and Special Collections
Departments."
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
"The
Internet History Sourcebooks are collections of public domain and
copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising
or excessive layout) for educational use." The three main sourcebooks
are in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern history, as well as a number of
more specialized collections. They are both browsable and searchable.
Library of Congress American Memory Collections
"The
American Memory Historical Collections, a major component of the
Library's National Digital Library Program, are multimedia collections
of digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures,
and text from the Library's Americana collections." The site contains
over 7,000,000 digitized items, organized into more than 100
collections. This is the largest assemblage of primary source material
in American history available on the Web.
Making of America - Cornell University
Digital
library of primary sources in American social history dating from the
mid 19th century, offering "access to 267 monograph volumes and over
100,000 journal articles". Can be browsed and searched.
Making of America - University of Michigan
Digital
library of primary sources in American social history dating from the
mid 19th century, containing "approximately 10,000 books and 50,000
journal articles". Can be browsed and searched.
Modern English Collection (1500-Present)
This
multifarious collection contains fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama,
letters, newspapers, manuscripts and illustrations from 1500 to the
present, arranged for browsing by author's last name or by category of
interest. Subjects include African American, including Letters from Liberia; Native American; American Civil War; Salem Witch Trials; Thomas Jefferson; Edgar Allan Poe; Mark Twain; William Shakespeare;Samuel Taylor Coleridge ; Women Writers; Young Readers; Literature in Translation;Best Sellers, 1900-1930 . The site is maintained by the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library.
Secession Era Editorials Project
Digitized transcriptions of mid 19th century American newspaper editorials. The site is maintained by Furman University.
Valley of the Shadow
This
very sophisticated Civil War website traces the prewar and wartime
events that occurred in two Virigina communities. The site contains
digitized newspapers, letters, diaries, military records, public
records, church records, maps, and more. The authors have constructed
an impressive and interesting array of teaching tools, as well. It is
a site, maintained by professors at the University of Virginia, that
can't be missed.
