United States History Primary Sources on the Web - 1900-1945

Updated: 04/07

Ad*Access Project http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/ The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections on topics as wide-ranging as agriculture, art & architecture, business & economics, geography, performing arts, religion, sports, and technology. Major collections include Woman Suffrage Movement, American Life Histories from the Federal Writers' Project (1936-1940), and Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s. American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ The American Presidency Project consolidates, codes, and organizes into a single searchable database: The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Washington - Taft (1789-1913); The Public Papers of the Presidents:Hoover to Bush (1929-1993); The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents:Clinton - G.W. Bush (1993-2007). The archive contains over 72,000 searchable documents on the American presidency including Executive Orders; State of the Union Addresses; Proclamations; State of the Union Messages; Press Conferences; Inaugural Addresses; Saturday Radio Addresses; Addresses to Congress; Addresses to Nation and more. Avalon Project at Yale Law School http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm The Avalon Project posts digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government from the pre-18th century to the present. Major collections include colonial charters, the Constitution, the Cold War, Treaties between the U.S. & Native Americans, and World War II to name just a few. Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Minesota http://www.chgs.umn.edu/ The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has many documents focusing on Nazi Germany's war against the Jews. It also provides information and sources about more recent acts of genocide, which have taken place in the twentieth century, utilizing resources of the University of Minnesota and other experts in local colleges. Digital Librarian: History http://www.digital-librarian.com/history.html An eclectic and annotated list of links, organized A-Z by title. The emphasis is on US history with some international sites, and covers all historical periods. Worth a long look! Edsitement http://edsitement.neh.gov/websites_all.asp The National Endowment for the Humanities maintains this site with links to best history, language arts and social sciences sites. In addition to primary sources, there are online lesson plans and other digital learning materials. First World War.com http://www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm Provides summaries, time lines, and essays on WWI. Also has video clips of speeches by President Wilson, Austrian emperor Franz Josef, and others. The site includes an assortment of recorded music hall songs, and popular ditties. Foreign Relations of the United States, Electronic Facsimile http://libtext.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/ This digital facsimile of Foreign Relations of the United States is a project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago Libraries. The facsimile consists of an incomplete run from 1863-1958. with missing volumes being added as they can be acquired and processed. The missing volumes are scattered throughout the series. The primary gaps cover the Reconstruction era of 1865-1872, the late 1880's to early 1890's, 1925-1937, and most of the 1950's. Nonetheless, this ongoing project provides access to important documents not available elsewhere on the Web. Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/index.html The Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the New-York Historical Society, contains more than 80,000 documents detailing the political and social history of the United States. The collection's holdings include manuscript letters, diaries, maps, photographs, printed books and pamphlets ranging from 1493 through modern times. The searchable database of rare and important American historical documents contains nearly 400 annotated transcripts from the Collection. Authors include George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln. The documents span the years from Columbus's arrival to the end of the Civil War and represent topics as varied as colonial frontier life, the Boston Massacre, the "Amistad" affair, and the role of African American troops in the Civil War. Historical Census Browser Http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html Information compiled from the US Census from 1790-1960, produced by the University of Virginia Library. The information was compiled from a project by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Holocaust History Project http://www.holocaust-history.org/ A free archive of documents, photographs, recordings, and essays regarding the Holocaust, including direct refutation of Holocaust-denial. Also has links to other resource sites. Immigration to the United States. 1789-1930 http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/ A web-based collection of selected historical materials that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the Great Depression. The materials are from Harvard University Libraries. Emphasis is on the 19th century and includes a variety of themes such as acculturation, racism, nativism and governmental policies. In the First Person http://www.inthefirstperson.com/firp/index.aspx A comprehensive archive that provides in-depth field and keyword searches across all letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs, and autobiographies within Alexander Street Press databases and scholar materials available for free on the Web. The resources span over 400 years from the 1550s to 2000s. July, 1942: United We Stand http://americanhistory.si.edu/1942/home.html A companion web site for a Smithsonian Institution exhibit on the seven months after the US entry into WW II. The exhibit focused on how the National Publishers Association made a concerted effort to place images of the US flag on the covers of popular magazines in an attempt to promote patriotism, the “United We Stand” slogan, and buying war bonds. Making of America http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/ or http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/ A collaborative project of the University of Michigan and Cornell University, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, MOA is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The Michigan collection contains approximately 8,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints; the Cornell collection, 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles. Both collections are made up of images of the pages in the books and journals. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) http://www.archives.gov/index.html The National Archives is the largest repository of federal, regional and local historic documents in the United States. The site contains hundreds of thousands of digitized documents with many different finding aids. The finding aids have been categorized under several headings: Archival Research Catalog (ARC); Access to Archival Databases (AAD); Guide to Federal Records; and more. New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/index.htm The New Deal Network is an educational guide to the Great Depression/New Deal era of 1928-1955 created by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Franklin D, Roosevelt Presidential Library, Marist College, and IBM. The network is a database of photographs, political cartoons, speeches, letters, and other historic documents from the New Deal era. The database has over 20,000 items, including 5000 photographs. The material is drawn from a variety of sources. Most of the documents were created by the federal government and are therefore in the public domain. The New Deal Network has limited permission to republish other material still under copyright. Professor Vincent Ferraro’s Homepage http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/feros-pg.htm Professor Ferraro is The Ruth C. Lawson Professor of International Politics Mount Holyoke College, scroll down the opening page of his website to his "documents" section to locate primary source material on numerous twentieth century topics such as the cold war, the Cuban missile crisis, US foreign policy in the 20th century, World Wars I & II, and more. The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/ (EAA) presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture. Related to the Ad*Access Project. The Emma Goldman Papers http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/ Digitized collections from the Emma Goldman Papers Project at UC Berkeley. This collection includes letters, images and a newsreel clip from 1934. Goldman (1869-1940) stands as a major figure in the history of American radicalism and feminism. An influential and well-known anarchist of her day, Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919. For the rest of her life until her death in 1940, she continued to participate in the social and political movements of her age, from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War. The Institute on World War II and the Human Experience. Florida State University http://www.fsu.edu/~ww2/ A collection of oral history interviews with veterans of the WW II era. The Rutgers oral history archives of World War II Web archive http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu A collection of stories of those who served in uniform or in some home front capacity during WW II. It has over 250 oral history interviews and has expanded to include interviews of Korean War veterans. University of Oklahoma College of Law. A Chronology of U. S. Historical Documents http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/ A listing of important legal documents pertaining to pre-colonial; 17th century; 18th century; 19th century; and 20th century United States history. The site includes inaugural addresses of U. S. presidents. World War I Document Archive http://www.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi This WWI Archive features a wealth of primary sources dealing with World War I, including conventions, treaties and official papers, contemporary accounts of battles or homefront activities, diaries, and images. The documents are organized in a Year-by-Year collection. World War II Resources http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/ Primary source materials on all aspects of the war. World War II in Posters http://www.trumanlibrary.org/museum/posters/ Wartime posters from the Truman Presidential Library.

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