Electronic resources for American history
Below is a list of free electronic resources from different institutions in the United States and Great Britain. New resources will be added regularly.
Please contact us if links are not functioning or if you would like to suggest a resource. Any questions and comments are also very welcome.
Via the USB Website you can access licensed electronic databases. Please us a VPN-Client for remote access.
Resources listed by subject
Black History
Primary source databases and collections:
The 1619 Project
An ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery
African American Data Links (U.S. Census Bureau)
American Race Relations: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996
American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
Animated Atlas of African History 1879-2002
Anti-Slavery Collection
Digital archive of materials from the Cornell University Library
The Atlantic slave trade and slave life in the Americas: a visual record
Behind the veil: Documenting African American life in the Jim Crow South
Black America (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 12/2018)
BlackPast.org: Remebered and reclaimed
The Civil Rights History Project
Oral-history interviews with participants in the Civil Rights Movement
Digital Library on American slavery
Documenting the American South
Freedom Archives
Preserving historical audio, video, and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s
Freedom on the Move
Frederick Douglass Papers
Goin' North
Stories from the first Great Migration to Philadelphia
The Green Book
Travel guide for Black travelers
Hall Family Papers and Sugar Plantation Records
The Hiphop Archive
Harvard University
Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights - Publications by Date
The History Makers
The Nation’s Largest African American Video Oral History Collection
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience: Maps
Last seen: finding family after slavery
Making of America
Sources in American social history from Antebellum through Reconstruction
Malcolm X: A Research Site
Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers
The Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Projects
Rap (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 9/2018)
Selected online works by Civil War era African American women
Slave Biographies
The Atlantic Database Network is an open access data repository of information on the identities of enslaved people in the Atlantic World
Slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world
Collection of the New-York Historical Society
SNCC Digital Gateway
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Legacy Project
Study of slavery, resistance, and abolution
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Umbra Search African American History
Who speaks for the negro?
Digital archive of materials related to the book of the same name published by Robert Penn Warren in 1965
Newspapers and journals:
African American newspapers, series 1
African American newspapers, series 2
Black World / Negro Digest
1961-1976
Digitizied Newspapers from the Library of Congress
1789-1924
Ebony Magazine
1959-2008
Jet magazine
1951-2005
Childhood and Youth
Foreign relations and Cold War
Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
Cold War History Project
A guide to online resources for the study of the Cold War
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
Office of the Historian
Electronic resources for U.S. foreign relations
Opening the Archives
Documenting United States - Brazil relations from the 1960s to 1980s
Public Opinion Poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Labor and Economics
Chrysler Corporation Newark Assembly Plant oral history collection
Hagley Library
Premier business history archive and library
Rosie the Riveter - WWII American Homefront Project
Strikes! Labor History Encyclopedia for the Pacific Northwest
Union Membership and Coverage Database
U.S. Labor and Industrial History Audio Archive
Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin migrant workers collection, 1940-1941
Online presentation of selections from a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941
LGBTIQ+ History
Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony
FBI Documents 1953-1956: Mattachine Society
FBI Documents 1971-1976: Gay Activist Alliance
GLBT Historical Society Online Collections
Lesbian Herstory Archive Photographic Collection
ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives: Digitised Collections
Oral Histories of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco
Stonewall and its impact of the Gay Liberation Movement
University of Minnesota Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Fluid Oral History Archive
Media and Advertisement
Ad Access
Images of over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955
Ad Views
Digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s
America's Bandstand
1957-1964
American Radio History – The Online Radio & TV Library
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Emergence of Advertising in America
1850-1920
Find DVDs (Previously Hermes)
Database: Details for over 30,000 audio-visual programmes, and their distributors, available in the UK. With a comprehensive listing of the paper materials held in the BUFVC library.
"Great 78 Project"
Das „Great 78 Project“ digitalisiert historische Schallplatten aus den Jahren 1890 bis 1950 und macht die Ergebnisse online verfügbar.
The Hiphop Archive
Harvard University
Internet Archive
A large digital archive, with an especially strong section devoted to moving images
J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
Library of Congress, Moving Image Research Center
Living Room Candidate
Collection of Presidential Election television commercials from 1952-to 2016
Media History Digital Library
A free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. Led by Eric Hoyt at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Museum of Broadcast Communications
Paley Center for Media Archive
Photogrammar
Web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI)
Rap (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 9/2018)
Springfield! Springfield! – TV Show Episode Transcripts
Television Academy, Oral History Interviews
TV Guide Cover Archive (1953-today)
Understanding 9/11 – A Television News Archive (The Internet Archive)
Migration and Immigration
Goin' North
Stories from the first Great Migration to Philadelphia
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience: Maps
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
Imigrations, Migrations, and Refugees: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996
Mobility, Travel, Tourism
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management – Hospitality Industry Archives
Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute at the University of Florida
Guide to Collections Related to Pan American World Airways (Pan Am)
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism
Transport and Mobility History Digital Sources (crowdsourced)
National Travel and Tourism Office
Pacific Asia Travel Association
PanAm.org. The Pan Am Historical Foundation
Native Americans
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Digital collection which integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau
The Elkus Indian Papers
Collection of over 2,000 documents related to Indian affairs over the period 1922-1963. It includes an online database of the papers, maps of the Southwest and more
IDA Treaties Explorer
374 ratified treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States
Postcolonial Studies and Global History
(Post)Kolonialismus und Globalgeschichte
British Documents on the End of Empire
A series of volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories.
Presidency and Elections
American Presidency Project by the University of California
Coverage: The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: 1789-1929, The Public Papers of the Presidents: 1929-, The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: 1977-2009, The Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents: 2009-
Founders online
George Washington to John Adams
Franklin
Research room and digital repository to digitized collections of the Roosevelt Library
Living Room Candidate
Collection of Presidential Election television commercials from 1952 to 2016
Mapping early American elections
A new nation votes: American election returns, 1787-1825
Papers of Abraham Lincoln Online
Presidential Libraries Explorer by the National Archives and Records Aministration
Presidential Papers at the Library of Congress
George Washington to Calvin Coolidge
Public Papers of the Presidents
Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama
The Secret White House Tapes
1940-1973
U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library
Religion
Women's History
Click! The ongoing feminist revolution
The Gerritsen Collection
Large source for women's history
The Salem witchcraft papers
Verbatim transcription of the court records
The Suffragist Oral History Project
Women's liberation movement print culture
from Duke University Libraries
Resources listed by period and geography
Early America
America: History and Life
Bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present (Kostenpflichtig!)
American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Digital collection which integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau
American Journeys
More than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD 1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later
The Avalon Project
Documents in law, history and diplomacy. Charters and documents for all the colonies
Feeding America
Online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century
Liberty Fund Online Library
Collection of electronic books from 18th century thinkers and politicians, including Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others. The focus is largely limited to well-known political theorists, economists, and politicians. Free sign-up is necessary.
Milestone Documents
Hundreds of primary sources from American and world history, including constitutions, laws, speeches, court cases, treaties, manifestos, and more
NewspaperArchive
A historical newspaper database online, contains millions of newspaper pages from 1753 to the present. Every newspaper in the archive is fully searchable by keyword, location, title, or date
Riot Acts (1783-1865)
The Salem witchcraft papers
Verbatim transcription of the court records
U.S. congressional documents and debates, 1774-1875
Linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875
19th century America
American Journeys
Eyewitness accounts of North American exploration
Avalon Project
Documents on law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government, from pre-18th century to the 20th century
Core Historical Literature on Agriculture
Selected agricultural texts depecting rural life and investigating agricultural technology published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century
Early Caribbean Digital Archive
Feeding America
Online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century
Fold 3
Contains primary source documents from the holdings of the United States National Archives relating to all aspects of American military history
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Making of America
Sources in American social history from Antebellum through Reconstruction
Milestone Documents
Primary sources from American and world history. Free sign-up necessary.
Riot Acts (1783-1865)
U.S. congressional documents and debates, 1774-1875
Virginia Report Collection online
20th century America
American Panorama
Historical atlas of the United States
Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
Documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government, from pre-18th century to the 20th century
Densho
Oral history interviews, photos, newspapers, and other primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration through redress with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration
Find DVDs (Previously Hermes) Database
Details for over 30,000 audio-visual programmes, and their distributors, available in the UK. With a comprehensive listing of the paper materials held in the BUFVC library.
Fold 3
Contains primary source documents from the holdings of the United States National Archives relating to all aspects of American military history
Freedom Archives
Preserving historical audio, video, and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s
"Great 78 Project"
Das „Great 78 Project“ digitalisiert historische Schallplatten aus den Jahren 1890 bis 1950 und macht die Ergebnisse online verfügbar.
The History Makers
online database of thousands of African Americans
Internet Archive
A large digital archive, with an especially strong section devoted to moving images
Media History Digital Library
A free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. Led by Eric Hoyt at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Milestone Documents
Historic texts and expert analysis from primary sources from American and world history, including constitutions, laws, speeches, court cases, treaties, manifestos, and more
Million Dollar Hoods
Digital project about how mass incarceration impacts communities in the Los Angeles region
Photogrammar
Web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI)
Project Thomas
Access to current bills under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate
Public opinion poll
Polling data from around the world
USA aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 2017
Wilson Center Digital Archive
Resource for once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world
Epoch-spanning resources
250+ Killer Digital Libraries
This list contains over 250 libraries and archives that focus mainly on localized, regional, and U.S. history (scroll down)
Library of Anglo-American culture and history / Universität Göttingen
Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
Calisphere: primary sources and more about the history of California
Contagion: Historical Views on Diseases and Epidemics
Digital collections of the Library of Congress
Digital collections of the New York Public Library
Digital Public Library of America
Images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States
Documenting the American South
Duke Digitized Collections
Digitized historic photographs, advertisements, texts & more from Duke's unique library collections
Hathi Trust Digital Library
a collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items
History matters - Roy Rosenzweig Center
History of business, technology, and society: Hagley Museum and Library, Digital Collections
A History of the American People
Local History - Collection of Repositories on the Website of the Institute of Historical Research at University of London
USA - Geschichte, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft - Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung
World Digital Library (WDL) is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world. The WDL makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from all countries and cultures
Canada
Peel's Prairie Provinces
a resource dedicated to assisting scholars, students, and researchers of all types in their exploration of western Canadian history and the culture of the Canadian prairies
Great Britain and Ireland
Datenbanken der Universität zu Köln: Fachgebiet Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Archives direct
Archives Direct is a suite of collections sourced from The National Archives, Kew, the official archive of the United Kingdom. Containing diplomatic correspondence, letters, reports, surveys, material from newspapers, statistical analyses, published pamphlets, ephemera, military papers, profiles of prominent individuals, maps and many other types of document, it consists of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the British state’s point of view.
British Documents on the End of Empire
A series of volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories.
Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online
Database of Court Officers 1660-1837
Career histories of every remunerated officer and servant of the English royal household from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837
Eighteenth Century Journals : A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, 1685-1815. Sign-up necessary.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology
English Short Title Catalogue
List of over 480,000 items published between 1473 and 1800
Historical population reports
Access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937, supported by ancillary documents. Full text of documents may be searched, also searchable by date and location.
History Data Service (HDS)
Collects, preserves, and promotes the use of digital resources, which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching
History of Scotland: Primary documents
History of the United Kingdom: Primary documents
Institute of Historical Research
Resources for historians, including a major open-access library, digital projects, seminars and lectures, conferences, books and journals, podcasts, MA/Phd study and research training
Internet Library of Early Journals
Contains the following British magazines: Notes and Queries (1849-1869), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1843-1863), The Builder (1843-1852), Gentleman's Magazine (1731-1750), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1757-1777), Annual Register (1758-1778)
Irish History Online
Irish History from earliest times to the present
Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers
Contains full runs of 48 newspapers selected by the British Library to represent nineteenth century Britain. It includes national and regional newspapers and special attention was paid to newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. The penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also present in the collection.
Northern Ireland: A Divided Community, 1921 - 1972
Die Datenbank enthält digitalisierte Kabinettsprotokolle und weitere Akten der britischen Regionalregierung in Nordirland von 1921 - 1972
Research Resources of Contemporary British History
Social Science Bibliography of Northern Ireland, 1945-1983
Resources listed by primary source type
Newspapers and magazines
American Newspapers Online compiled by the University of Pennsylvania
Chronicling America
America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922
Farm, Field and Fireside Agricultural Newspaper Collection
Collects historically significant U.S. farm weeklies published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Elephind - search the world's historical newspaper archives
Financial Times Historical Archive
1888-2006
Harper's magazine 1850 to 2018
Independent Voices
An open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries
Jet magazine
1951-2005
Life magazine
1936-1972
Media History Digital Library
Access to over 200,000 digitized pages of public domain media industry trade papers and fan magazines
The Nation Archive
1865 to 2012
New York Review of Books
1963-present
NewspaperArchive
1753 to the present
Periodicals Index Online
Bibliographic search in about 4,800 periodicals from the humanities and social sciences from 1665 to 2005
Public interest
1965-2005
Washington monthly
1969-2018
Weekly standard
1995-today
Public Records
British Documents on the End of Empire
A series of volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories
Census of Agriculture Historical Archive
The site provides digital copies the the census taken between 1840 and 2002
Census Records from the United States
Project Thomas
Access to current bills under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate
Public opinion poll
Polling data from around the world
The Salem witchcraft papers
Verbatim transcription of the court records
U.S. congressional documents and debates, 1774-1875
Linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875
Wilson Center Digital Archive
Resource for once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world
Visual material
Ad Access
Images of over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955
Ad Views
Digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s
Digital Public Library of America
Images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States
Find DVDs (Previously Hermes)
Database: Details for over 30,000 audio-visual programmes, and their distributors, available in the UK. With a comprehensive listing of the paper materials held in the BUFVC library
Freedom Archives
Preserving historical audio, video, and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s
Internet Archive
A large digital archive, with an especially strong section devoted to moving images
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Newspaper Navigator
Search historic newspaper photos, 1900-1963
Photogrammar
Web-based platform for organizing, searching, and visualizing the 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA-OWI)