Planning your research
Advice on planning a research project and finding and using primary and secondary sources.
Essays, videos, how-to guides and case studies by historians, archivists and other specialists about working with primary sources.
Collections of several types of primary sources curated around a topic or theme.
People
1400-1950s
Primary sources for American Indian history in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books from pre-contact through the mid-20th century.
1490-2007
Case studies documenting slavery in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba, along with material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.
Gender and Politics
1800-1920
Primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Travel and Migration
1830-1939
Pamphlets, maps, books, ephemeral material and rare printed sources related to the history of the American West.
Trade, Consumer and Popular Culture
1850-1990s
Search three archival collections representing 20th century advertising and marketing from Adam Matthew Publishers.
1850-1950
Primary sources like catalogs, price lists, and brochures reflecting the history of consumer advertising and marketing and life and leisure in America. Includes department store catalogs, cosmetic advertisements, real estate brochures and much more.
Science & Technology
Everything
1493-1945
Primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman collection about American history from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
1820-1922
Pamphlets with advice and opinions about all kinds of 19th century controversies.
The full text of letters and diary entries, often from works that have been previously published as books containing collections of letters or diaries. Use the Browse indexes to find works about specific historical or life events.
Search for articles published in popular magazines and journals from different times in history.
Digitized collections of books published during different time periods.
1749-1900
Printed menus, advertisements, cards, playbills, poems and other printed items never intended to last.
1820-1922
Pamphlets with advice and opinions about all kinds of 19th century controversies.
1801-1819
Complete books, pamphlets and broadsides published in North America between 1801 and 1819.
1600-1926
Cross-search five Making of Modern Law databases: Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law 1600-1926, Making of Modern Law: Foreign Primary Sources, Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources 1620-1926, Making of Modern Law: Treatises, 1800-1926, and Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926.
Good for: Finding primary source materials on exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and more.
Contains: Historical books, pamphlets, serials and other documents about North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Dates covered: 1500-1926
Official government publications, including laws, treaties, and records of legislative proceedings.
United States
1789-present
Contains searchable full text of all U.S. bills and resolutions from 1789 to the present.
1751-present
Government reports, laws, legislative histories, ebooks and selected scholarly articles related to branches of the United States armed forces.
1824-1961
Government and agency records from the British National Archives concerning the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America.
Digitized photos and art images.
These links allow you to search across multiple databases at the same time.