LibGuides: HIST 388 1003, Great Personalities: Abraham Lincoln (Green): Primary source databases

Reference Guides

Planning your research

Advice on planning a research project and finding and using primary and secondary sources.

Research Methods Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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Essays, videos, how-to guides and case studies by historians, archivists and other specialists about working with primary sources.
From guidance on where you can find historical documents to the questions you might want to pose and how best to approach analyzing the content they hold, this platform gathers together practical advice and instruction from experts working around the world.

The Princeton Guide to Historical Research by Zachary Schrag
ISBN: 9780691215488
Publication Date: 2021
Zachary Schrag begins by explaining how to ask good questions and then guides readers step-by-step through all phases of historical research, from narrowing a topic and locating sources to taking notes, crafting a narrative, and connecting one's work to existing scholarship.
Going to the Sources by Anthony Brundage
ISBN: 9781119262749
Publication Date: 2017
Helps students at all levels meet the challenge of writing their first (or their first "real") research paper. This shows readers how to identify, find, and evaluate both primary and secondary sources for their own writing assignments.

The Americas, Primary Source Collections, 1801-1900

Collections of several types of primary sources curated around a topic or theme.

People

African American Archives This link opens in a new window
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1792-1941
Primary source documents from the National Archives about the lives of African Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
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1860s-1980s
Primary sources documenting African American communities in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
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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.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
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Scholarship and historical sources for Black Studies.
Children's Literature and Cultures This link opens in a new window
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1790s-1930s
Rare books, games, ephemera, and artwork from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reveals the socio-cultural history of the United States.
Materials from the Children’s Literature and Graphic Arts collections held by the American Antiquarian Society and the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Gateway to North America This link opens in a new window
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1801-1900
Community histories, atlases, and other primary sources documenting people, places, and organizations of 19th century New York.
Jewish Life in America This link opens in a new window
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1654-1954
Organizational and personal archival collections including rare printed books and pamphlets from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York.
Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers, and Thinkers This link opens in a new window
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1800-1960
Primary sources related to Hispanic-American writers and activists in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Native American Archives This link opens in a new window
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1792-1940
Treaties and correspondence between the US government and American Indian tribes; also photos, census rolls, Dawes packets and enrollment cards.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
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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

Defining Gender This link opens in a new window
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1500s-1920
Primary sources selected to illustrate changing views about gender, themed around conduct, domesticity, consumption and leisure, education, and the body.
Everyday Life and Women in America This link opens in a new window
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1800-1920
Primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window
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1800-present
Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, like women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, family and the body.
Women's Suffrage Collection This link opens in a new window
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1849-1913
Newspaper collections deliver an in-depth look at the eighty-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote.
The Lily. 1849-1856
National Citizen and Ballot Box. 1878-1881
The Revolution. 1868-1872
The New Citizen. 1909-1912
The Western Woman Voter. 1911-1913
The Remonstrance. 1890-1913
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires This link opens in a new window
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1820-present
Primary sources highlighting the voices of colonized women, including in China, Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans, and South Africa. Includes Native American women, also American women in Guatemala and China.
Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
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1600-2000
Books, images, historical documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies which document reform activities by and affecting women.

Travel and Migration

American West This link opens in a new window
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1830-1939
Pamphlets, maps, books, ephemeral material and rare printed sources related to the history of the American West.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement and Colonial Encounters This link opens in a new window
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1650-1920
Primary sources like expedition records, letters, diaries and government records from Europeans creating colonies in North America, Africa, and Australasia.
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism This link opens in a new window
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1850-1980
Archival material from the travel agency Thomas Cook, a pioneer of package tourism. Includes periodicals such as the Excursionist magazine, personal accounts from travelers on early Cook’s tours, photographs, advertising brochures, guidebooks, posters and ephemeral items.
Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new window
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1800-1924
Primary sources like personal accounts, correspondence, maps, plans and photos documenting the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
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1818-1974
Travel writing in manuscripts, diaries and correspondence as well as drawings, guidebooks and photographs.

Trade, Consumer and Popular Culture

American Consumer Culture This link opens in a new window
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1850-1990s
Search three archival collections representing 20th century advertising and marketing from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Combined search of Market Research & American Business, 1935-1965, Trade Catalogues and the American Home, J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
Food and Drink in History This link opens in a new window
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9th century-2015
Cookbooks, advertising ephemera, government reports, films, and other primary sources revealing the evolution of food and drink within everyday life and the public sphere.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new window
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1500-present
Primary source materials that tell the story of global trade in chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits.

The Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and Company

Trade Catalogues and the American Home This link opens in a new window
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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.
Victorian Popular Culture, 1779 to 1930 This link opens in a new window
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1779 to 1930
Primary source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain, and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. Has books, posters, scrapbooks and optical toys.
World’s Fairs This link opens in a new window
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1851-2000s
Official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts about world’s fairs, exhibitions and expos.

Science & Technology

Medical Services and Warfare This link opens in a new window
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1850s-1930s
Primary sources from Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War tell the story of medical advances during warfare, including the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927.
Popular Medicine in America This link opens in a new window
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1800-1900
Advertising pamphlets, trade cards, posters and promotional work by commercial manufacturers of medical aids revealing trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy.

The Scopes Case

Everything

American History (Gilder Lehrman collection) This link opens in a new window
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1493-1945
Primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman collection about American history from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
American Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
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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.

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1860-1865
Published memoirs, letters and diaries written about and during the Civil War.
North American Immigrant Letters & Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1840-
Personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories about immigrating to the U.S. or Canada.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1770-1950
Diaries, journals, and letters written by famous and not-so-famous North American women.

Search for articles published in popular magazines and journals from different times in history.

African American Historical Serials Collection, 1816-1922 This link opens in a new window
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1816-1922
Newspapers and magazines published by African American churches, educational and service institutions.
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Part I-V (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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1684-1912
Popular magazines, newspapers, and journals published in the United States.
EBSCO version offers subject indexing. Also searchable via Gale or Gale Primary Sources combined search portal.
American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940
Magazines and journals published in the U.S. mostly before 1900.
Godey's Lady's Book This link opens in a new window
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1830-1880
American magazine with firsthand information on social, historical and cultural aspects of the 19th century.
Harper's Bazaar Archive This link opens in a new window
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1867-
Harper's Bazaar magazine shows changes in American fashion, culture and society.

Digitized collections of books published during different time periods.

American Broadsides and Ephemera This link opens in a new window
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1749-1900
Printed menus, advertisements, cards, playbills, poems and other printed items never intended to last.
American Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
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1820-1922
Pamphlets with advice and opinions about all kinds of 19th century controversies.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
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1801-1819
Complete books, pamphlets and broadsides published in North America between 1801 and 1819.
Gerritsen Collection-Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
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1543-1945
Books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.
Hathi Trust This link opens in a new window
Access to nearly any public domain (pre-1924) book owned and scanned by a library. UNLV users can login with their ACE accounts and download entire "full view" books/documents.
Making of Modern Law (MOML): Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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1600-1926
The Gale Primary Sources interface allows cross-searching of 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.
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1500-1926
Digital library of works written or published in the United States, as well as items printed elsewhere, that document the history of the Americas (North, Central, South and the Caribbean) from 1492 to the mid-1800s.
Primary sources that offer original accounts of exploration, settlement, military actions, Native Americans, westward expansion, European relations with Latin America and more. Based on Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana.

Official government publications, including laws, treaties, and records of legislative proceedings.

United States

Congressional Publications (ProQuest Congressional) This link opens in a new window
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1789-
U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Includes the U.S. Serial Set.
Comprehensive access to U.S. legislative information, including access to many full-text Congressional publications, bills, laws, regulations, committee information, and more. Additionally, searchers can retrieve CIS Legislative Histories for public laws. Contains an index of congressional publications from 1789 to the present and locate information about members and committees. Statutes at Large and Congressional Indexes from 1789-1969 are included.
Digital U.S. Bills and Resolutions 1789-2016 This link opens in a new window
1789-present
Contains searchable full text of all U.S. bills and resolutions from 1789 to the present.
Individual bills may be directly accessed or searched via a composite bill profile page that links out to its various versions.
HeinOnline Law Journal Library This link opens in a new window
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Online law journals and full text federal legal materials.
HeinOnline is an image-based, fully searchable database made up primarily of law journals. Newer content is not added until the end of a volume year so the most recent issues are likely a year old. Coverage varies by title, but most sources go back to volume one. In addition to journals, it also contains treaties, the federal register, some classic treatises and some federal legislative materials. Subscription to HeinOnline is sponsored by the Wiener-Rogers Law Library.
Military & Government This link opens in a new window
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1751-present
Government reports, laws, legislative histories, ebooks and selected scholarly articles related to branches of the United States armed forces.
Research government administration of the armed forces along with issues confronting the military on and off the battlefield with access to primary source documents including committee prints, government reports, congressional hearings, legislative hearings, etc. The database also includes books, serials, periodicals and scholarly articles.
Confidential Print: North America This link opens in a new window
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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.

Serial Set Links: U.S. Congressional Documents

Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
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1775-2000
Tables of data related to population, work and welfare, and international relations.
A source for quantitative indicators of American history, this database of almost 2000 tables covers nearly every quantifiable dimension in American history, including population, work and welfare, and international relations from the earliest times to the present. Chapters are preceded by essays that introduce the quantitative history of their subject, provide a guide to the sources, and offer expert advice on the reliability of the data and the limits that might be placed on their interpretation.
Territorial Papers of the United States This link opens in a new window
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1764-1953
Archival records of each territory of the United States before statehood. Includes Native American negotiations and treaties, correspondence with federal agencies, military records, judicial proceedings, population details, financial statistics, land records, and more.
Official documents include correspondence between territorial officials and federal agencies, details of tribal treaties, accounts of battles and troop movements, petitions for statehood, and records of agricultural and industrial production. Collections also contain firsthand accounts of frontier life via letters and financial documents.

Digitized photos and art images.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Photography (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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Collections of photographs, photograph albums, photographically illustrated books, and texts on the early history of photography found in libraries and archives across the globe.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
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Art digital images and related data.
A repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, social sciences and related data; the tools to actively use those images; and a restricted usage environment that seeks to balance the rights of content providers with the needs and interests of content user.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog This link opens in a new window
Images held by the Prints and Photographs division of the Library of Congress.
The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and other units of the Library of Congress. About 90% of the records are accompanied by one or more digital images. In some collections, only thumbnail images display to those searching outside the Library of Congress because of potential rights considerations.

Life Photo Archive
Millions of news and editorial photographs and other images dating from 1750 to the present. Includes many iconic images, but most were never published.
NYPL Digital Photo Collections
Includes several fashion design collections as well as many historical photos from the NY Public Library.
Smithsonian Photography Initiative
Online database of photographs dating from the 1850s to the present. Subjects cover the arts and literature, culture and society, nature and science, industry and technology, history and geography. Includes both professional photos and amateur snapshots.
UNLV digital photo collections
Search collection of photos of Nevadans and more held in UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives.

These links allow you to search across multiple databases at the same time.

Accessible Archives combined search
Cross search 19thC American periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, and clippings.
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Collections include African American Newspapers, The Civil War A Newspaper Perspective, Godey's Lady's Book, South Carolina Newspapers (colonial), and antislavery and woman suffrage publications.

Americana This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all American history archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Combined search of American History, American Indian Histories and Cultures, American West, Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920, Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975, Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, and Virginia Company Archives.
AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.

EBSCO 19th C periodicals
Cross search American Antiquarian Society periodicals with African American Serials, Gateway to North America collections.
Elephind
Search across online newspaper collections including many state collections, many of the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspapers, and Australian and New Zealand collections.

Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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Includes 19th Century UK Periodicals, Archives of Sexuality & Gender (LGBTQ History), British Library Newspapers, The Economist (1843-2014), Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, Sabin Americana (1500-1926), China and the Modern World, London Times Digital Archive, and London Times Literary Supplement.
Historical U.S. Newspapers from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1841-2000 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest U.S. historical newspaper collections simultaneously.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender‎ (1909 - 1975)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune‎ (1849 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Christian Science Monitor‎ (1908 - 2003)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times‎ (1881 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times‎ (1851 - 2013)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Tribune‎ (1841 - 1922)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post‎ (1877 - 2000)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: U.S. West, including Reno Gazette-Journal (1876-2008), San Francisco Examiner (1889-2007), and Spokane Statesman-Review (1894-2009)
Historical Periodicals from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest historical periodical collections simultaneously.
American Periodicals‎ (1740 - 1940)
British Periodicals‎ (1681 - 1939)
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive‎ (1880 - 2000)
The Harper's Bazaar Archive‎ (1867 - current)
Periodicals Archive Online‎
The Vogue Archive‎
Women's Magazine Archive‎ (1846 - 2005)
The Women's Wear Daily Archive‎
Readex AllSearch This link opens in a new window
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1639-1922
Combined search of American historical newspapers (1690-1922), printed books (1639-1819), and pamphlets and ephemera (1749-1922).
Search all collections of historical primary sources from Readex simultaneously: America's Historical Newspapers, American Broadsides and Ephemera; American Pamphlets; Early American Imprints (Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker).

HIST 388 1003, Great Personalities: Abraham Lincoln (Green): Primary source databases

Reference Guides

The Americas, Primary Source Collections, 1801-1900

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