Primary sources
Letter from George Washington to his mother, Mary Ball Washington.
Image 46 of George Washington Papers, Series 2, Letterbooks 1754-1799: Letterbook 1, Aug. 11, 1754 - Dec. 25, 1755. Library of Congress.
LibKey Nomad
Use Advanced Search!
- Date range = 1760-1790 (newspapers); 1763-1790 (pamphlets)
- Keywords (full text): use olde tyme spellings (gaol vs jail vs prison; f vs s)
- Keywords: learn new keywords from semi-failed searches (prison!)
- Try advanced search hacks, like...
- Use quotes to search for "exact phrases"
- wom*n = woman AND women
- ?ouse* = mouse, mouses, mousey, house, houses, blouses, etc.
- Take EXTREMELY careful notes, and/or use Zotero!
Major collections (newspapers, pamphlets, letters, etc)
- Colonial America This link opens in a new window
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Original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, covering the period 1606 to 1822.
Full text can be fallible; also use subject searching!
- Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
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Manuscripts, artwork, rare printed books, photographs, Indigenous newspapers, treaties, speeches, diaries, maps, travel journals, and more. Material from and about Native American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, to the civil rights movement of the 20th century.
Try the search term "US War of Independence"
- Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
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Primary source documents dating from 1490 to the near present from across the Atlantic world relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition, and social justice. - America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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[Former title: Early American Newspapers]
NEWSPAPERS: Images and content from historical American newspapers.
Try using the "Article Type" or "Publication Location" facet to narrow your results!
- Readex AllSearch This link opens in a new window
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An alternate platform to search America's Historical Imprints [Early American Imprints] and America's Historical Newspapers [Early American Newspapers]. Be sure to select the collection(s) you want from the gray drop-down!
Broadsides and Pamphlets
- America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
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[Former title: Early American Imprints]
Primary documents that cover every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America. Includes the ability to search and browse by genre of source, such as only poems or advice literature.
SAMPLE BROADSIDE SEARCH:
Subject = Politics and government
AND Date = 1763-1790
AND Genre = Broadsides
...and/or: Select Collection: American Broadsides and Ephemera
SAMPLE PAMPHLET SEARCH:
Subject = Politics and government
AND Date = 1775-1787
AND Citation text = "Amer. Pamphlets" OR "Brit. Pamphlets"
...then, as always, read the search results carefully!
**You may also want to look at some of the pamphlets in Special Collections that Rebecca pulled for you to look at.
Archives of the Founders
- Founders Online (National Archives)Correspondence and other writings of six major shapers of the United States: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. All documents have been transcribed (i.e. easily readable) and have footnotes to help contextualize the documents.
always search this collection with all lower case text!
- Adams FamilyFrom the Massachusetts Historical Society, contains images of diaries, letters, and manuscripts.
- Thomas Jefferson Papers (Library of Congress)Dating from the early 1760s through his death in 1826, the Thomas Jefferson Papers consist mainly of his correspondence, but they also include his drafts of the Declaration of Independence, drafts of Virginia laws; his fragmentary autobiography; the small memorandum books he used to record his spending; the pages on which for many years he daily recorded the weather; many charts, lists, tables, and drawings recording his scientific and other observations; notes; maps; recipes; ciphers; locks of hair; wool samples; and more.
- James Madison Papers (Library of Congress)From the Library of Congress, a collection of documents from the life of the man who came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and his notes on the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention.
More Newspapers
- 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Includes multiple American newspapers from the late 18th century, including (but not limited to!): Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, Rivington's New York Gazetteer or The Connecticut New Jersey Hudson's River and Quebec Weekly Advertiser , Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet or The General Advertiser, New York Gazette, South Carolina Gazette, and others.
- Boston GazetteIrregular issues from the 1770s and 1780s (plus others).
- Maryland GazetteCovers the period 1728-1839. Browse high quality images of issues.
- South Carolina GazetteIrregular holdings from 1777-1780
- Virginia GazetteBrowse or Search "One of the Library's most important digital collections is the Virginia Gazette, published weekly in Williamsburg, 1736-1780; the news covered all Virginia and included some information for other colonies, Scotland, England etc."
- American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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MAGAZINES and some NEWSPAPERS: Collection of American magazines and journals, 1740-1920. Includes American Periodicals Series Online and American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries.
Other collections online
- The Massachusetts Historical SocietySince its founding in 1791, the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) has been devoted to the collection and preservation of documents pertaining to American history. With vast manuscript holdings, the MHS is an important research center, as well as home to the Adams Papers project and a variety of other editorial and publication ventures. Its attractive and well designed Website, with numerous and impressive online exhibits, archive
- Colonial Connecticut Records, 1636-1776Connecticut's colonial public records, published in the late nineteenth century. Also available (along with Blue Laws) in the Internet Archive.
- Library of Congress: Creating the US exhibitIncludes excerpts (not full scans) of digitized documents relating to the creation of the United States.
- Objects from Colonial WilliamsburgDigital library of objects from the collections at Colonial Williamsburg.
- The Geography of Slavery in VirginiaProject from the University of Virginia to archive advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
- American Archives: Documents of the American Revolutionary Period1774-6. The printer Peter Force collected thousands of pamphlets, booklets, and newspaper articles pertaining to the "Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America" from the Revolutionary Era in order to preserve them for future generations. Check out this article by Tara Dirst and Allan Kulikoff in Common-place (Oct 2005) for ideas about how to use this enormous site.
- Elizabeth Murray ProjectThe archive includes letters, portraits, newspaper articles, and maps relating to this woman.
- Black LoyalistsPart of Canada's Digital Collections Program; "The Documents section contains a number of original historical documents which we have transcribed for your use, including several first hand accounts of life as a Black Loyalist in Nova Scotia. In addition we have court records, official proclamations, personal letters, and a wealth of other material..."
- American Revolution: Documentary HistoryDocuments from the Avalon Project (law, history, diplomacy) at Yale.
- Native Northeast Portal(Formerly named the Yale Indian Papers Project; some images available at Yale) Digitized primary source materials relating to the history of Native Americans in the Northeast, which are transcribed and annotated.
