LibGuides: Primary Sources Research Guide: Websites

Primary Source Internet Resources

Digital Collections - Library of Congress
The library of Congres's National Digital Library contains more than 40 collections, which feature historical photos, maps, documents, letters, speeches, recordings, videos, and more
American Presidency Project
The American Presidency project was established in 1999 as collaboration between John Woolley and Gerhard Peters at the University of California, santa Barbara. The archives contain 87,468 documents related to the study of the Presidency, including the Public Papers of the Presidents (1929-), presidential debates and conferences. Also available in Print: AE 2.113: (sudoc) and J 80 A283 (stack 4)
Avalon Project at Yale Law School Primary Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
The full text of digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government, from ancient times to the present
CCSU Digital Collections
Includes selected digitized materials from the Veterans History Project, CCSU Archives, the Lemon Law and Gov. William A. O'Neill Oral History Projects, and the Burritt Library Special Collections

Chronicling America This link opens in a new window
Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages. Supported by NEH, this rich digital resource will be developed and permanently maintained at the Library of Congress.

Department of State: Office of the Historian
The office of the Historian is responsible, under law, for the preparation and publication of the official historical documentary record of U.S. foreign policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. It researches and writes historical studies on aspects of U.S. diplomacy for use by policymakers in the Department and in other agencies, as well for public information.

Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new window
From the award-winning, nongovernmental National Security Archive, this resource consists of expertly curated, and meticulously indexed, declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events – including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions – from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews to provide unparalleled access to the defining international issues of our time.

Documenting the American South
Electronic Text archive from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, contains primary source slavery narratives and first person narratives of the South as well as a digitized library of Southern Literature
European History Primary Sources
An index of scholarly websites that offer online access to digitised primary sources on the history of Europe, created by the European University Insitute. Search collections by keyword or browse by country, language, period or subject.
Foreign Relations of the United States
The official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. This digital facsimile of Foreign Relations of the United States is a project of the Universtiy of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries in collaboration with the Universtity of Illinois at Chicago Libraries. This is an incomplete run from 1861-1960 with missing volumes being added as they can be acquired and processed. Also available in print: S1.1: (sudoc)
Harvard Digital Collections
Inaugural Adresses of the Presidents of the United States
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
NARA prserves historically valuable archives of the U.S. government, including documents, photographs, images, maps, audio clips, letters, speeches, and films.
OAIster
•Contains records of digital resources from open-archive collections worldwide.
•More than 23 million records representing digital resources from more than 1,100 contributors.
Perseus Project
Perseus is a growing collection of online resources for studying the ancient world. Materials include ancient texts and translations, maps, articles, essays, and images form over 70 museums around the world
Smithsonian Institution
The Smitsonian Institution offers access to primary resources on a wide variety of topics, including military and political history
Vincent Voice Library
This site features primary source sound samples, such as speech clips from many U.S. presidents and other notable figures in history.