LibGuides: History: Books & Primary Sources

Books & Web Resources

Primary Sources
Books

According to the Library of Congress, "Primary sources are the raw materials of history— original documents and objects which were created at the time under study. They are different from secondary sources, accounts or interpretations of events created by someone without firsthand experience."

Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents. Most of the 20,000 items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65.
Ad*Access From Duke University, images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century Digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. This collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.
American Memory American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
The American Presidency Project The Public Papers of the Presidents contain most of the President's public messages, statements, speeches, and news conference remarks.
Avalon Project from Yale Law School The Avalon Project has digital, historical documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
British Pathé Since the invention of the moving image in the 1890s, British Pathé began recording every aspect of global culture and news, for the cinema. All 85,000 newsreels are now searchable and viewable on YouTube. This equates to 3,500 hours of filmed history.
Cookbooks and Home Economics Collection Over 5,000 cookbooks from UCLA, UC Berkeley and the Prelinger.
Core Documents of Our Democracy from the U.S. GPO This collection provides online access to the basic Federal Government documents that define our democratic society.
Cornell University Library Digital Collections The Cornell University Library Digital Collections contains many collections of historical significance.
Cornell University Library Making of America Collection The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source Sets Explore primary source documents, images and video for a wide range of topics from Yellow Journalism to the rise of suburbia.
Documenting the American South A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers Select papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
EuroDocs Find European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation.
European History Primary Sources Searchable index of scholarly digital repositories that contain primary sources for the history of Europe.
From Revolution to Reconstruction: Documents of American History This site is dedicated to the pre-World War I history of the United States of America and includes original documents, timelines, and more.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History contains the Gilder Lehrman Collection, an important archive for the study of American history.
National Archives: Black History
RPCI Tobacco Institute and Council for Tobacco Research Records This page links to many primary source documents and advertisements in tobacco's history.
Susan B. Anthony Papers From the Library of Congress
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database From Emory University, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database has information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
World Digital Library Significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials.

Digital Public Library of America The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science.
HathiTrust HathiTrust provides access to millions of digitized materials from around the world.
LibriVox LibriVox audiobooks are free for anyone to listen to on their computers, iPods or other mobile device, or to burn onto a CD. Titles on LibriVox are in the public domain and include a wide array of classic literature.
ManyBooks.net More than 29,000 eBooks available for Kindle, Nook, iPad and most other eReaders, and they're all free!
Open Library Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. It makes over 1,000,000 free ebook versions of classic literature available at your fingertips.
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebook versions of titles in the public domain to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.

One of the best ways to discover the perfect source for your topic is to browse the library stacks by call number range. Each call number range represents a particular subject and all of the books on a particular topic will be located in the same general area on the shelves. So if you want a book on the history of developing countries, go to the call number range beginning with D880 to see what we have!

LC Call Number	Subject
D 1-2017	History (General)
D (204)-(475)	Modern history, 1453-
D 410-(475)	20th Century
D 880-888	Developing countries
D 900-2009	Europe (General
DA 1-995	History of Great Britain
DAW 1001-1051	History of Central Europe
DB 1-3150	History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
DC 1-947	History of France
DD 1-(905)	History of Germany
DE 1-100	History of the Greco-Roman world
DF 10-951	History of Greece
DG 11-999	History of Italy
DH 1-925	History of Low Countries. Benelux Countries
DJ 1-(500)	History of Netherlands (Holland)
DJK 1-77	History of Eastern Europe (General)
DK 1-949.5	History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics
DL 1-1180	History of Northern Europe. Scandinavia
DP 1-402	History of Spain
DQ 1-851	History of Switzerland
DR 1-2285	History of Balkan Peninsula
DS 1-937	History of Asia
DT 1-3415	History of Africa
DU 1-950	History of Oceania (South Seas)
DX 101-301	History of Romanies
E 11-143	America
E 151-889	United States
F 1-975	United States local history
F 1-105	New England
F 106-205	Atlantic coast. Middle Atlantic States
F 206-295	The South. South Atlantic States
F 296-395	Gulf States. West Florida
F 396-475	Old Southwest. Lower Mississippi Valley
F 476-590	Old Northwest. Northwest Territory
F 590.3-705	The West. Trans-Mississippi Region. Great Plains
F 721-785	Rocky Mountains. Yellowstone National Park
F 786-850	New Southwest. Colorado River, Canyon, and Valley
F 850.5-951	Pacific States
F 975	Central American, West Indian, and other countries protected by and having close political affiliations with the United States (General)
F 1001-1145.2	British America
F 1170	French America
F 1201-3799	Latin America. Spanish America

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History: Books & Primary Sources

Books & Web Resources

Crash Course in History

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