Primary Source Databases - Buchanan Fellowship - U.S. Presidency: Challenges of the Executive Branch

Primary Sources

Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Includes documents related to US foreign relations and executive branch.
History Vault This link opens in a new window
Digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and other primary source materials.

• American Indians and the American West
• American Politics and Society
• Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
• International Relations and Military Conflicts
• Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
• Women's Studies
• Workers and Labor Unions
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs. Simultaneously search: 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, Sunday Times (London), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Making of the Modern World, Times Literary Supplement, and Times Digital Archive, Financial Times (London).
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy This link opens in a new window
Digital documents, including ebooks, relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government.
Coverage: Covers ancient times (BCE) to the present.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports This link opens in a new window
FBIS Daily Reports issued by the U.S. Government, includes translations of broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the world. Current coverage includes 1941-1996.
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945-80 (US Department of State) This link opens in a new window
Official documentary historical record of major US foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
Coverage: 1945-80.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive legal research database. Extensive coverage of law reviews and historical access to resources such as the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, and US Supreme Court decisions. Legislative history and select foreign and international materials. Contains specialized libraries: intellectual property, taxation and economic reform, etc.
Nixon Years This link opens in a new window
Complete UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 7 and 82 files for the entire period of Richard Nixon's presidency.
Coverage: 1969-1974.
Presidential Recordings Digital Edition This link opens in a new window
Recordings and annotated transcripts of telephone conversations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Transcripts are searchable and browseable by administration, series, speaker, date, place, and duration.
Presidential Recordings Program This link opens in a new window
American presidential recordings in the White House between 1940 and 1973, presidential speeches, and presidential oral histories.
Proquest Congressional Publications This link opens in a new window
U.S. Congressional materials (hearings, bills, Congressional Record and compiled legislative histories) and Executive Branch documents.

Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs and newsreels, field recordings, commercials, raw footage, and thousands of award-winning films.
Docuseek2 This link opens in a new window
Streaming access to documentary and social issue films from a variety of distributors, including Bullfrog, Collective Eye, and Icarus Films.
Kanopy This link opens in a new window
On-demand streaming video service for documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases. Films under a current license agreement are available for immediate viewing. Other films may require a request through the Kanopy site. Viewing films in a group forum is permitted as long as the viewing is by Vanderbilt authorized viewers only (current faculty, staff, or students) and it is not for commercial benefit (i.e. no admission costs are charged and no profit is made from the screening).
HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Oral history interviews with both well-known and unsung African American artists, business leaders, scientists, athletes, and intellectuals.
Socialism on Film This link opens in a new window
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.

HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized collections of some of the nation’s great research libraries, established in this repository to archive and share their digital content.
Access Note: VU is a partner institution. Login is required for downloading. Tutorial: https://researchguides.library.vanderbilt.edu/HathiTrustAccess