Research Guides: ASAM 2101: Asian American History before 1924: Primary Sources

Key Collections

American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History that cover the major themes of American History.
Coverage: 1493-1945.
American West This link opens in a new window
Original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material, and rare printed sources from the Everett D. Graff Collection at the Newberry Library cover social, political, and economic aspects of the American West. Explore tales of frontier life, Indigenous Peoples, the growth of urban centers, and the environmental impact of westward expansion.
Coverage: Early 18th to Mid-20th Century.
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).

Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930
The above link goes to ProQuest Historical Vault database. Scroll down to American Politics and Society and you will see "Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Part 1: Asian Immigration and Exclusion, 1906-1913" and "Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Part 1: Supplement: Asian Immigration and Exclusion, 1898-1941"

Making of America (Michigan) This link opens in a new window
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.
Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to historical documents relating to famous trials during this time period.
Coverage: 1600-1926.
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.
Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
Document projects and archives, including book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools; organized around the history of women in social movements.
Coverage: 1600-2000.

Open Access Resources

Asian Nation: The Landscape of Asian America
Run by a scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, this site aims to serve as "an authoritative, one-stop information resource and sociological exploration of the historical, demographic, political, and cultural issues that make up today's diverse Asian American community."
Calisphere | University of California, Los Angeles
Calisphere Provides access to primary resources covering California history from 1780-present. Includes a themed collection on Asian Americans and items related to the Chinese Exclusion Act and over 200 artifacts relating to the 442nd Regional Combat Team.
Chinese American Experience: 1857-1892
Articles and advertisements from Harper's Weekly Magazines.
Chinese Historical Society
The Chinese Historical Society of Southern California Collection documents artifacts from two sites in Southern California. The first site is represented by about 1,040 color images of artifacts from the original Los Angeles Chinatown; an additional 150 images document artifacts from the site of a Chinese laundry in Santa Barbara.
Chinese in America Timeline
Densho
The Densho organization is dedicated to preserving and sharing the story of WWII-era incarceration of Japanese Americans. Densho's resources include digitized primary documents and images, oral history interviews, an encyclopedia, background information, and much more.
Digital History - Asian Voices
Categories include: Asia Discovers America, Asians and the Making of America, World War II and Asian Americans, The Newest Immigrants
Guide to the Chinese in California Virtual Collection
Korean American Digital Archive
This collection brings more than 13,000 pages of documents, over 1,900 photographs, and about 180 sound files together chronicling the Korean American community during the period of resistance to Japanese rule in Korea and reveals the organizational and private experience of Koreans in America between 1903 and 1965.
Out Of The Desert: Japanese and Japanese American Interment During WWII
Primary source materials from from Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.