Primary Sources

Primary Source Databases
HathiTrust

Gale Primary Sources
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).
History Vault
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
Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS) (now called U.S. Declassified Documents Online)
Declassified government documents covering major domestic and international events since the end of World War II. Cabinet meeting minutes, correspondence, diary entries, intelligence reports, political analyses and technical studies from the White House, State Department, National Security Agency, FBI, and CIA.
Digital National Security Archive
Full-text collection of declassified documents relating to U.S. foreign policy decisions from post-World War II to the present.
Coverage: 1945 to present.
HeinOnline
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.
Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources, 1620-1926
State and municipal codes, documents relating to constitutional conventions, and other resources in American legal history.
Making of the Modern World
Digital facsimile images of unique primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. History, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies, etc.
Coverage: 1450-1930.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers
Historical and current working documents from the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including papers, debates, journals, bills, and acts. Also included are command papers, Hansard (Official Report of debates), and public petitions to Parliament.
Vendor Tutorial: http://proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/login?url=https://proquest.libguides.com/parliamentary
Proquest Congressional Publications
U.S. Congressional materials (hearings, bills, Congressional Record and compiled legislative histories) and Executive Branch documents.

HathiTrust
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