History Resources: 1750-1900

Primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History that cover the major themes of American History.

Written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

Congressional and Executive Department publications. Speeches and messages of Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.

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.

Primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States with some coverage of the abolitionist movement in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Canada,

Manuscript material from the Colonial Office files at the UK National Archives that documents all aspects of life in colonial America. Includes original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.

Papers of the British Foreign and Colonial Offices covering such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism, and the nuclear bomb.

Complete text of works cited in Charles Evans' American Bibliography, as enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography. Resource for information about life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, and witchcraft.

American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century which are many of the rarest materials published in early America. Based on the noted "American Bibliography, 1801-1819" by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.

Digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and other primary source materials. Collection modules include:

-Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
-Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
-American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971
-American Politics and Society
-International Relations and Military Conflicts
-Women's Studies
-Workers, Labor Unions, and the American Left in the 20th Century: Federal Records

Covering America’s transformative age of industrialization, expanding wealth, inequality and social change. Personal collections, business records and rich visual content offer fresh perspectives on this influential period.

Manuscripts, book collections, newspapers from various tribe and Indian-related organizations; materials such as Bibles, dictionaries and primers in Indigenous languages.

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. Separate sites at Cornell and the University of Michigan contain different sets of materials.

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.

Records and briefs brought before the US Supreme Court.

U.S. Congressional materials (hearings, bills, Congressional Record and compiled legislative histories) and Executive Branch documents.

Books, pamphlets, trade cards, and advertising ephemera showing popular remedies and treatments in nineteenth century America, aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals.

Primary and secondary sources and collections in American history and culture. Includes access to:
• Adams Papers
• Diaries of Gouverneur Morris
• Documentary History of the First Federal Congress
• Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution
• Dolley Madison
• Papers of Alexander Hamilton
• Papers of Andrew Jackson
• Papers of Andrew Johnson
• Papers of Benjamin Rush
• Papers of Booker T. Washington
• Papers of Daniel Webster
• Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry Digital Edition
• Papers of George Washington
• Papers of James K. Polk
• Papers of James Madison
• Papers of James Monroe
• Papers of John Marshall
• Papers of the Revolutionary Era Pinckney Statesmen
• Papers of Thomas Jefferson
• Papers of Ulysses S. Grant
• Papers of Woodrow Wilson
• People of the Founding Era
• Selected Papers of John Jay

Books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, through the early 1900s. Original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions, etc.

Books and pamphlets, US Supreme Court records, newspapers and periodicals, manuscripts, and reference materials for the scholarly study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective.

Pamphlets about Brazil, focused on history, politics and literature (for example: travel, immigration, public health).

Digitized historical documents from the National Archives (UK) covering the national heritage and political development of many countries in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Russia.

Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922: From Silk Road to Soviet Rule - collection of British Foreign Office diplomatic correspondence and memoranda provide insights not only into the impact of politics on the region, but also the region’s peoples, cultures and societies.

Manuscripts, rare printed sources, images, objects, and maps document the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China, and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries.

English-language monographs, manuscripts, periodicals, correspondence and letters, historical photos, ephemera, etc. on diplomacy/international relations, economy/trade, politics, Christianity, sinology, education, science and technology, imperialism, and globalization in China.

English-language original source material detailing China¹s interaction with the West. Provides insight into customs, events, and the monumental social and political upheaval that recreated China as a modern power.

Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.

Important papers generated by the British Government's Foreign and Colonial Offices between 1834-1966, ranging from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches.

Papers of the British Foreign and Colonial Offices, 1833-1969. Documents include dispatches, telegrams, investigative reports and treaties. Revolutions, political movements, railway development, the Panama Canal, the slave trade, immigration, the Vargas dictatorship in Brazil, indigenous relations.

Papers of the British Foreign and Colonial Offices covering events from the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Trial transcripts, court proceedings, police and forensic documents, photographs, true crime literature and detective novels, and newspaper accounts derived from French, German, Spanish, Australian, British and U.S. sources.

Early printed books in Arabic script. Covering religious literature, law, science, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, medicine, geography, travel, history, chronicles, and literature, and including European translations of Arabic works and Arabic translations of European books.

Executive papers and factory records of the East India Company charts the history of British trade with the East, politics, and the rise and fall of the British Empire.

Manuscript, printed, and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences, predominantly from the British Library. Secondary resources include scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.

African materials in books, magazines, newspapers, historical journals, government documents, oral history, photographs, art, music, and videos sourced from African organizations and archives around the world.

Ephemera about everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.

Rare books, ephemera, maps, periodicals, and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. Chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links. Fast literature, street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides), penny fiction, cartoons, Tallis’ Street Views, chapbooks, Old London Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, tourist guides, and topography, manuscripts of George Gissing.

Historical legal codes, statutes, regulations, and commentaries on codes from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other countries in northern Europe. Crucial sources of historical statutes and regulations for the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more. Collections: British Politics and Society, Asia & The West, British Theatre and Popular Culture, Corvey Collection of European Literature, Europe and Africa, Photography, Science, Technology, and Medicine Parts 1 & 2, Women Transnational Networks, Children Literature and Childhood, Mapping the World, Religion and the Periodical.

Primary source documents on key aspects of the history of slavery. The African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. Case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.

Full-text repository, search engine and preservation tool for openly available books, magazines, reports, historical journals, video, audio, zines, newspapers, letters, diaries and other primary sources.

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.

Records from slaving expeditions from archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world. Information about vessels, enslaved peoples, slave traders and owners, and trading routes. Statistical tables, graphs, maps, and timelines.

Unique or rare historical primary sources, digitized from leading societies, libraries, and archives around the world, and made accessible in ways that tie directly to research outcomes and educational goals. Contains tools for searching, browsing, analyzing and visualizing primary source content.