United States History: Primary Sources
What is a primary source?
In the study of history, primary sources are documents, photographs, recordings, and artifacts created by contemporary historical actors or witnesses to historical events. Primary sources necessarily form the foundation of historical research. In the resources below you can find rich and multidimensional collections of primary sources from every era and reflecting every facet of United States history.
Detailed pictorial map of Yellowstone National Park, 1904. Creator: Unknown | Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. | License: Public domain; out of copyright (1904).
Primary Sources: Focus on U.S. History
- American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection This link opens in a new windowA vast collection of American historical periodicals, 17th-20th century. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- American Periodicals Series (APS) Online This link opens in a new windowAmerican journals and periodicals from the mid-18th through the 19th centuries.
- American Slave: A Composite Autobiography This link opens in a new windowA vast compendium of American slave narratives.
- Archives of Sexuality & Gender, Parts 1-2: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents on important aspects of LGBTQ life in the second half of the twentieth century. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Digital Public Library of America This link opens in a new windowItems from libraries, archives, and museums. More InfoFull-Text PUBLIC
- Early American Imprints I This link opens in a new windowA definitive resource for researching every aspect of 17th- and 18th-century America.
- Early Encounters in North America This link opens in a new windowLetters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters between Native Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Americans.
- Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activist, Political Activist, and Woman This link opens in a new windowPapers of a prominent voting rights activist and civil rights leader with a reputation as an electrifying speaker and fervent advocate.
- Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part I This link opens in a new windowDiscover the background of the ideas and cultures that have defined Indigenous societies, tribal organization, and Indian-white relations. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part II: The Indian Rights Association, 1882-1986 This link opens in a new windowDatabase centered on activities of Indian Rights Association. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new windowPrimary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States.
- Making of America This link opens in a new windowA digital library of primary sources in American social history.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Science, Technology, and Medicine This link opens in a new windowPrimary source materials from the long nineteenth century revealing the rapid acceleration of scientific, technical, and medical knowledge and covering every aspect of science. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents focused on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late-eighteenth to the early twentieth century, all through a transnational perspective.
More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY - ProQuest British Parliamentary Papers Collection, 18th-21st Centuries This link opens in a new windowThe Parliamentary Papers empowers researchers to explore the British perspective on historical and contemporary events through a vast and authoritative archive of official government documents spanning three centuries.
- Sabin Americana This link opens in a new windowFull-text access to the contents of a legendary bibliography covering every aspect of the history and culture of the Americas.More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Slavery and Anti-Slavery, Parts 1-4 This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents on all aspects of the phenomenon of slavery and its abolition in the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Student Activism This link opens in a new windowUnique and essential primary sources documenting the history of student organizing in the United States.More InfoFull-Text PUBLIC
- U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection This link opens in a new windowAn ongoing collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the directive of Congress.
- Women’s Studies Archive: Issues and Identities This link opens in a new windowPrimary source documents from the 19th and 20th centuries covering the social, political, and professional aspects of women’s lives and spanning multiple regions. More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training: Oral History CollectionThe world's largest collection of U.S. diplomatic oral history.
- New York Heritage Digital CollectionsProvides a research portal for those interested in the history of the New York State. This database brings together hundreds of digital collections which are freely accessible from libraries, museums, and archives throughout the state.
Maps
- Digital Sanborn Maps - New York This link opens in a new windowElectronic access to Sanborn fire insurance maps for New York State from 1867-1970. More InfoData UB ONLY
- Maps and Cartography: Map CollectionsA guide to maps and cartographic resources by UB Map Librarian, David Bertuca.
Primary Sources: Focus on America and Europe
- ACRL European Studies Section: Research GuidesEuropean Studies Research Guides (LibGuides) are curated by ACRL ESS members and offer freely available scholarly resources related to European regions and topics.
- The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and DiplomacyThe Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
- Bibliothèque Nationale de France: GallicaA portal to the vast collections of digitized, primary-source books and documents at the Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library of France).
- EuroDocs: Online Sources for European HistoryA portal to a vast number of digital collections in European history, organized by country or broad subject area.
- Europeana Newspapers (EN)EN makes historic newspaper pages searchable via two prominent cultural heritage websites: Europeana and The European Library. It aggregates 18 million historic newspaper pages, including 10 million newspaper pages in full text, and uses a special content viewer to improve online newspaper browsing.
- European History Primary SourcesA searchable index of scholarly digital repositories containing primary sources for the history of Europe, including the major national digital libraries and many smaller digitization projects in Europe.
- Library of Congress: Digital CollectionsLibrary of Congress Digital Collections provide free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience and offer a digital record of American history and creativity.
- Library of Congress: Chronicling AmericaChronicling America is a website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): 100 Milestone Documents in American HistoryOne hundred milestone documents in American history reaching from 1776 to 1965.
- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): The Digital Vault on DocsTeachAccess thousands of primary sources covering a wide variety of historical topics at the National Archives, or borrow from an ever-expanding collection of document-based activities built by the National Archives education staff and teachers around the country.
- Sabin Americana This link opens in a new windowFull-text access to the contents of a legendary bibliography covering every aspect of the history and culture of the Americas.More InfoFull-Text UB ONLY
- University of Michigan: Making of AmericaA digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Particularly strong in education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Circa 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
Images
- AP Images This link opens in a new windowThousands of photos, graphics, and sound bites accompanying AP news stories.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowCurated collections of top-quality images of artworks and rich metadata.
- Digital Collections - University at Buffalo Libraries This link opens in a new windowThousands of images relevant to historical research in multiple unique collections.
- Digital Public Library of America This link opens in a new windowRich, primary-source image material from libraries, archives, and museums in the U.S.
- Europeana This link opens in a new windowMillions of images and other audiovisual materials from European libraries, archives, and museums.
- ProQuest History Vault This link opens in a new windowPrimary source images related to the most widely studied topics in 19th and 20th-century American history.
- Google ImagesSearch millions of images on the open web.
Guides to Research With Images
Researchers seeking images for use in historical inquiry will find these guides especially useful:
Audio & Video
- AVON - Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowStreaming video in a wide range of subjects and genres. More InfoStreaming Media UB ONLY
- DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) This link opens in a new windowStreaming audio recordings of American music, along with liner notes and essays.
- Kanopy Streaming Service This link opens in a new windowHundreds of feature-length documentaries and feature films, including generous selections from the library of international and arthouse films offered by the Criterion Collection.
- NAXOS Music Library This link opens in a new windowOnline streamable recordings of classical, jazz, world and folk music, with liner notes and other supplementary materials.
- OntheBoards.tv This link opens in a new windowProvides video-on-demand access to works of dance, theatre, music and other performative art forms.
- Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new windowThe world's biggest archive of music journalism and pop writing of the last 60 years.
- Swank Digital Campus This link opens in a new windowStreaming dozens of mass-market Hollywood films of interest to students, instructors, and researchers.