Blough-Weis Library: History Research Guide: U.S. & Canada

Primary Source Databases

This section includes library databases which consist principally of primary sources for United States (and some Canadian) history. They are very roughly sorted by topic and/or time period here. Many are part of the EBSCO databases, and can be searched simultaneously.

Broad Coverage, Many Types of Sources

Adam Matthew Collection List This link opens in a new window
This is actually a curated group of source collections which cover five centuries and four continents. The collections are grouped by topic and many include timelines, explanatory articles, and other resources.

Broad Coverage, Historic Periodicals

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1(1684-1820) This link opens in a new window
Series I is broad in scope and covers all aspects of American society from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 2 (1821-1837) This link opens in a new window
Series 2, covering the Jacksonian era, includes materials on agriculture, entertainment, history, literary criticism, and politics.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 3 (1838-1852) This link opens in a new window
Series 3 covers the period 1838-1852, a time of rapid industrialization, and subjects include science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women's fashion, family life, and religion.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 4 (1853-1865) This link opens in a new window
Series 4 covers the years immediately preceding and including the Civil War, 1853-1865.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 5 (1866-1912) This link opens in a new window
Series 5 covers the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, from 1866-77.

Current Events and History Periodicals, 1691-1912
This collection consists primarily of publications focused on current events of the 18th and 19th centuries, including regular reports on economics and government affairs. Also represented are periodicals dedicated to local news and interests, and titles that take the country's history as their main subject.
Canadian Periodicals, 1790-1877
This modest collection includes periodicals published in Canada (the majority), and those whose main subject is Canadian history, literature, or politics (the minority). Titles are in English and French, and were published in cities such as Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto, among others. The publications cover tourism, education, literature, the law, religion, and even stamp collecting.
Foreign Language Periodicals in America, 1684-1904
These periodicals were published in foreign languages in the United States, primarily during the 18th and 19th centuries. They include religious, literary, and political magazines which spoke to and reflected the interests and concerns of immigrant and ethnic communities. In addition to works published in the United States, titles came from Paris, Montreal, London, Hamburg, Leipsig, and Mexico; languages include French, Spanish, Norwegian, German, Swedish, and Welsh.
Periodicals of the British Empire and its Colonies, 1702-1879
This collection represents literature of the British Empire. Many of the periodicals were printed in Europe, Canada or appear as publications reissued in America. A few titles come from Asia. Notable editors and contributors include Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Paine, and Richard Steele.
Periodicals from Around the World, 1691-1880
The Periodicals from Around the World, 1691-1880 collection is comprised of titles that were either published outside of the United States, or published within the United States but largely concerned with foreign countries. They were read by both American and international audiences.London, Calcutta, Ottawa, Montreal, Foochow, Bombay, Madras, Edinburgh, Halifax, and Toronto are among the many places of publication represented here.

HISTORIC PERIODICALS, by topic:

Civil War and Slavery

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.

Slavery and Abolition, 1789-1887
This collection chronicles the African-American experience during the 19th century. While subjects run the gamut and include a fair amount of titles covering religion and literature, the bulk are related to slavery and abolition.
American Civil War, 1855-1868
These periodicalsspan the immediate years before the Civil War to the beginnings of Reconstruction, with a number of long-running periodicals that chronicle the war from various perspectives, such as Harper's Weekly and the Atlantic Monthly. Less conventional titles can also be found, such as the Millennial Harbinger and Gleason's Literary Companion, and a number of abolitionist and secessionist titles.

Science, Medicine, and Agriculture

Scientific Periodicals, 1771-1901
This collection contains publications related chiefly to the hard sciences: mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, physics, geology (including mining), and the like. It also contains a few social sciences titles and literary magazines with science content.
American Medicine, Surgery, Dentistry Periodicals, 1786-1877
This collection contains publications focused on professional medical thought, including dental practice, during the nineteenth century. detailed illustrations and diagrams use what were at the time state-of-the-art printing techniques, these journals chronicle the development of medical and surgical techniques over time.
Alternative Medicine and Health, 1810-1877
These periodicals were dedicated to the concept of healthy living and alternative medicines, and includes herbal guides and patent medicine circulars. The variety of alternative health options are extensive, exploring such movements as electrology, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, magnetism, phrenology, and Thomsonian medicine.
Agricultural Periodicals from the Southern, Midwestern, and Western U.S., 1800-1878
This collection focuses on agriculture during the 19th century, when most Americans lived on farms and agriculture was the country's leading industry. These magazines include advertisements for fertilizer dealers and makers of farm equipment, recipes and advice for farm women, instructions for performing one's own medical and veterinary treatments, records of the latest technological and agricultural developments, reports from agricultural fairs, and more. Regional periodicals were especially popular, adapted to the particular climates and soil conditions of the area.
Agricultural Periodicals from the Northeastern U.S., 1789-1879
This collection focuses on publications about farming-related activities in the 19th century, when most Americans still lived on farms, and agriculture was the country's leading industry. These publications include architectural plans for farmhouses and outbuildings, advertisements for fertilizer dealers and makers of farm equipment, recipes and advice for farm women, instructions for performing one's own medical and veterinary treatments, records of the latest technological and agricultural developments, reports from agricultural fairs, and more. Regional periodicals were especially popular, adapted to the particular climates and soil conditions of the area.

Women and Family Interest

Women's Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, 1733-1844
This collection contains women's periodicals from the Colonial through the Jacksonian Era, spanning roughlythe 1730's-1840's. Because almost all of the women's periodicals by nature covered many topics, the titles included in this collection highlight radically changing perceptions of womanhood and ideas about the role of women over time. Some representative titles are: the Lady's Monthly Museum or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction, the Ladies' Companion, the Lady's Book, and Margret Fuller's Transcendentalist publication, the Dial.
Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1845-1865
This collection includes a number of female authors and publishers who helped to cement the foundations of women's active role in American social and religious movements. Notable long-running publications include Dickens' Household Words and Valuable Whispers, Godey's Lady's Book, the Ladies Repository, and Peterson's Magazine.
Women's Periodicals of the Nineteenth Century, 1866-1891
These titles span the later part of the nineteenth century and represent a broad range of subjects and places of publication, from religious and cultural periodicals from the South to domestic and parenting magazines from the North. A few representative titles include Harper's Bazaar, the Southern Review, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Hearth and Home, as well as political magazines The Agitator, the True Woman, and the Woman's Advocate.
Popular Educational Periodicals, 1758-1889
This collection presents the 18th- and 19th-century lyceums, athenaeums, and universities across the United States. The titles address the pursuit of the sciences, history and the arts.
Fireside Companions and Family LIterature Periodicals, 1805-1877
This collection draws from a rich tradition of family and children's literature. Many of the titles focus on courtship, marriage and child-rearing by emphasizing moral, wholesome, family living. Researchers can also find a number of children's Sunday School and temperance periodicals.
Temperance in America, 1826-1877
This collection explains how the temperance movement originated through religious and benevolent groups, how it quickly spread throughout the country, and the various kinds of temperance advocated, from calls for moderation to total abstinence.

Literary and Cultural

Drama, Humor, and Fine Arts Periodicals, 1774-1877
Titles here run the gamut and include the general arts; photography; theater; and wit and humor.
American Literary Periodicals, 1782-1834
The work of many notable writers can be found here, including early pieces by Washington Irving and Charles Brockden Brown, among others. These periodicals and the authors who contributed to them catalyzed the beginning of distinctly American literary movements that marked a sharp break from European literary traditions. Representative titles include the Knickerbocker, the New York Magazine or Literary Repository, and the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, as well as a few reprints of European titles, included to give scholars both a broader context and a perspective on residual European influences.
American Literary Periodicals, 1835-1858
Many of America's most famous 19th-century writers found their start and, in many cases, their livelihoods, by writing for these periodicals. Notables range from James Fenimore Cooper to Edgar Allen Poe. Their work appeared in a several periodicals devoted to literature and the arts, such as the New York Mirror, and more general publications like Putnam's Monthly and Ralph Waldo Emerson's Massachusetts Quarterly Review.
American Literary Periodicals, 1859-1891
Notables authors include Mark Twain and Walt Whitman as they published in the definitive literary periodicals of their age such as Lippincott's Magazine, the Galaxy, the Ladies Repository, and Littell's Living Age.
Musical Periodicals, 1781-1879
This collection gathers publications dedicated to various aspects of music, from the sacred to the secular, from the political to the comic. Often including related content on the arts, literature, and sometimes science, these periodicals show music in a larger cultural context, as music was also an important leisure activity for families and communities.
Cultural Periodicals from the Southern U.S., 1797-1877
The Cultural Periodicals from the Southern U.S., 1797-1877 collection is comprised of periodicals published in the South during the nineteenth century that focus on cultural concerns, broadly defined. Here, researchers will find publications devoted to education, literature, women's interests, philanthropic and benevolent endeavors, temperance advocacy, Masonic activities, general social movements, and more. Places of publication include Richmond, Lynchburg, Lexington, the lower Mississippi, New Orleans, Baltimore, Atlanta, Charleston, Macon, St. Louis.
Literary Periodicals of New England, 1789-1878
This collection represents literary periodicals published in the cities and towns of the northeast during the nineteenth century. Absent here are publications from Boston as the emphasis is on small publications from more remote places. They paint a picture of an early, home-grown literary tradition that is starkly different from the more dominant literature found in mass-circulated publications. In addition, this collection also offers periodicals written about Yankees and their culture.
Hobbies, Socialization, and Sport Periodicals, 1775-1889
This collection includes periodicals dedicated to fairs and bazaars, public lectures, sporting events, hobbies, and more. A sampling of titles: Turf Field and Farm, the Bat and Ball, the Gymnast, Mason's Coin and Stamp Collectors' Magazine, the Magic Lantern, the Dubuque Chess Journal, and the Voice of the Fair.
Story Papers, Dimes and Dollar Periodicals, 1828-1877
This collection reflecting the progression during the nineteenth century as printed materials became cheaper to produce due to technological advances. During this time, story papers, dime publications and dollar magazines were exceedingly popular.

Religious

Religious Periodicals for Women, Children, and Families, 1804-1878
These periodicals focused on the spiritual and religious lives of women, children, and families, representing various denominations and churches, including Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal and Baptist. Subjects include motherhood, child rearing, fatherhood, music, prayer, children's literature, and religious formation. Broader social themes include anti-slavery, universalism, and temperance.
Religious Periodicals from the Southern U.S., 1801-1904
This collection contains periodicals published in the South during the nineteenth century focused on spiritual concerns, from a number of denominations, including Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Unitarians.
Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Episcopal Periodicals, 1797-1904
This collection includes local church publications, diocesan newspapers, fair periodicals, reports from denominational conferences, and many other titles. Subjects covered in this collection include theological disputes, arminianism, ant-clericalism, anti-Catholicism, Wesleyanism, and the spiritual interests of various ethnic communities.
Baptists, Quakers, and Independent Church Periodicals, 1797-1881
This collection particularly presents the growth of the Baptist church, whose first American church was founded in Providence, Rhode Island in 1638. The collection also contains periodicals representing smaller church communities such as the New Jerusalem Church, Quakers, Shakers, Mennonites, Moravians, Brethren, and Church of God.
Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed Church Periodicals, 1803-1902
This collection contains periodicals giving insight into the distinct Protestant ecclesial communities of Congregational, Presbyterian, and Reformed churches.
Theology and Biblical Studies Periodicals, 1769-1877
This collection focuses on biblical studies and theological reflection, in both lay and academic forms. The collection represents a broad cross-section of religious groups and major theological traditions: Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Catholics, Calvinists, Wesleyans, Arminians, and more. Prominent titles include the Bible Society Record from the American Bible Society, the Religious Intelligencer, the Princeton Review, and the Christian Herald.
Sunday School Periodicals, 1818-1885
This collection features a broad cross-section of Sunday school literature that was read in churches and at home, together with training and preparation materials for teachers. Subjects covered in these publications include Bible and catechism lessons, music, and poetry. Church communities represented here include Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Brethren, Unitarian, Lutheran, Church of God, Mormon, and various Sunday School Unions.
Religious Periodicals from the Southern U.S., 1801-1904
This collection contains periodicals published in the South during the nineteenth century focused on spiritual concerns, from a number of denominations, including Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Unitarians.
Emerging American Religions, 1821-1895
This collection consists of periodicals that chronicle new religious movements founded in America during the nineteenth century, including the Adventists, Mormons, Disciples of Christ, Holiness/Pentecostals, millennialists, and Unitarians. Subjects include camp meetings, health and wellness, apologetics, and theology.
Missionary and Charity Periodicals
This collection focuses on missionary and charity work undertaken by various faith groups for both foreign and domestic missions, and represents outreach that included African-Americans, Native Americans, women, the poor, immigrants, and specific ethnic groups. Subjects include slavery, home missions, hospital work, and social problems.
Alternative Faith and Philosophy Periodicals, 1789-1878
This collection of periodicals is focused on titles that reflect alternative forms of worship and belief, such as Spiritualism, Universalism, astrology, communes, free thought, and rationalism.
General Interest Christian Periodicals, 1743-1889
This collection features titles that address broad religious themes and appealed to a general readership. Also featuredare a significant number of titles devoted to sermons from various sects.

Business and Industry

Business, Industrial and Professional Periodicals, 1774-1858
This collection represents the subjects of business and industry, broadly defined. The publications covered include journals devoted to specific trades and professions, as well as those promoting the interests of large industries, such as the railroads, and the growing financial sector.
Business, Industrial and Professional Periodicals, 1859-1870
This collection represents the subjects of business and industry, broadly defined, and includes journals devoted to specific trades and professions, as well as those promoting the interests of industry. Subjects also include finance and the emerging service industries.
Advertising Periodicals, 1815-1888
This collection features periodicals that were primarily used as advertising vehicles in both large cities and small towns. The titles here show the various kinds of goods and services that were available to consumers and how retailers marketed them. Subjects include medicine, fashion, business, industry, agriculture, books, literature, abolition, and publishing.
Commercial Periodicals from the Southern U.S., 1811-1877
This collection is comprised of periodicals published in the South during the nineteenth century, in particular those focused on commercial and business concerns, broadly defined, such as agriculture, banks and banking, business and industry, technology, railroads, and advertising, small and large plantation farming, the business of keeping slaves, transportation networks, and more.
Business and General Education Periodicals, 1800-1885
This collection reflects a broad range of pedagogical methods and teaching in the classrooms of public and private schools. Also included are titles dedicated to teaching in college, teaching trades and professional skills, teaching English grammar and foreign languages, and more.
Military and Law Enforcement Periodicals, 1691-1877
These publications pertain to the military broadly and to the experiences of soldiers and sailors specifically. They include official publications; general titles for soldiers and sailors; publications devoted to military-related benevolent organizations and activities; and periodicals dedicated to temperance and religious concerns. Supplementing this core of military-related titles is a group of periodicals pertaining to early law enforcement.
Periodicals of the American West, 1779-1881
These publications created the literary and cultural traditions of the Young America and later Manifest Destiny movements. Highlights include Harper's Weekly, John L. O'Sullivan's writings in Northern Lights, the essays of Josiah Strong in the Home Missionary and Pastor's Journal, as well as numerous small town western publications.
Masons, Odd-Fellows and Other Societal Periodicals, 1794-1877
These periodicals represent nineteenth-century Americans, primarily men, who organized themselves into various friendly and fraternal societies loosely based on ethnic, social, or political affiliation -- primarily, but not exclusively the masons.
American Political Periodicals, 1715-1891
This chronicles the key political issues and movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a range of political affiliations, from republicans to radicals, confederates to communists. Content includes satire and political cartoons, literary publications, and issues-focused publications.
College and Student Periodicals, 1806-1877
This collection captures a broad view of the events, humor, and lifestyle of campuses around the country. Included are college student titles from the northeast, from the South; from the Midwest; and from the West Coast. The collection also includes titles featuring schools' literary efforts. Diverse types of schools are represented here, including technical colleges, military academies, and business schools. A number of publications were largely written by and for women.
American Political and Social Movements, 1815-1884
This collection chronicles the prevailing social, religious, political, and benevolent movements of the day. Represented here are the publications of the anarchists and the communists, those espousing rights for workingmen, publications for immigrants and for "native" Americans. Also to be found here are periodicals pertaining to various social movements from early women's rights periodicals to periodicals promoting language reform and phonetics.

Primary Sources Elsewhere

Here are a number of databases which include primary sources for United States (and to some extent, Canadian) history.

Using Primary Sources on the Web
Great collection of links for finding primary sources available on the web.
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From Reference and Users Services Association (RUSA). Students and researchers now have greater access to primary source materials for historical research than ever before. The traditional use of sources available in print and microfilm continues to be the foundation for research, but in some cases documents, letters, maps, photographs of ancient artifacts and other primary material are available online in different formats from free websites or subscription services on the internet.
Making of America
Primary sources in American history.
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Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of 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.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Photographs and other items on American history & culture, veteran history, and more.
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The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. The following services are your gateway to a growing treasury of digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, and books, as well as "born digital" materials such as Web sites. In addition, the Library maintains and promotes the use of digital library standards and provides online research and reference services.
Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
Collections of digital materials in various subject areas dealing with law, history, and diplomacy.
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The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.
Digital Collections: The Virginia Center for Digital History
Digital libraries on various topics including American Civil War, Television News of the Civil Rights Era, Racial Segregation Laws , and other topics.
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.
Presidential Recordings Program
Between 1940 and 1973, six American presidents from both political parties—Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon—secretly recorded on tape just under 5,000 hours of their meetings and telephone conversations. Find transcripts and audio of these recordings here.
Salem History
Includes: Milestone Documents - A new, primary source series; The Decades - Salem's critically acclaimed American history series; Great Lives from History - The definitive, worldwide biographical resource; Great Events from History - The complete resource for worldwide events
Discovering American Women's History Online
Digital collection of primary sources.
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This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to Katrina Thomas photographs of ethnic weddings from the late 20th century.
HathiTrust Digital Library
Contains digital books uploaded from many different institutions. HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.
Expeditions and Discoveries
The fourth in a series of online collections from Harvard University, Expeditions and Discoveries delivers maps, photographs, and published materials, as well as field notes, letters, and a unique range of manuscript materials on selected expeditions between 1626 and 1953. Browse by region/country.

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Advertising Collections from Duke This link opens in a new window
Start here to access collections ranging from historical commercials, to early American advertising (1850-1920), to historic billboard ads and more. From the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University

AdViews Digital Collection
Historic commercials.
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Access to thousands of historic commercials created for clients or acquired by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency or its predecessor during the 1950s - 1980s.
Ad* Archives
U.S. & Canadian ad archive.
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1911-1955
Ad* Access presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.

Short-Term Access

Please note: these databases will only be available until June 2023. If you find material that's interesting or of use to you, please download it now!

NAACP Papers: The NAACP's Major Campaigns This link opens in a new window The focus of this module is on the NAACP's efforts to combat lynching, mob violence, discrimination in the criminal justice system, and white resistance to civil rights efforts. These files are supplemented by materials on segregation and discrimination complaints regarding public accommodations and recreational facilities sent to and investigated by the NAACP, and records on discrimination in employment. A particularly rich set of records in this module is the NAACP file on one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the 20th century--the case of the Scottsboro Boys. The NAACP's campaign against lynching and mob violence was ideally suited to accomplish the NAACP's early goals of breaching the wall of silence regarding racial discrimination and racial violence, and bringing African Americans into full civic participation. The records pertaining to this campaign shed light on the Great Migration of the early 20th century and the movement of African Americans to urban areas, and NAACP's efforts to respond to urban mob violence, especially during the violence of 1919 as well as later riots. The NAACP's efforts to win passage of a federal law against lynching are also well-documented in this module.

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Primary Sources Elsewhere

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