LibGuides: Primary Sources for Historical Research : Databases for Historical Research

Online Databases for Historical Research

Below, are some primary source databases that are available freely online or through UNCW Library. These only scratch the surface of online collections of primary sources. To search more specifically for your topic, try searching for the topic plus archives, primary sources, or digital collection. For example, doing a quick search for civil rights primary sources in Google finds this Civil Rights Digital Library, containing important documents, photographs, and videos from the Civil Rights era.

PLEASE NOTE: All UNCW Library primary source databases are listed here (or, from the library homepage, go to Databases --> By Type --> Primary Sources (Historical)). They cover both U.S. and international topics, stretching back centuries.

Accessible Archives
Diverse primary source materials reflecting broad views across American history and in a comprehensive databases. Find more information.

Amdocs: Documents for the Study of American History
Index of primary source documents relevant to American history. Documents dated 800-2009.

Archives Unbound
Presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Collections in Archives Unbound cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Collections are chosen for Archives Unbound based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.
CQ Historic Documents Series Online
Published annually since 1972, the Historic Documents Series now contains 38 volumes of primary sources. Each volume includes approximately one hundred documents covering the most significant events of the year. These documents range from presidential speeches, international agreements, and Supreme Court decisions to U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions Find more information.

David Rumsey Map Collection
High quality map images, with emphasis on 19th and 20th century North and South America.
Digital Library on American Slavery
Searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color, numbering 150,000
Digital Public Library of America
Provides access to millions of images, photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, and more from libraries, archives, and museums across the U.S.
Documenting the American South
Resource providing documents, images, and audio files related to the history, literature, and culture of the American South.
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History
Resource for documents related to Western European history including many primary historical documents. Documents are transcribed or translated if needed.
Europeana
Searchable collection of resources works with thousands of European archives, libraries, and museums to provide to users access This website gives you access to millions of books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools to help you find what you’re looking for.

Gale Literary Sources
Presents industry-leading literature content, including criticism, biographies, reference articles, reviews, primary sources, plot analysis, explication, and multimedia. Up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on more than 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world. Searches across Gale Virtual Reference Library, Literature Criticism Online, Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online and Something About the Author Online.
Gale Primary Sources
Allows users to search across all of Randall Library’s Gale primary source collections.

History Matters
Resource for high school and college teachers and students. Serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history.

History Study Center
A collection of primary and secondary sources on global history from ancient times to the present day. Contents include reference books, essays, journal articles, historical newspaper and magazine articles, maps, rare books, government documents, transcripts of historical speeches, images and video clips.
History Vault
Researchers can access digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections. Our collections include Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle, Southern Life and Slavery, American Politics and Society, Workers and Labor Unions, American Indians and the American West, and Women’s Studies. Find more information.

Internet History Sourcebooks
A series of sourcebooks providing electronic access to documents in the public domain.
Making of America (Cornell)
Provides full-text access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles related to 19th century American history.

Making Of The Modern World
Provides digital facsimile images of primary sources that track the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Full-text searching across millions of pages of works from the periods 1450-1850, 1851-1914, and 1890-1945 provides researchers access to material for research in the areas of history, political science, social conditions, technology and industry, economics, area studies and more. Includes books, serials, pamphlets, essays and more.

New York Public Library Digital Collections
Resource provides digitized collections from The New York Public Library. Includes photography collections, early American manuscripts, fashion collections, and nature collections. The website also provides maps and atlases, as well as collections about New York City.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
Primary source collections of the “long” nineteenth century. Content includes monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more. Topics include Asia and the West, British Politics and Society, British Theatre, Music and Literature, Children's Literature, Europe and Africa, Mapping the World, Photography, Science, Technology and Medicine and Women. Find more information.

Perseus Digital Library
features a collections covering "the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world."

Sabin Americana
Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more.
You must create an account to use this resource.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
Primary source materials for the study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective. Our access includes the collections Debates over Slavery and Abolition, Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, The Institution of Slavery, and The Age of Emancipation. Includes newspaper collections, books and a broad selection of documents from several different archives. Find more detailed information.

Victorian Web
"[O]ne of the oldest academic and scholarly websites," Victorian Web is an index of primary resources related to the Victorian-era Great Britain."
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world.