NEIU Libraries Research Guides: Amundsen High School Staff Resources: Primary Source Documents Online

Finding primary source documents online

Remember, when using a search engine (like Google or Bing), pair the topic of interest to you with key phrases like "digital collections", "digital archives", and "primary sources", to see what universities, museums, and educators have collected and made available online. Below, I provide a range of sites that provide extensive access to primary source material (text, image, and audio/video) you may find useful:

Library of Congress Digital Collections
A vast site from the Library of Congress- original documents and photos.
The APS Digital Library
The APS Digital Library provides access to a wide variety of digitized items from the holdings of the American Philosophical Society.
Columbia University's Asia For Educators
A wide array of resources connected with the history of East Asia, including a large collection of primary sources from ancient to modern time periods.
DOCSTeach
Thousands of primary source documents preserved at the National Archives.
EuroDocs
EuroDocs lists links connecting to European primary historical documents (covering many countries and time periods) that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. In addition you may find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation.
Fordham's Internet History Sourcebooks
Massive directories of links to historical materials, often (but not always) primary source documents, with extensive coverage of non-European history, as well as the history of certain minority groups (religious groups, sexual minorities, etc.)
Labor Archives of Washington State
The portal for digital resources associated with the Labor Archives of Washington, including both images and text from the era of the I.W.W. to the W.T.O. protests in 1999.
Making of America
Making of America 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. The collection currently contains approximately 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
NYPL's collection of 800,000+ digitized documents, ranging from handwritten letters to photographs to maps of the city and more.
The University of Washington: Latin America
The University of Washington's resource guide for finding primary source materials connected with Central and South America. Links to many sites that focus on specific topics: stronger coverage of Central America and the Caribbean than of South America.
The University of Wisconsin's Africa Focus collection
Slides, photographs, and audio clips from all over the African continent, primarily focused on 20th and 21st Century Africa.
Yale Law School's Avalon Project
Subtitled "Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy". Primary source documents (usually legal/political documents) covering many centuries and nations, but the vast bulk of documents are from Europe and the United States in the last 2-3 centuries.