Research Guides: Primary Sources in History: Sample Web Sites

Good Examples of Free Sites

The following are excellent collections of primary sources, which form only a small sample of what's available:

100 Milestone Documents
(National Archives and Records Administration)
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
(Wisconsin Historical Society)
American Memory
(Library of Congress)
Archives of American Art
(Smithsonian Institution)
Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
Documenting the American South
UNC Chapel Hill
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History
(Brigham Young)
Experiencing War: Stories from the Veterans History Project
(Library of Congress)
Influenza Digital Archive: The 1918-1920 Influenza Pandemic
(University of Michgan Medical School)
Making of America
(University of Michigan and Cornell University)
Perry-Castaneda Libary Map Collection
(University of Texas)
Salem Witchcraft Papers
(University of Virginia e-Text Center)
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
New York Public Library
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
has information on almost 36,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
(University of Virginia)
Virginia Memory (Library of Virginia)
Digitized documents and photographs related to Virginia's history.
World Digital Library
(UNESCO)
Yale Slavery and Abolition Portal

Good Examples of Subscription Sites

The following are just a few of the primary source databases available to the William and Mary community. To help you locate more primary source databases we subscribe to here at W&M Libraries, we have arranged them by type on our database page.

17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom from the collection of the Reverend Charles Burney. Coverage: 1619-1800.
19th Century US Newspapers This link opens in a new window
19th century U.S. urban and regional newspapers. Fully searchable. Coverage: 1800-early 20th century.
American Periodicals Series Online This link opens in a new window
This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
American Music (includes African American Music content) This link opens in a new window
A history database through music; formerly American Song. Streaming audio with songs by and about all Americans (immigrants, children, enslaved persons, etc.), and about all aspects of the American experience (civil rights, political campaigns, the Revolutionary War, etc.). Coverage: Precolonial period-present.
America's Historical Newspapers (includes Early American Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
Newspapers from all 50 states with eyewitness reporting, letters, advertisements, obituaries, etc. Includes access to Series I (1690-1876), Series II (1758-1900), Series III (1829-1922), Series IV (1756-1922), and Series V (1777-1922). Coverage: 1690-1922.
ArtStor This link opens in a new window
Digital images from around the world (including photography, architecture, decorative arts, graphic design, painting, and sculpture) in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. Coverage: all time periods. To download or save images create a free user account with your W&M email.
British Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Offering comprehensive full-run coverage for popular periodicals, this growing resource will offer facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries, totaling almost five million pages.
Colonial America This link opens in a new window
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. Access: Modules 1 - 5
Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new window
Economic and business activity in the West, including agriculture, commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade, and transportation. Fully searchable. From the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. Coverage: 1450-1945.
New York Times: Historical Newspapers 1851-2017 This link opens in a new window
Full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. Coverage: 1851-2017.
Virginia Company Archives Online This link opens in a new window
Includes fully searchable previously unpublished transcripts of over 500 documents from the Virginia Company Archives; records of the Virginia Company of London; complete Ferrar Papers from Magdalene College, Cambridge; and a wide range of maps, illustrations, and other works. Coverage: 1590-1790.