Research Guides: HIST 119B: The Personal is Political in American History: Digital Collections of Primary Sources

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Digital Collections of Primary Sources

Digital Public Library of America
Digitized materials from libraries, archives and museums around the country.

Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960-1974 This link opens in a new window
Includes diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, newspapers, press, underground press, alternative publications, and scholarly commentary. This collection includes materials digitized from collections in Brandeis University Archives & Special Collections, including materials on student activism and radical politics.

Race and Racism

NAACP Papers This link opens in a new window
See Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle

Digital Collections from Harvard's Center for the History of Medicine
Includes digital exhibits, documents and images related to the history of health care and medicine.

Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle This link opens in a new window
Includes records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle, as well as federal government records. Includes the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
This database includes "Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century" and "NAACP Papers."
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Covers the non-fiction published works by major American Black leaders. Where possible, the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, and letters.
HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
An African American video oral history archive. Provides access to oral history interviews with historically significant African Americans.

Documenting the American South
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Example source: Oral history interview about improving the poor conditions for African American patients at Palmetto State Hospital
Voices from the Days of Slavery
Slave narratives from the Library of Congress. "The almost seven hours of recorded interviews presented here took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. Twenty-three interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings."

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law (HeinOnline) This link opens in a new window
This collection brings together significant 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.

W.E.B. DuBois Papers
"Includes over 100,000 items of correspondence (more than three quarters of the papers), speeches, articles, newspaper columns, nonfiction books, research materials, book reviews, pamphlets and leaflets, petitions, novels, essays, forewords, student papers, manuscripts of pageants, plays, short stories and fables, poetry, photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, videotapes, audiotapes, and miscellaneous materials. Scholar, writer, editor of The Crisis and other journals, co-founder of the Niagara Movement, the NAACP, and the Pan African Congresses, international spokesperson for peace and for the rights of oppressed minorities, W.E.B. Du Bois was a son of Massachusetts who articulated the strivings of African Americans and developed a trenchant analysis of the problem of the color line in the twentieth century." (UMASS Amherst Special Collections)

Health and Medicine

Public Health Archives: Public Health in Modern America, 1890-1970 This link opens in a new window
Documents the rise of the twentieth-century public health system in the United States through correspondence, reports, pamphlets, ephemera, and more.

Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics.
Includes sources such as "The iniquity of compulsory vaccination and the unconstitutionality of its statutes 1881" and
"Vaccination is the curse of childhood 1901."
Digital Exhibits from Harvard's Medical School
Includes materials covering inoculation and vaccines in Boston history.

Gender and Sexuality

Women and Social Movements in the United States (1600-2000) This link opens in a new window
A collection of document projects--comprised of essays with supporting documents, images, and web links--focused on the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000
Archives of Sexuality and Gender This link opens in a new window
Digitized primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. Find a wide range of materials, such as: oral histories from the African Women's Life History Project; declassified FBI files detailing surveillance of gays and lesbians in the U.S. from 1950 to 1982; and erotica from the "Private Case" of the British Museum Library.
Our access includes: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Parts I and II; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Community and Identity in North America.

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the US & UK, 1815-1914
Trial narratives of cases related to marriage and sexuality

Women's Studies Archive This link opens in a new window
Provides a history of the social, political, and professional aspects of women's lives and offers a look at the roles, experiences, and achievements of women in society. Includes documents such as diaries, letters, photographs, news clippings, organizational records, and journals, covering the nineteeth and twentieth centuries.

The History Project (Boston, MA)
The History Project's mission is to document and preserve the history of Boston's LGBT community, and to share that info with the public.

Law

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Includes full text law journals, US government documents, the Federal Register, U.S. Treaties, official Supreme Court opinions and more. Definitive database for legal research and policy work.
ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
Access to congressional publications, hearings, debates, committee prints, CRS reports, legislative histories, bills, current laws, and regulations. Presently includes the full texts of hearings from 1824-2024, House & Senate Reports (Serial Set 1 & 2) from 1789-2003, CRS reports from 1916-2003, committee prints from 1830-2022, historical Congressional Record (debates) from 1789-1997 as well as the current Daily Congressional Record (debates) from 1985 to present, the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations.

Immigration

Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S. This link opens in a new window
Historical documents and legislation related to immigration in the United States as well as current hearings, debates and recent developments in immigration law.
Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930 This link opens in a new window
Covers the investigations made during the massive immigration wave at the turn of the 20th century, including Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930; and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS's regulation of prostitution and white slavery, and on suppression of radical aliens.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes thousands of authors, providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.

Historical News (Video) Coverage

American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) Online Reading Room
Includes contributions from over 100 public media organizations across the US. Covers the 1940s to the 2010s. From WGBH and the Library of Congress.
C-SPAN Digital Library
Archive of C-SPAN programming
Digital Public Library of America
Digitized materials from libraries, archives and museums around the country. Includes historical advertisements. Use the "Moving image" option to the left of your search results to focus on news and other video clips