The roots of the America’s heritage lie in the most unassuming documents - personal diaries, account books, photographs.  While interpretive materials - secondary sources - are helpful in trying to understand the broader context of American history, it is in the primary sources - the original documents - that Americans come to life. 

What follows is a brief list of Government web sites which contain original documents that have been digitized or transcribed, then placed on the Internet.  They range from the core value statements of our government to the personal narratives of American citizens.  There are images of slave cabins in the Carolina Low Country and architectural drawings from some of  America’s best architects.  These sources are designed for students, teachers, historians, archaeologists, enthusiasts, and anyone else who wants to know more about the way that Americans thought, wrote, and acted in days gone by.

THE BASICS: Charters of Freedom

These are the documents which form the core of US government  they are listed here to provide an easy access to the philosophical and legal structures from which we operate.   

Core Documents of United States Democracy 

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/coredocs/index.html 

The US Constitution

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/constitution.html

The Declaration of Independence

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/decmain.html

The Founding Fathers

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/confath.html

COLONIAL ROOTS:

There are literally hundreds of primary source documents from the colonial period online.  I have listed a small sample of the collection.  For comprehensive listings, see the web guides listed at the bottom of the page.

Early Virginia Religious Petitions

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/repehtml/repehome.html

Virginia Colonial Records Project

http://eagle.vsla.edu/colonial/ 

Includes newspapers, pensions, birth and death records, etc. from the Library of Virginia digital collections.

Revolutionary War Maps

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/armhtml/armhome.html

THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES

The Internet is replete with sites about the War Between the States, or Lincoln's "Civil" War.  The sites listed here are primarily from the Library of Congress and the National Archives, but they don't stop here.  See the web guides below, and take a peek at Taft's Diary, listed in the Diaries and Papers section.

Civil War Images from the NY Historical Society

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/nhihtml/cwnyhshome.html

Civil War Maps

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/cwmhtml/cwmhome.html

The Emancipation Proclamation

http://www.nara.gov/exhall/featured-document/eman/emanproc.html

AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY

Slave Narratives

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

"Transcripts of 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941."

Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/slavedata/index.html 

provides access to the raw data and documentation which includes information on the following slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: records of slave ship movement, slave ships of eighteenth century, Virginia slave trade in the eighteenth century, English slave trade (House of Lords Survey), Angola slave trade in the eighteenth century, internal slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, slave trade to Havana, Cuba, Nantes slave trade in the eighteenth century, and slave trade to Jamaica.

The Church in the Southern Black Community

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/ncuhtml/csbchome.html

This compilation of printed texts from the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life."

First person narratives of the American South

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ncuhtml/fpnashome.html

"Includes the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives of not only prominent individuals, but also of relatively inaccessible populations: women, African Americans, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans."

DIARIES AND PAPERS

The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/tafthtml/tafthome.html

"Judge" Taft was appointed to the US Patent Office during the Lincoln administration, and enjoyed an uncommonly close relationship with the First Family during his tenure.  His three-volume diary relates events from the viewpoint of a Washington "insider" during the Civil War.

The Thomas Jefferson Papers

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjhome.html

Consisting of approximately 27,000 documents, including "correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes. The collection is organized into nine series or groupings, ranging in date from 1606 to 1827."

Papers of George Washington 1741-1799

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html

Approximately 65,000 documents including "correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799."

ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPES

American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/aladhome.html

Collection from the Harvard Graduate School of Design,. Contains approximately 2,800 lantern slides representing the work of Harvard faculty, such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., Bremer W. Pond, and James Sturgis Pray, as well as that of prominent landscape architects throughout the country. Views of cities, specific buildings, parks, estates and gardens; includes plans, maps, and models. Hundreds of private estates from all over the United States are represented in the collection through contemporary views of their houses and gardens.

Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-Present

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hhhtml/hhhome.html

One of the first projects ever undertaken by the government to document America’s historic structures.  Photographs, drawings, and descriptions of these buildings form the core of our knowledge of America’s architectural heritage.

MISCELLANEOUS DATA

Hargrett Map Library - University of Georgia

http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/speccoll.html 

One of the most extensive map collections on the Internet, including rare maps and special exhibits online. 

Designs for Democracy:

200 Years of Drawings at the National Archives http://www.nara.gov/exhall/designs_for_democracy/index.html

“Over the last 200 years, the US Government has prepared, commissioned, received, or approved designs for millions of objects. From bridges to ships, from forts to flags, from monuments to costumes, the Federal Government has had a hand in the artistic and utilitarian outcome of myriad projects.”  Images from these government-sponsored projects are included in this unique exhibition.

Nineteenth Century Periodicals

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/snchome.html

A look at the history of magazines and journals as they were published in the United States during the nineteenth century.  Includes popular and scholarly journals, often in both TIFF And PDF format as well as transcription.

The Electronic Access Project - 1996-2001: National Archives Archival Information Locator

http://www.nara.gov/nara/vision/eapover.html

As part of the Electronic Access Project, NARA has digitized copies of the National Archives most popular and significant manuscripts, photographs, maps, drawings and other documents. The 124,000 digital copies are available for researchers to view online through NAIL

Naval History Center: Online Library of Selected Images

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org11-2.htm 

Includes images of US Naval ships and aircraft, along with scrapbooks, and recruiting posters.  Special sections have been provided for women and African-American sailors throughout the history of the Navy.  

WEB GUIDES - ACADEMIC / PRIVATE SITES

Oregon State University - History on the Internet

http://www.orst.edu/dept/history/HISTORY.htm

Broken down by period and topic, Oregon State's web guide to primary sources is both easy to use and comprehensive.  Spanning the 15th through 20th centuries, this guide includes legal and religious documents from the early colonies, medical texts, and social commentary.

The American Colonist's Library

http://www2.pitnet.net/primarysources/

Extensive list of online sources for primary data.  A bit commercialized but voluminous.  Includes Spanish, French, and English historical sources from the 500 BC until 1799. 

Eighteenth Century Resources - History

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/18th/history.html

Part of a broader website of 18th century sources, edited by Jack Lynch of Rutgers University.

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/18th.htm

Legal documents from the past four centuries of American Law

This web site was created by Lisa Hudgins for the course in Government Documents (CLIS 734)

College of Library and Information Science, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

March 15, 2001

> Back to the CLIS 734 Web site