American History
Data Sets & Statistics
State/Local Data Sets & Statistics
This program provides data, evidence, guidance, and examples to build awareness of the multiple factors that influence health and support leaders in growing community power to improve health equity.
More than 800 up-to-date health indicators at the state level can be mapped, ranked, and downloaded.
National Data Sets & Statistics
ALFRED, ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data, is a collection of vintage versions of U.S. economic data. In general, economic data for past observation periods are revised as more accurate estimates become available. As a result, previous vintages of data can be superseded and may no longer be available from various data sources. ALFRED makes it possible to gather data as reported by a source on past dates in history.
Provides an overview of each census since 1790 to present with links to detailed data.
International Data Sets & Statistics
United Nations Statistics compiles and provides access to statistics and data on a global scale. Topics include population, economic, environmental, geospatial, and humanitarian data.
Newspapers
The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.
This collection is comprised of 805 newspaper issues primarily published between 1765 and 1776 in Boston and surrounding towns. High quality digital images of 3,969 newspaper and pamphlet pages are available. Browse by year or title to select specific issues.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Freedom's journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. The Wisconsin Historical Society has made 104 issues available on this site.
Google News Archive provides free access to scanned archives of newspapers and links to other newspaper archives on the web.
Independent Voices: an Open Access Collection of an Alternative Press
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
A digital archive comprised of 35 newspapers from diverse countries such as: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, and Mexico. The archive content covers the period 1805-1922 and includes titles like La Prensa (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Universal (Mexico City, Mexico) and El Mercurio (Santiago, Chile).
Online catalogue of digitised historical newspapers from the United States and Caribbean, hosted by the University of Florida. It currently links through to over 1000 titles and is expanding.
Open Education Resources
Explore American History with hands-on activities, exhibits, lessons, historic documents and artifacts.
American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.
Primary Source Websites - Multiple Time Periods and Geographical Locations
ArchiveGrid searches mainly WorldCat and includes over 7 million records describing archival materials.
Calisphere provides access to over 400,000 photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more. The collections on Calisphere have been digitized and contributed by all ten campuses of the University of California and other important libraries, archives, and museums throughout the state. Not just for California history!
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates
Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention
Digital Collections (Library of Congress)
Search the vast database of LoC documents, texts, photos, and audio/video content.
Digital Public Library of America
DPLA partner with America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions to make millions of materials available in a one-stop discovery experience. All of the materials found through DPLA are free and immediately available in digital format.
Documenting the American South
A collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. Sponsored by the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Documents in American History from Revolution to Reconstruction and Beyond
Collection of documents that have been important in US history, spanning from before 1600 (Magna Carta) to 1964 (George Wallace's speech debunking the Civil Righta Movement. A project of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 (EAA) presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States.
Google Books Advanced Book Search
Google Books offers a free portal to books (and magazines). Google has now digitized over 15 million books, but only those prior to the copyright boundary of 1923 can be viewed in their entirety. Google Books provides partial views of many books published after 1923.
A collaborative partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
Historically Significant Court Cases in American History
Primary documents and trial transcripts from historically significant cases from the Digital History website, hosted by the University of Houston.
Internet Archive - ebooks and Texts
Large historic book and pamphlet portal that contains over six million works and features special collections.
Primary Sources: 17th & 18th Century America (University of Washington)
A portal to roughly three dozen digital archives focusing on aspects of 17th & 18th century American history.
Primary Sources: 19th Century America (University of Washington)
A portal to nearly one hundred digital archives focusing on 19th century American History.
Primary Sources: 20th Century America (University of Washington)
A portal to over one hundred different digital archives providing primary source materials from 20th century America.
Provides access to over 100 different digital initiatives and archives and online libraries.
The World Digital Library contains cultural heritage materials from partner organizations around the world as well as the Library of Congress.