General history materials
Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States
Historical atlases Boston area. Includes Bromley real estate atlases 1883-1923.
Magazine of Early American Datasets. A potpourri of spreadsheets and collections of data contributed by the scholars who made them, to help others conceptualize, begin, or broaden their research.
Reading: Harvard Views of Readers, Readership, and Reading History. Includes personally annotated books owned by John Keats, Herman Melville, and others; records of Harvard College Library that reveal reading activities of Emerson, Longfellow, and Thoreau; textbooks from the 18th to the early 20th centuries; more than 800 books and 400 manuscript selections.
Freedom on the Move. Crowd-sourced creation of database of escaped slaves.
Current Events
Ranking America (comparison of the U.S. with other countries on various socio-economic and political points).
Native American
Native American — Indigenous Peoples: North America. Broad and deep digital collection from Cengage, must subscribe to access.
Anglo-U.S. treaties with Native nations, 374 in the National Archives.
Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. English only, Reuben Gold Thwaites translation, Creighton University hosting.
Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704
The Invasion of America. This interactive site maps every Native American treaty and executive order between 1776 and 1886, with links to the original treaty text when available.
Yale Indian Papers Project: 400 Years of New England Native Life
Occum Circle Project. Documents written by and about Samson Occom (1727-1792) stored in Dartmouth College archives. Includes digitized original and transcription of each.
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 1803-1888. The ACBFM was the primary organization sending teachers and missionaries to Native communities as well as overseas to China etc. The Houghton Library at Harvard holds a huge collection of their records, including correspondence from teachers and missionaries, has digitized some of that collection.
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology Online Collection
Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties. Compiled by Charles Kappler and published by the GPO in 1904
American Indian Digital History Project. Digitized copies of Akwesasne Notes, 1969-1987.
Colonial British America
Adams Family Papers (letters to/from Abigail and John Adams), 1762-1801 (MHS)
Colonial North American Project at Harvard. In progress, digitized images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America-+
Slavery, Law, and Power in Early America and the British Empire. A project dedicated to bringing the many disparate sources that help to explain the long history of slavery and its connection to struggles over power in early America, particularly in the colonies that would become the United States. Going back to the early English Empire, this project traces the rise of the slave trade along with the parallel struggles between monarchical power and early democratic institutions and ideals.
Early American Manuscripts Projects, New York Public Library. In progress, digitized images of Joseph Hawley Papers, Samuel Adams Papers, other materials held by the NYPL.
Colonial New England Congregational Church Records. “New England’s Hidden Histories,” collected, digitized, transcribed by Congregational Library. Includes Church Records Transcription Project, great for school classes.
Colonial Society of Massachusetts digitized versions of their publications, including papers of Francis Bernard, Josiah Quincy Jr., Thomas Hutchinson, John Cotton Jr., Pynchon Family Papers. Also the Records of Trinity Church in Boston, Records of Boston’s Overseers of the Poor in the 18th Century, Harvard College Library list of holdings 1723-1790, Thomas Shepard’s Confessions, and scholarly works on various topics on colonial New England (law, music, medicine, Native Americans, etc.) Click here.
Personal Papers and Documents, Congregational Library and Archives.
- Bidwell, Adonijah. Sermon Booklets (circa 1754-1781)
- Edwards, Jonathan. Letter to Esther Burr (1757)
- Hawley, Gideon. Missionary Journal and Letterbook (1754-1807)
- Hopkins, Samuel. Correspondence (1766-1803);
- Mather, Cotton. Diary and Personal Documents (1716)
- Pynchon, John
- Notes on sermons by George Moxon (1640)
- Rogers, John. Papers (1693-1714)
- Unknown Author. Boston Massacre sermon (1770)
- Unknown Author. Legacy of a Dying Father (1694)
- Weld, Thomas. Common-place book (1723)
The Papers of George Washington, 1744-1799
Jonathan Edwards, Collected Writings, Online (Yale University)
America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
Anglo-American Legal Tradition Law records from medieval and early modern England in the National Archives in London.
Avalon Project at Yale (significant 17th and 18th century legal documents)
Appeals to the Privy Council from the American Colonies
Massachusetts Printed Acts and Resolves, 1692-1959
Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704
Silence Dogood: Ben Franklin in the New England Courant
Taking the Trade: Abortion, Sex, and Privacy in 18th-Century New England
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Salem Witchcraft Trials (vast range of documents)
Maps of Massachusetts, 1640-1809
Revolutionary United States
The Harbottle Dorr (annotated) newspapers, MHS
America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
Boston Committee of Correspondence Records, 1772-1784
Mapping the Republic of Letters (international Enlightenment connections)
American Archives, 1774-1776 (NIU/NEH site)
The Coming of the Revolution, 1764-1776 (MHS)
The Worcester [Mass.] Revolution of 1774
Virtual American Revolution (digital 360° views of Boston area sites today, and maps)
American Revolutionary Era Maps. Boston Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
U.S. Congress documents and debates, 1774-1875
Adams Family Papers (letters to/from Abigail and John Adams), 1762-1801 (MHS)
James Madison Papers, Library of Congress
The Papers of George Washington, 1744-1799
Early Virginia Religious Petitions, 1774-1802
Shays’s Rebellion, 1786-1787 (documents etc.)
Slaves and the Courts (in books and pamphlets), 1740-1860
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts (MHS)
Boston 1775. History, analysis, and unabashed gossip about the start of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.
Ray Raphael’s page of Revolutionary documents
Avalon Project at Yale (significant 17th and 18th century legal documents)
The Founders’ Constitution: extensive primary resources
Slavery and the Ratification of the Constitution
University of Virginia hypertexts
A Literary Tour de France: Publishing and the Book Trade in France and Francophone Europe, 1769-1789
Early National U.S.
U.S. Treasury Reports, complete collection, 1789-1980
Early American Imprints (Shaw-Shoemaker set), 1800-1819
America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection. Replaces American Periodical Series (APS).
A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825
U.S. Congress documents and debates, 1774-1875
Adams Family Papers (letters to/from Abigail and John Adams), 1762-1801 (MHS)
The Papers of George Washington, 1744-1799
James Madison Papers, Library of Congress
Early Virginia Religious Petitions, 1774-1802
Slaves and the Courts (in books and pamphlets), 1740-1860
MHS, The Case for Ending Slavery (many scanned documents, with questions and lesson plans)
Making of America site, many primary sources in American social history
Age of Jefferson (primary sources on various topics clipped and sorted by Prof. Pasley)
Antebellum U.S.
America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922
Prof. Gagnon’s hub of newspapers, nineteenth century. Particularly strong in Georgia newspapers, some others from the south, mostly free and searchable.
Chronicling America, LOC’s historic newspaper site, 1836-1922
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection. Replaces American Periodical Series (APS).
U.S. Congress documents and debates, 1774-1875
Dorr Rebellion (Rhode Island, 1841-1842) documents
Slaves and the Courts (in books and pamphlets), 1740-1860
Maps showing expansion of slavery and free population, 1790-1860
O Say Can You See, Early Washington DC Law and Family, 1800-1862. Includes digitzed freedom suits circa 1800-1820, allowing researchers to follow families across generations, look for connections across individuals (like attorney Francis Scott Key), etc.
Journals of Edmund Q. Sewall Jr., 1837-1840. Journal kept by student at John and Henry David Thoreau’s Concord Academy.
Making of America site, many primary sources in American social history
Post-Civil War
Freedmen’s Bureau Records. Handwritten records on newly freed slaves, with data on marriages, church and financial details, full names, dates of birth and histories of slave ownership.
History Web Publications
Digital Public Library of America
http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/
Do History (Martha Ballard diary)
Valley of the Shadows (Shenandoah Valley, 1859-1870)
Early Encounters in North America
Online and digital resources for early Americanists
Currency and price conversion calculators (including John McCusker’s How Much Is That?)
A Women’s Work is Never Done: American Antiquarian Society exhibition
Visual Resources
Early American Paintings in Worcester Art Museum
American Memory, early maps (Library of Congress)
Photographs of 17th and 18th Century Structures in Massachusetts, taken by Harriet Forbes 1887-1945
The Story of Christmas (American Antiquarian Society)
National Museum of the American Indian
Databases
The Trans-Atlantic Database — huge and wonderful!
United States Historical Census Data Browser, with full searchable information for 1790-1960
The Virginia Runaways Project, a searchable database of eighteenth-century runaway ads
Slavery in Pennsylvania, with extensive data on slaves and slaveholders
A New Nation Votes. A searchable collection of election returns 1787-1825, done by the AAS and Tufts University Digital Collections, with NEH funding.
Miscellaneous
The Atlantic World Electronic Exploration home page
Common-Place, the Interactive Journal of Early American Life
Jefferson-Hemings DNA Testing, an Online resource on the website of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation
Northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform in the Press and in the Letters of Freedmen, 1862-1868
British Resources
The Public Record Office web page
Statistical Accounts of Scotland (incl. 1791-99)
Papers of Early Americans
George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
Robert “King” Carter of Virginia; diary, correspondence, and papers, 1701-1732
The Papers of George Washington, including primary sources and secondary works
Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
Excerpts from slave narratives, including ten from the revolutionary and early national eras
Online Archive of Works of Thomas Paine
Miscellaneous Primary Sources
The Culture of Tobacco: NYPL site containing many primary sources
Colonial, revolutionary and early national primary sources
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: US Congressional documents and databases, 1774-1873
The Constitution Community, at the National Archives site, contains many primary sources
Native American Organizations and Publications
Canadian aboriginal digital collections
Historians’ Websites/Blogs
Jeff Pasley (“The Early American Republic Plugged In”)
Jewish Organizations
Anti-Defamation League of Missouri and Southern Illinois.
Hillel at Truman State University
Hillel’s “Small and Mighty” Soref Program
Congregation Beth Shalom, Columbia
St. Louis Jewish Federation
Kansas City Jewish Federation