19th Century American History Digital Library - Historical Documents, Maps, Photos, Exhibits, & Archives

History > U.S. > Young Nation>

Digital Library


Digital Library > History > U.S. > 19th Century > Digital Library

See also Civil War Digital Library ; The American West: Digital Library ; State & Local History

Making of America Journals
"...is a digital library of primary sources in American social history primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The book collection currently contains approximately 8,500 books with 19th century imprints."

19th Century Schoolbooks
"The Nietz Old Textbook Collection is one of several well-known collections of 19th Century schoolbooks in the United States. Among the 16,000 volumes [currently 33 full-text digital volumes online] are many titles that are rarely held and have not yet been reproduced in microform collections or reprint editions." A Demonstration Project by the Digital Research Library, University Library System, University of Pittsburgh

49th Parallel (electronic journal)
An Interdisciplinary Journal of North American Studies
"...quarterly electronic journal which aims to promote interdisciplinary study of the North American continent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
- Published by the University of Birmingham (UK) - Dept. of American and Canadian Studies

1800's Ephemera
"The papers came from a box from the late 1800's which I am currently in the process of postiing to my page. As of now there are 400 images out of 2000 papers."
By Mark Forder

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
A Selection of Published Works
"...a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920."
New York Public Library Digital Library Collections

Alexander Hamilton on the Web
"...a comprehensive guide and web directory to Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first Secretary of the Treasury, major author of the Federalist Papers and advocate of a strong central government...On this site you will find biographies, both long and short, a large number of Hamilton's writing, including the complete Federalist Papers, images of Hamilton, reviews and excerpts from some of the recent books about Hamilton, essays on the Hamilton/Burr duel and on dueling generally, and so forth."

American Originals
"Some of the most interesting and famous documents are presented here, including the Louisiana Purchase, a police report on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and President Nixon's letter of resignation."

America in the 1890s: A Chronology
"Provides links to Personalities; Social Political, Literary, Economic, Cultural Events, Art, Music, and Architecture of the decade"
Produced by Dr. William E. Grant and Ken Dvorak, American Studies Program, Bowling Green State University

American Quarterly

  • Hearsay of the Sun
    Photography, Identity, and the Law of Evidence in Nineteenth-Century American Courts
    "This Web site currently contains forty-two court decisions, articles, and excerpts from various fiction and non-fiction sources, including approximately 50 individual images...Thirty-five of these texts have not been previously published online or in any collection that I know of..."
    By Thomas Thurston

American Transcendentalism Web
"This interlinked hypertext was initiated in Spring 1999 by Virginia Commonwealth University graduate students studying in Professor Ann Woodlief's class in Studies in American Transcendentalism. It is a work in progress, and submissions of papers, texts and notes on them, and links are gladly welcomed..."
Sections include: Authors & Texts ; Roots & Influences ; Ideas & Thought ; Criticism ; Resources & Bibliographies ; Communication Center.

Band Music from the Civil War Era
 "...makes available examples of a brilliant style of brass band music that flourished in the 1850s in the United States and remained popular through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War. This online collection includes both printed and manuscript music (mostly in the form of "part books" for individual instruments) selected from the collections of the Music Division of the Library of Congress and the Walter Dignam Collection of the Manchester Historic Association (Manchester, New Hampshire). The collection features over 700 musical compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded examples of brass band music in performance."
American Memory, Library of Congress

Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency
"This electronic exhibit focuses on the depictions of slaves in Confederate currency. It is important to remember that these images were created by those who institutionalized and worked to preserve slavery, and they do not necessarily portray the slaves as they viewed themselves and their condition...Images of slavery, however, were not the only illustrations on such documents: Vignettes featuring modes of transportation, mythical characters, historical figures of the American Revolution, and romantic portrayals of white women and children also decorated paper money issued in the Confederacy. These scenes offer a new perspective on the Civil War era South."
A Project of the United States Civil War Center, Louisiana State University

Birth of the Nation: The First Federal Congress, 1789-1791
"This online exhibit recreates an exhibit which opened in the United States Court House in Manhattan in 1989...This exhibit provides an overview of the work of and issues faced by this seminal Congress, which was a virtual second sitting of the Federal Convention, fleshing out the governmental structure outlined in the Constitution and addressing the difficult issues left unresolved by the Constitution. Each "topic" begins with a quote from the Constitution relating to it. The illustrations (letters, newspaper articles, cartoons, portraits, etc.) for the topics provide just a sampling of the. wealth of material in the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791...It is our hope that the exhibit will prove useful, particularly to students and their teachers. Towards that end, we intend to produce an online teacher's guide for the exhibit."

Booker T. Washington Papers Online (etext)
"...is a completely free and searchable web site designed to provide researchers worldwide with full access to the thousands of pages comprising this 14-volume printed work, originally published by the University of Illinois Press.
 - The History Cooperative

Brown University Library Digital Collections

  • African American Sheet Music 1820-1920
    "This collection consists of over 1400 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1820 through 1920. The collection includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period."
  • Abraham Lincoln
    "The Lincoln collection include song sheets, political sheets, ballots, and posters as well as 27 of the 52 printed editions of the Emancipation Proclamation. There is also a selection of newspapers for 1860-1865."

Digital Bridges (online exhibit)
Bridges Of The Nineteenth Century
"The Digital Bridges Web site consists of a collection thirty representative 19th century American bridge engineering monographs, manuals, and documents from the Lehigh University Libraries' Special Collections. Many of these items are relatively rare an in some cases quite fragile."
- Lehigh University Libraries

Camping with the Sioux (etext)
Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher
"The following text is based on two journals kept by Alice Fletcher during a six-week venture into Plains Indian territory in 1881."
- National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Cases & Materials on American Federalism
"...used in American Government Courses at Purdue University Calumet. The site contains historical documents [American, British, and English], a timeline, a glossary, edited court cases, review questions, other materials, and links to other free resources."
Online textbook by Douglas G. Amber, Dept. of History & Political Science, Purdue University

A Century of Law making for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
"Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America's national legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress make up a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation and the development of the federal government and its role in the national life. These documents record American history in the words of those who built our government...In order to make these records more easily accessible to students, scholars, and interested citizens, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation brings together online the records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention through the 43rd Congress, including the first three volumes of the Congressional Record, 1873-75."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

  • Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894
    U.S. Congressional Documents - United States Serial Set, Number 4015
    "...contains the second part of the two-part Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896-1897. (Part one is printed in United States Serial Set Number 4014.) Part two, which was also printed as House Document No. 736 of the U.S. Serial Set, 56th Congress, 1st Session, features sixty-seven maps and two tables compiled by Charles C. Royce, with an introductory essay by Cyrus Thomas."
  • The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States
    United States Serial Set Numbers 2484 to 2589
    U.S. Congressional Documents
    "The six-volume set entitled The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, from House Miscellaneous Document No. 603 of the U.S. Serial Set, was compiled by Dr. Francis Wharton and promulgated on August 13, 1888, by both houses of Congress."

Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
"...the first major scholarly effort to collect and publish the complete writings of Abraham Lincoln, and the edition has remained an invaluable resource to Lincoln scholars. Through the efforts of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the edition is now available in electronic form."

The Diary of Jared Nash
"...two years (1745 and 1746) in the life of a Connecticut subsistence farmer and his family. The diary is extensively annotated with information on the life of the
times, farming, and the characters mentioned."
By Jack Sanders

Death or Liberty : Gabriel, Nat Turner, and John Brown
"The spirit of revolt exhibited by Gabriel in 1800 and Nat Turner in 1831 convinced John Brown in 1859 that the slaves across the South were ready and willing to emancipate themselves. All they needed, Brown concluded, was the moral and military guidance of an inspired leader. "Death or Liberty" examines these events and the debates about slavery, freedom, and sectional politics that raged in their wake. Finally the exhibition offers an overview of how the public memory of these events has changed."
Companion Website to an exhibit at The Library of Virginia

Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture
E-Facsimiles
"...collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, with a particular focus on Early America. Included are electronic texts and facsimiles, image databases, and Web resources...The project will provide access to digitized primary materials significant to the decorative arts and material culture of Early America. Materials for this project will range from Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, to a database of early American Furniture from the Chipstone Foundation."
Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Documenting the American South
The Southern Experience in 19th Century America
"provides digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research."
Includes Slave Narrative, First-Person Narratives, and Southern Literature
University of North Carolina

Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 - (dead link)
"The Continental Congress Broadside Collection (253 titles) and the Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection (21 titles) contain 274 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Most are one page in length, others range from 1 to 28 pages."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Documents of Early Texas
"The following are among the most referenced early Texas documents. They have earned a prominent place in the rich history of Texas in the nineteenth century."
Documents include: Texas Declaration of Independence (1836) ; Treaty of Velasco (1839) ; Resolution Annexing Texas to the U.S. (1845) ; Texas Ordinance of Secession (1741).

Douglass - Archives of American Public Address
An electronic archive of American oratory and related documents.

The Dred Scott Case
"Arguments about slavery in the print and in public debate had a direct impact on the Scotts and the people who surrounded them. The records contained in this exhibit document the Scotts' early struggle to gain their freedom through litigation and are the only extant record of this significant case as it was heard in the St. Louis Circuit Court ... The 85 documents in the Dred Scott collection are presented here as arranged by the Missouri State Archives..."
Washington University Libraries, St. Louis

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
"...presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture."

FamilySearch - Census Records
"You can choose the 1880 United States, 1881 British Isles, or the 1881 Canadian Census."
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

[Federalist Papers] FoundingFathers.info
Sections include: The American Flag ; Virtual Postcards ; Don't Tread on Me! ; The Federalist Papers Online ; History of the USA ; Founding Fathers Quotes ; History Clippings.

The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
"...consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Among the sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, ledgers and other financial records, maps, physical artifacts, and pictorial images."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1740-1920
 "This compilation of printed texts from the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill documents the culture of the nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It 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. An award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition supported the digitization of 101 titles published during and after the Civil War. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supplemented these titles with another forty first-person narratives, many published before 1740."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Florida Memory Project

  • Spanish Land Grants
    "The first portion of an extensive series of Spanish land grant claims related to the territory that Spain ceded to the United States in 1821."

The Founders' Constitution
 "In this unique anthology, Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner draw on the writings of a wide array of people engaged in the problem of making popular government safe, steady, and accountable. The documents included range from the early seventeenth century to the 1830s, from the reflections of philosophers to popular pamphlets, from public debates in ratifying conventions to the private correspondence of the leading political actors of the day."
Web edition, University of Chicago Press and Liberty Fund

The Fredrick Douglas Papers at the Library of Congress
"...presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The first release of the Douglass Papers, from the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division, contains approximately 2,000 items (16,000 images) relating to Douglass's life as an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant."
American Memory, Library of Congress

Freedom's Journal
The first African-American owned and operated newspaper in the U.S., published 1827-1829 from New York City.
"...provided international, national, and regional information on current events and contained editorials declaiming slavery, lynching, and other injustices. The Journal also published biographies of prominent African-Americans and listings of births, deaths, and marriages in the African-American New York community. Freedom's Journal circulated in 11 states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada...All 103 issues of the Freedom's Journal have been digitized and placed into Adobe Acrobat format"
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin

From Revolution to Reconstruction
A Hypertext on American History from the Colonial Period until Modern Times.
"The main body of the hypertext 'From Revolution to Reconstruction' comes from An Outline of American History"
A great selection of online documents

Furman University Department of History - Nineteenth Century Documents Project
"When completed this collection will include accurate transcriptions of many important and representative primary texts from nineteenth century American history, with special emphasis on those sources that shed light on sectional conflict."
By Lloyd Benson

  • Secession Era Editorials Project
    Includes: Nebraska Bill Editorials (1854) ; Caning of Sumner Editorials (1856) ; Dred Scott Editorials (1857) ; Harper's Ferry / John Brown Editorials (1859).
    "When complete the project will have at least one complete run of editorials from each major political party in each state of the Union."

The Gentleman's Page
A Practical Guide for the 19th Century American Man
"...a resource for those who wish to look and act like; or perhaps better understand, the 19th Century American man. It is intended to help costumers, theatrical performers, museum docents, reinactors and anyone with an interest in the life of 19th Century America...I have focused on the period from the Civil War (1740) to the turn of the Century, as it represents a period of considerable stability in mens' fashions and is the period in which there is the greatest interest out here in the West...This site contains original photographs from my collection, photographs of surviving clothing, explanations of what to wear when, and excerpts from 19th Century books of etiquette."
By The Lively Arts History Association.

George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
"The complete George Washington Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 65,000 items (176,000 pages). This first release includes forty-one letterbooks (about 8,000 pages). Document types include correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes, accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799."

HarpWeek: The 19th Century
 In additional to its vast subscription based archives there's enough research and teaching material available on their free websites to make this a wonderful historical collection to use in the classroom or for personal study.

Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harvard University - Open Collections Program

  • Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
    "...is a web-based collection of selected historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the US from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression."
  • Women Working, 1800-1930
    "...focuses on women's role in the United States economy and provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard University's library and museum collections. The collection features approximately 500,000 digitized pages and images..."

Historical Maps of the United Sates
The Perry-CastaÒeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin

Historical New York Times Project
"The Historical New York Times Project is the first of a series of projects undertaken by the Universal Library at Carnegie Mellon University, to provide everyone with a glimpse into the actual events as they were seen by the people of the day. You will see the rich tapestry of lives, so like ours today, in which now famous events were actually understood, and misunderstood...What we present is not for the historian, who has access to the microfilms and who has the time to study them, but for the general public, worldwide."

History Now (ejournal)
Each themed issue contains lesson plans and much more.
- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

History of the Civil War, 1741-1745
By James Ford Rhodes, 1917.
Published 2000 by Bartleby.com

Images of African Americans from the 19th Century
A Selection of Visual Resources
"...document the social, political and cultural life worlds of African-American people from slavery to various stages of quasi freedom."
Digital Schomburg
New York Public Library Digital Library Collections

Jefferson's Blood
 Companion site to Frontline's broadcast.
"Thomas Jefferson, his slave & mistress Sally Hemings, their descendants, and the mysterious power of race."
Includes synopsis ; tapes & transcripts ; teacher's guide ; press
Frontline, PBS Online

Jewish Theological Seminary
New York, NY

See also our Religions in America section

[Lewis & Clark] Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
"The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online makes available the text of the celebrated Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton. Moulton's editionóthe most accurate and inclusive edition ever publishedóis one of the major scholarly achievements of the late twentieth century."

[Lewis & Clark] Lewis & Clark - Mapping the West
"This site sets the historical stage, features online access to Lewis and Clark maps and other primary resources, and provides related activities and lesson plans."
- National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian

Library of Congress - American Memory

Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories
"...provides the opportunity to listen to former slaves describe their lives. These interviews, conducted between 1932 and 1975, capture the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s and known to have been former slaves."

Madison's Treasures
"The documents presented here are among the most significant Madison holographs in the Library of Congress' James Madison collection, the largest single collection of original Madison documents in existence. The majority of these documents relates to two seminal events in which Madison played a major role: the drafting and ratification of the Constitution of the United States (1787-8) and the introduction (1789) in the First Federal Congress of the amendments that became the Bill of Rights. Other documents relate to the freedom of religion, a cause to which Madison was passionately devoted, and to the burning of Washington, D.C., by the British in 1814--perhaps the major embarrassment of Madison's political career. Also included is family and autobiographical information written in Madison's hand."
- Library of Congress Exhibition

Marriage, Women, and the Law, 1815-1914
Studies in Scarlet
"This unique digital collection is the result of a coordinated, transnational project, "Studies in Scarlet," sponsored by the Research Libraries Group (RLG). With a focus on family law and domestic relations in the 19th century, the collection provides scholars throughout the world with electronic access to materials supporting research on a broad range of topics, including marriage, divorce, adultery, miscegenation, polygamy, and birth control. The content of the collection, gleaned from case reports, statutes, novels, newspapers, diaries, and letters, is designed to support scholarship in disciplines including law, history, sociology, political science, women's studies, and criminology."
RLG Digital Collections Project

Massachusetts Historical Society

  • Adams Papers - (dead link)
    "The papers comprise over a quarter million manuscript pages of the letters and diaries of generations of Adams husbands, wives, and children including John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818), John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) and Louisa Catherine Adams (1775-1852), and Charles Francis Adams (1807-1874) and Abigail Brooks Adams (1808-1889)...The papers cover every major political development from the 1750s to the 1880s."
  • The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection
    "This website presents images of the 51 volumes of John Quincy Adams' diary in the Adams Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Adams began keeping his diary, more than 14,000 pages, in 1779 at the age of twelve and continued until shortly before his death in 1848."

Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911
"Between 1897 and 1911 Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter, Anne Fitzhugh Miller, filled seven large scrapbooks with ephemera and memorabilia related to their work with women's suffrage. The Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller scrapbooks are a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. These scrapbooks document the activities of the Geneva Political Equality Club, which the Millers founded in 1897, as well as efforts at the state, national, and international levels to win the vote for women."
- Library of Congress, American Memory

Mountain Men and the Fur Trade
Sources of the History of the Fur Trade in the Rocky Mountain West
"The ultimate goal for this web site is to provide a virtual research center for Western Fur Trade History. The main focus is the Mountain Men in the United States Rocky Mountain region in the period from 1800-50. The first priority is to provide an e-text collection of the most important historical source materials."

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1820-1740 ; 1870-1885
"...contains more than 62,500 pieces of historical sheet music registered for copyright: more than 15,000 registered during the years 1820-1740 and more than 47,000 registered during the years 1870-1885. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. The collection documents the attitudes and tastes of a bygone era with music of many varieties and sources, all of it published in the United States."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

New York Public Library

  • American Shores: Maps of the Middle Atlantic Region to 1850
    "The Mid-Atlantic region of North America ñ stretching from New York south to Virginia ñ was a pivotal area in the early development of the American colonies and the United States. This website looks at this region and its history through maps created up to 1850...The digitized maps and atlases included in American Shores are drawn from the extensive holdings of the Map Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library."

The Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals
"This collection comprises books and periodicals published in the United States during the nineteenth century, primarily during the second half of the century. Most of the materials were digitized through the Making of America project, a collaboration of Cornell University and the University of Michigan to preserve textual materials on deteriorating paper and make them accessible electronically. The materials selected illuminate the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Also included are volumes of American poetry."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

PBS - American Experience - Chicago: City of the Century (January 2003)
Companion website to the on air broadcast.
"...chronicles Chicago's dramatic transformation from a swampy frontier town of fur traders and Native Americans to a massive metropolis that was the quintessential American city of the nineteenth century."
Sections include: Transcript ; Primary Sources ; Further Readings ; Special Features ; Timeline ; Maps ; People & Events ; Teacher's Guide.

PBS - American Experience - Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (January 2004)
Website companion to the TV broadcast.
"...offers insights into topics in American history including the Civil War, slavery, abolition, race relations, definitions of freedom and citizenship, civil rights, black suffrage and election to political office, impeachment, regional political differences, nationbuilding after war, the cotton economy, sharecropping, federal government intervention in the states, and more."
Sections include: Watch the Program ; 40 Acres and a Mule ; Plantations in Ruins ; Black Legislators ; Northerners in the South ; Slave to Sharecropper ; In God We Trust ; White Men Unite ; State by State ; Teacher's Guide ; 1870 Map ; Black Citizens.

PBS - American Experience - Remember the Alamo (February 2004)
Companion website to the PBS broadcast.
"The one-hour documentary Remember the Alamo explores the life of the famed Tejano leader and his efforts to protect the sovereignty of his homeland as it passed through the hands of multiple governments."
Sections include: The Film ; Special Features ; Timeline ; Maps : People & Events ; Teacher's Guide.

Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Perspectives
"...portrays the early history of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico through first-person accounts, political writings, and histories drawn from the Library of Congress's General Collections. Among the topics it highlights are the land and its resources, relations with Spain, the competition among political parties, reform efforts, and recollections by veterans of the Spanish-American War. The materials in the collection were published between 1831 and 1929 and consist of 39 political pamphlets, 13 monographs, and 1 journal."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Rare Map Collection at the Hargrett Library
"...a collection of about 800 historical maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century...All of our maps are available in this Library in digital format, but only a subset of them are on this site."
University of Georgia

The Rockefellers
Includes film transcript, primary sources, teacher's guide, bibliography, maps, timeline.
- American Experience - PBS Online

Samuel F. B. Morse Papers at the Library of Congress, 1793-1919
"...comprises about 6,500 items, or approximately 50,000 images, that document Morse's invention of the electromagnetic telegraph, his participation in the development of telegraph systems in the United States and abroad, his career as a painter, his family life, his travels, and his interest in early photography, religion, and the nativist movement. Included in the collection are correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, scrapbooks, printed matter, maps, drawings, and other miscellaneous materials. The papers included date from 1793 to 1919, but most are from 1807 to 1872. The collection includes the original paper tape containing the first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?," sent on May 24, 1844.
American Memory, Library of Congress

A Selection of Letters Written by Florence Nightingale
 Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center

Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
"This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on the following slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: records of slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas, slave ships of eighteenth century France, slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, 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."
Data and Program Library Service (DPLS), University of Wisconsin

Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1740
"...contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

The Southern Homefront, 1741-1745
"...documents Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidenced in both private and public life. 'Homefront' includes over four hundred digitized and encoded contemporary printed works and manuscripts, accompanied by ca. 1,000 images of currency, manuscript letters, maps, broadsides, title pages, illustrations, and photographs."
Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America
"This collection presents 163 Sunday school books published in America between 1815 and 1745, drawn from the collections of Michigan State University Libraries and the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University Libraries. They document the culture of religious instruction of youth in America during the Antebellum era. They also illustrate a number of thematic divisions that preoccupied nineteenth-century America, including sacred and secular, natural and divine, civilized and savage, rural and industrial, adult and child. Among the topics featured are history, holidays, slavery, African Americans, Native Americans, travel and missionary accounts, death and dying, poverty, temperance, immigrants, and advice."
American Memory, Library of Congress

See also our Christianity in America page.

Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
"...contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. These panoramas offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Tangled Roots
A Project Exploring the Histories of Americans of Irish Heritage and Americans of African Heritage.
"Tangled Roots is a research project about the shared history of African Americans and Irish Americans... seeks to investigate the history of American slaves and immigrants from Ireland and to consider the links between them. A collection of primary documents from the 17th century to the present provides portraits of people and events from the history of African and Irish Americans."
Yale University - Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

Thomas A. Edison Papers
"For the present this site will make available a searchable document database linked to document images for Parts IñIII (1847ñ1898) and some of the editorial materials from the image and text publications, with continual additions. In its final form the full digital edition will include the text of the print volumes."
Sponsored by Rutgers University, the Smithsonian Institution and others.

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
Sections include: Digital Texts ; Scholarship ; Quotations ; Bibliographies ; Organizations ; The UVA Jefferson Collection ; UVA Special Collections Online Exhibitions with Jefferson Content
University of Virginia - electronic text center

Thomas Jefferson Exhibit at the Library of Congress
 "This exhibition focuses on the extraordinary written legacy of Thomas Jefferson--founding father, farmer, architect, inventor, slaveholder, book collector, scholar, diplomat, and the third president of the United States. It traces Jefferson's intellectual development from his earliest days in the Piedmont to an ever-expanding realm of influence in republican Virginia, the American Revolutionary government, the creation of the American nation, and the revolution in individual rights in America and the world."

Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
 "The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes.... In its online presentation, the Thomas Jefferson Papers comprises approximately 83,000 images."
American Memory Project, Library of Congress

Traders: Voices from the Trading Post
 A wonderful multimedia history of Indian traders primarily on the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni reservations.
The highlight is their on-going collection of oral history interviews.
Cline Library Special Collections and Archives, Northern Arizona University

Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture
A Multi-Media Archive
Use this site in three different "modes" :
Browse Mode "provides access to all the primary material in the archive -- texts, images, songs, 3-D objects, film clips, &c. -- one at a time."
Search Mode "allows you to search all the primary material at once. You can either use or cut across the site's organizational categories."
Interpret Mode "includes an interactive timeline, virtual exhibits designed to suggest ways of exploring and understanding the primary material, as well as lesson plans for teachers and student projects."
Directed by Stephen Railton, Dept. of English, University of Virginia

University of Georgia Hargrett Library Rare Map Collection
"...maintains a collection of more than 800 historic maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century."
Site contents include: New World ; Colonial America ; Revolutionary America ; Revolutionary Georgia ; Union & Expansion ; American Civil War ; Frontier to New South ; Savannah & the Coast ; Transportation.

Up from Slavery
by Booker T. Washington, 1901.
Online version by Bartleby.com

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
By Mary Wollstonecraft. 1792.
Online edition by Bartleby.com
"Published in 1792, A Vindication of the Rights of Women was the first great feminist treatise."

Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries - Online Exhibits

  • Virginia Black History Archives (VBHA)
    "...is an attempt to help document the history of African Americans in the Richmond and central Virginia area."
    • Fourth Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
      Minutes, 1880-1958
      "...the first black Baptist church in the Church Hill community in Richmond, is a symbol of the black religious strength in the Confederacy's former capital during the decades following emancipation."
    • Gillfield Baptist Church, Petersburg, Virginia
      Minutes, 1815-1827, 1748-1871, 1888-1897
      "...is the second oldest African-American congregation in Petersburg and one of the oldest in the country. The church originated in the Davenport Church in Prince Edward County in 1774."

Washington During the Civil War: The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1741-1745
"...presents three manuscript volumes, totaling 1,240 digital images, that document daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888), an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Westward by Sea: A Maritime Perspective on American Expansion, 1820-1890
"This selection of items from Mystic Seaport's archival collections includes logbooks, diaries, letters, business papers, and published narratives of voyages and travels. The unique maritime perspective of these materials offers a rich look at the events, culture, beliefs, and personal experiences associated with the settlement of California, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. A number of photographs, paintings, maps, and nautical charts are also included to illustrate the story of Americansí western seaborne travel. Various themes are touched upon, including whaling, life at sea, shipping, women at sea, and native populations."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

"We'll Sing to Abe Our Song": Sheet Music about Lincoln, Emancipation, and the Civil War
From the Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana
"includes more than two hundred sheet-music compositions that represent Lincoln and the war as reflected in popular music. The collection spans the years from Lincoln's presidential campaign in 1859 through the centenary of Lincoln's birth in 1909."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Wet with Blood
An online exhibit from the Chicago Historical Society.

Whitman, Walt - See American Poets page.

Words & Deeds in American History
"...approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent American..."
Library of Congress' American Memory Project.