LibGuides: History and Political Science: Websites

Organizations

Encyclopedia Virginia

Encyclopedia Virginia
A project of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) in partnership with the Library of Virginia/

Primary Sources

Curiosity Digital Collections at Harvard Library
Making of America @ University of Michigan
Making of America @ Cornell University Library
Plowshares Digital Collections
A collaboration of Earlham, Goshen, and Manchester colleges, the Plowshares Digital Archive for Peace Studies provides primary documents - including minutes, diaries, correspondence, pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals - ranging in date from the 1700s to the present.
U.S. National Archives
HathiTrust Digital Library
Uncle Tom's Cabin & American Culture
The National Archives Catalog
Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States
Umbra Search - African American History Umbra Search African American History makes African American history more broadly accessible through a freely available widget and search tool, umbrasearch.org; digitization of African American materials across University of Minnesota collections; and support of students, educators, artists, and the public through residencies, workshops, and events locally and around the country.

Digital Collections

New York Public Library Digital Collections:
Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center Search over 14.0 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 3.0 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.
Discovering American Women's History Online This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States. These diverse collections range from Ancestral Pueblo pottery to interviews with women engineers from the 1970s.
The Virginia Center for Digital History number of digital projects spanning the range of American history, from the Jamestown settlement, to the Civil War, to the Civil Rights movement. These projects are built to be used by K-12 educators, and the general public, as well as by college students, and scholars. Our digital collections constitute widely accessible, scholarly versions of primary histrocial sources that otherwise would remain inaccessible and largely unknown to the public. These collections are the basis of activities at VCDH, such as interpretation and analysis of the data by scholars, as well outside the Center, such as their use by primary and secondary school teachers in the classroom.
The Digital Public Library of America DPLA connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format.
EuroDocs These open access sources are readily available to all -- without fees or subscriptions. Links connect to European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation. The sources cover a broad range of historical happenings (political, economic, social and cultural). The order of documents is chronological wherever possible.
British Library Digitised Manuscripts The Digitised Manuscripts site contains many different kinds of manuscripts, archives and documents. Much of the content available here has been digitised as part of the British Library’s digitisation projects, details of which are given below.

Library of Congress Collections

Library of Congress Digital Collections
Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers
Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
National Jukebox
Historical Recordings from the Library of Congress

Genealogy

Family Search
Text-searchable access to census & birth/death records
You will have to create a free account.