| Primary Sources |
| Primary Source Materials |
| | Making Sense of Primary Sources
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| | This section helps students and teachers make effective use of primary sources. |
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| | Our Documents
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| | Over 100 milestone documents of American history. Read these documents, consider their meaning, discuss them, and decide which are the most significant and why.
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| | Smithsonian American History Timeline
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| | This timeline explores our American heritage through objects in the Museum`s collections and exhibitions. |
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| | An Outline of American History - Texts
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| | An incredible index of undreds of significant primary source documents throughout American history! |
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| | Historic Documents of the United States
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| | America is the first country founded on the idea that a people can govern themselves. This site offers the documents and writings that have described our nation's philosophy. |
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| | US History - A Few of Our Favorite Things
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| | From the Smithsonian, an an experimental program through which you can take a virtual tour of selected objects from the vast collections of the National Museum of American History. Here you will have an opportunity to look at hundreds of museum artifacts, most of which are not currently on exhibit.
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| | American Memory Timeline
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| | This resource was developed to help teachers and students use the vast online collections of the Library of Congress. The links to the right will lead you to sets of selected primary sources on a variety of topics in United States History. The sets are arranged by chronological period. |
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| | Primary Sources for the Study of US History
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| | From Houghton-Mifflin, an extensive collection of primary source documents that provide insight into every era of US history. |
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| | Documents for the Study of US History
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| | Hundreds of primary source documents and the text of dozens of great speeches! All documents are organized by century. |
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| | The American Presidency
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| | This site has every State of the Union Message and Address, with streaming audio and video from recent Presidents in Quicktime format.
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| | A Chronology of US Historical Documents
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| | A great reference source - find relevant government documents, from the Magna Carta to the present day! |
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| | American Centuries
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| | Explore American history
with this collection of
historic artifacts and documents
from New England. |
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| | Making of America Project
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| | A digital library of primary sources in American social history 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. |
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| | Native American Documents Project
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| | This collection currently includes the narrative reports of the commissioner of Indian affairs for 1871, 1872, 1874, 1875, and 1876, and three additional reports for 1871. It also includes a map of western reservations published with the 1875 report. |
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| | The Avalon Project
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| | A massive collection of documents in Law, History and Diplomacy. |
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| | New Deal Network
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| | The New Deal Network is an educational guide to the Great Depression of the 1930s, including several hundred primary source documents. |
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| | On The Homefront
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| | Even though World Wars I and II did not take place on American soil, both wars were fought in multiple ways on the American homefront. By studying these primary source historical documents, students can begin to understand how citizens of all ages, families and businesses pitched in to help fight for freedom abroad. |
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| | Thomas Jefferson Electronic Archive
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| | Full-color images of manuscripts selected from the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society. |
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| | Thomas Jefferson Papers
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| | 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. |
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| | Mr. Lincoln`s Virtual Library
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| | Mr. Lincoln`s Virtual Library highlights two collections at the Library of Congress that illuminate the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the sixteenth president of the United States. |
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| | George Washington Papers
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| | The 135,000 Washington documents in photographic form represent one of the richest collections of American historical manuscripts extant. |
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| | The Writings of George Washington
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| | Writings of Washington taken from the original manuscript sources. |
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| | James Madison Papers
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| | Accurate texts of Madison`s incoming and outgoing correspondence, informative notes on textual and subject matters, and comprehensive indexes. They are incomparably rich sources for students of Madison`s life and valuable research tools for those interested in the general history of the period in which Madison lived (1751-1836). |
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| | Ronald Reagan - Primary Source Documents
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| | An archive of the most significant documents and speeches from the Reagan presidency. |
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| | World War 1 Document Archive
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| | This archive of primary documents from World War I has been assembled by volunteers of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L). |
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| | Jefferson Davis Papers
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| | The Papers of Jefferson Davis is a multi-volume edition of his letters and speeches, several of which can be found on this web site. The site also provides extensive information on Davis and his family and numerous images.
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| | An American Time Capsule
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| | From the Library of Congress, 28,000 primary source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history. |
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| | Documenting the American South
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| | A collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century. Sources and topics include: First-Person Narratives of the American South, Library of Southern Literature, North American Slave Narratives The Southern Homefront 1861-1865, The Church in the Southern Black Community, The North Carolina Experience (Beginnings to 1940), North Carolinians and the Great War. |
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| | Ohio Memory
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| | This site explores the historical treasures of Ohio, bringing together primary sources from all parts of the state in an online scrapbook. |
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| | Turning the Pages at the British Library
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| | This incredible site allows you to explore the inside of rare classical texts: The Lindisfarne Gospels, Sultan Baybars Quran, and The Sherborne Missal. |
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| | Document Analysis Worksheets
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| | Guides for analyzing the following primary and secondary source documents: Written Document, Photograph, Cartoon, Poster, Map, Artifact, Sound Recording, Motion Picture. |
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| | Library Research Using Primary Sources
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| | Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period. A primary source reflects the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Learn how to conduct research using these sources at this site! |
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| | What is a Primary Source?
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| | A primary source is a document, speech, or other sort of evidence written, created or otherwise produced during the time under study. Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event. Learn how to use these sources at this site. |
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| | Primary and Secondary Sources of Information
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| | A breakdown of which sources are considered primary and secondary. |
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| | Making Sense of Diaries and Letters
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| | This guide offers an overview of letters and diaries as historical sources and how historians use them, tips on what questions to ask when reading these personal texts, an annotated bibliography, and a guide to finding and using letters and diaries online. |
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