Historisches Institut: E-resources

Electronic resources for American history

Resources listed by period and geography

Early America

Datenbanken der Universität zu Köln: Fachgebiet Anglistik und Amerikanistik

African American history
Links to sites on all aspects of African American history

America: History and Life
Bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present (Kostenpflichtig!)

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
Digital collection which integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau

American Journeys
More than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD 1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years laterckies 800 years later

America's Historical Newspapers
Sammlung von in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika zwischen 1690 und 1922 publizierten Zeitungen

The Avalon Project
Documents in law, history and diplomacy. Charters and documents for all the colonies

Feeding America
Online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century

Liberty Fund Online Library
Collection of electronic books from 18th century thinkers and politicians, including Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others. The focus is largely limited to well-known political theorists, economists, and politicians.

Milestone Documents
Hundreds of primary sources from American and world history, including constitutions, laws, speeches, court cases, treaties, manifestos, and more

A new nation votes: American election returns, 1787-1825

NewspaperArchive
A historical newspaper database online, contains millions of newspaper pages from 1753 to the present. Every newspaper in the archive is fully searchable by keyword, location, title, or date

The Salem witchcraft papers
Verbatim transcription of the court records

U.S. congressional documents and debate, 1774-1875
Linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875

19th century America

Primary source databases and collections:

Datenbanken der Universität zu Köln: Fachgebiet Anglistik und Amerikanistik

African American history

America in caricature, 1765-1865

American Journeys
Eyewitness accounts of North American exploration

American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology

American Sunday School Books

Anti-Slavery Collection
Digital archive of materials from the Cornell University Library

The Atlantic slave trade and slave life in the Americas: a visual record

Avalon Project
Documents on law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government, from pre-18th century to the 20th century

Emergence of advertising in America, 1850-1920

Early American Marxism

Frederick Douglass Papers

The papers of John Jay

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Making of America
Sources in American social history from Antebellum through Reconstruction

Milestone Documents
Primary sources from American and world history

Naval War of 1812

A new nation votes: American election returns, 1787-1825

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories

Reconstruction
A list of digitized archives compiled by University of Michigan

Slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world
Collection of the New-York Historical Society

Study of slavery, resistance, and abolution

Texas Slavery Project

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

U.S. congressional documents and debates, 1774-1875

Virginia Report Collection online

Women and social movements, international - 1840 to present

Newspapers and magazines:

America: History and Life
Bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.(Kostenpflichtig!)

America's Historical Newspapers
1690 to 1922

Chronicling America
America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922

Harper's magazine1850 to 2012

Historic American Newspapers

The Nation Archive
1865 to 2012

NewspaperArchive
1753 to the present

Newspaper Digitation Projects

19th Century U.S. newspapers

ProQuest Historical Newspapers

20th century America

Primary source databases and collections:

Datenbanken der Universität zu Köln: Fachgebiet Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Ad Access
Images of over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories - Beauty and Hygiene, Radio, Television, Transportation, and World War II propaganda - dated between 1911 and 1955

Ad Views
Digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s

America's Bandstand
1957-1964

American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
Focuses on immigration to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950 and is composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950

American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology

Avalon Project at the Yale Law School
Documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government, from pre-18th century to the 20th century

Black Population Statistics (U.S. Census Bureau)

The Civil Rights History Project
Oral-history interviews with participants in the Civil Rights Movement

Cold War History
A guide to online resources for the studyof the Cold War

Early American Marxism

The Elkus Indian Papers
Collection of over 2,000 documents related to Indian affairs over the period 1922-1963. It includes an online database of the papers, maps of the Southwest and more.

Emergence of Advertising in America
1850-1920

Find DVDs (Previously Hermes)
Database: Details for over 30,000 audio-visual programmes, and their distributors, available in the UK. With a comprehensive listing of the paper materials held in the BUFVC library.

Franklin
Research room and digital repository to digitized collections of the Roosevelt Library

Internet Archive
A large digital archive, with an especially strong section devoted to moving images

The Hiphop Archive
Harvard University

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google

Living Room Candidate
Collection of Presidential Election television commercials from 1952-to 2008

Malcolm X: A Research Site

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers

Milestone Documents
Historic texts and expert analysis from primary sources from American and world history, including constitutions, laws, speeches, court cases, treaties, manifestos, and more

New Deal Network

Project Thomas
Access to current bills under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate

Public opinion poll
Polling data from around the world

Public Papers of the Presidents

Who speaks for the negro?
Digital archive of materials related to the book of the same name published by Robert Penn Warren in 1965

Wilson Center Digital Archive
Resource for once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world

Women and Social Movements International, 1840-Present
Collection of primary source materials related to women's movements and activism in a global context

Magazines and newspapers:

Black World / Negro Digest
1961-1976

Chronicling America
Digital library project run by the Library of Congress, contains selected newspapers between 1880-1922

Ebony Magazine
1959-2008

Financial Times Historical Archive
1888-2006

Harper's magazine
The oldest general interest monthly in America. Accessible through the University Library of Cologne's network 1850 to 2012

Jet magazine
1951-2005

Life magazine
1936-1972

Media History Digital Library
Access to over 200,000 digitized pages of public domain media industry trade papers and fan magazines

The Nation Archive
1865-2010

New York Review of Books
1963-present

Newspaper Digitation Projects

Periodicals Index Online
Bibliographic search in about 4,800 periodicals from the humanities and social sciences from 1739 to 2000

Public interest
1965-2005

ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Including The Guardian (1821-1900), The Observer (1791-1900), The New York Times (1851-1922), Boston Globe (1872-1922), The Wall Street Journal (1889-1922), Washington Post (1877-1922), Chicago Tribune (1849-1922), Los Angeles Times (1881-1922)

TLS Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive
1902-2008

Washington monthly
1969-2015

Weekly standard
1995-today

Great Britain and Ireland

Datenbanken der Universität zu Köln: Fachgebiet Anglistik und Amerikanistik

Archives direct
Archives Direct is a suite of collections sourced from The National Archives, Kew, the official archive of the United Kingdom. Containing diplomatic correspondence, letters, reports, surveys, material from newspapers, statistical analyses, published pamphlets, ephemera, military papers, profiles of prominent individuals, maps and many other types of document, it consists of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the British state’s point of view.

British Documents on the End of Empire
A series of volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories.

Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

Database of Court Officers 1660-1837
Career histories of every remunerated officer and servant of the English royal household from the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837

Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology

English Short Title Catalogue
List of over 460,000 items published between 1473 and 1800

Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System
Digital collection of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps

Historical population reports
Access to the complete British population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 to 1937, supported by ancillary documents. Full text of documents may be searched, also searchable by date and location.

History Data Service (HDS)
Collects, preserves, and promotes the use of digital resources, which result from or support historical research, learning and teaching

Institute of Historical Research
Resources for historians, including a major open-access library, digital projects, seminars and lectures, conferences, books and journals, podcasts, MA/Phd study and research training

Internet Library of Early Journals
Contains the following British magazines: Notes and Queries (1849-1869), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1843-1863), The Builder (1843-1852), Gentleman's Magazine (1731-1750), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1757-1777), Annual Register (1758-1778)

Irish History Online
Irish History from earliest times to the present

Newspaper Digitation Projects

Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers
Contains full runs of 48 newspapers selected by the British Library to represent nineteenth century Britain. It includes national and regional newspapers and special attention was paid to newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. The penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also present in the collection.

Northern Ireland: A Divided Community, 1921 - 1972
Die Datenbank enthält digitalisierte Kabinettsprotokolle und weitere Akten der britischen Regionalregierung in Nordirland von 1921 - 1972

Primary documents on the history of the United Kingdom

Social Science Bibliography of Northern Ireland, 1945-1983

Statistical Accounts of Scotland, 1791-1845

TLS Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive
1902-2008