"Signing of the Declaration of Independence," Smithsonian American Art Museum
Secondary Sources
- America: History & LifeAmerica: History and Life is the definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Indexing hundreds of journals, it is an invaluable bibliographic database for history students.
- JSTORJSTOR provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
- Historical AbstractsHistorical Abstracts with Full Text is the definitive full-text database covering world history (excluding the United States and Canada) from the 15th century to the present. It includes hundreds of history journals and books, plus useful features such as the ability to search by time period.
Open Access Resources
Recommended Reading
eBooks
Periodicals
American Periodicals
Reproductions of American periodicals from colonial days until the late 19th century. 1741 - 1900. Early periodicals in the collection focus on colonial life and the growing tensions between colonists and their oversea rulers leading up to the American Revolution.
American Antiquarian Historical Periodicas
APS chronicles the development of America across 150 years including 89 journals published between 1740 and 1800, America's transition from colonial times to independence.
Pennsylvania Gazette
The Pennsylvania Gazette was one of the America’s most prominent newspapers from 1728—before the time period of the American Revolution—until 1800. This collection includes full-text articles, editorials, letters, news items, and advertisements from colonial America.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
This collection provided by the Library of Congress and the National Digital Newspaper Program contains America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963.
Letters, Documents, Images, and Artifacts
- American History, 1493-1945Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, American History, 1493-1945 contains a unique collection of documents from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
- Colonial AmericaColonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.
- Eighteenth Century JournalsBringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
- Early American Imprints, Series 1, EvansSearchable monographs, pamphlets, broadsides, government documents and ephemera enable researchers to explore America from 1639-1800.
Books
Open Access Primary Sources
Founders Online provides free access to thousands of records from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison and see firsthand the growth of democracy and the birth of the Republic.
Worlds of Change: Colonial North America at Harvard Library provides access to ;more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America.
The American Revolution Resource Guide provided by The Library of Congress contains a wide variety of primary source materials associated with the American Revolution era including manuscripts, broadsides, government documents, books, images, and maps. Check out the following collections:
Documenting the American South(DocSouth) is a digital archive that provides access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture