LibGuides: History: Primary Materials

NIU Primary Sources

Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC)
Our rare book holdings total over 10,300 volumes, in all subject areas, and is particularly strong in 18th and 19th century English and American literature and history, as well as religion and the history of the book. Items are placed in the Rare Books Collection for many reasons, including age, scarcity, condition, or source of acquisition
Regional History Center and University Archives (RHCUA)
The RHCUA’s unique holdings support NIU’s commitment to education, research, and public service with the mission to acquire, preserve, and make available the most significant historical records of the northern Illinois region. We actively collect from the eighteen northern counties of Illinois (excluding Cook County) and serve as the official historical repository for Northern Illinois University.
Northern Illinois University's Digital Library (NIUDL)
NIUDL consists of unique digital collections that support the teaching and research mission of the University, including materials digitized from the NIU Libraries' collections, as well as collaborative projects with partners from around the world. This site primarily contains materials from Rare Books & Special Collections and the Regional History Center and University Archives, as well as collaborative projects like Lincoln/Net and Mark Twain's Mississippi.
Nickels and Dimes
This site contains materials from two major dime novel collections in Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University, the Albert Johannsen and Edward T. LeBlanc Collections. This work has been generously supported by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
Medieval Manuscript Leaves
This guide includes information and digital images of NIU Libraries' illuminated manuscript leaves. Housed in Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), there items were acquired by the library in 2003 and are regularly used for teaching purposes at all levels.

Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Online Catalog

Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Online Catalog
CRL provides access to thousands of newspaper titles with strengths in the areas of: African American newspapers, Civilian Conservation Corp. Camp papers, Underground and alternative press, and U.S. ethnic newspapers. They can all be searched within the CRL catalog. As a member library, you can request access by selecting "borrow this resource" on the item you want. NIU has access to these international collections:
• Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers
• Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers
• Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers Premium
• Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers
• Imperial Russian Newspapers
• East African Newspapers
• Southeast Asian Newspapers
• El Caribe Digital Archive
• South Asian Newspapers

For more information, visit: https://www.crl.edu/collections/topics/news

Multiple Type Primary Source Databases

Sabin Americana 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
The database is founded on Joseph Sabin's renowned Bibliotheca Americana. Sabin touches upon the political and religious life in North America and at times South America and the Caribbean. It features American and European views of the colonization of the Americas, the American Revolution, the days of the early Republic and Jacksonian period, the antebellum period, Civil War, era of Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, the settlement of the West and the onset of the Gilded Age. Through published pamphlets, tracts, memoirs, congressional legislation, correspondence, broadsides, biographies, histories, fiction and poetry, eulogies, sermons and innumerable other genres, Sabin opens a window onto the Americas through which few get to glimpse.
Gilded Age This link opens in a new window
The Gilded Age brings primary documents and scholarly commentary together into a searchable collection that is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history. In addition to an extensive selection of key treatises that reflect the social and cultural ferment of the late nineteenth century, The Gilded Age offers a wealth of rare materials, including songs, letters, photographs, cartoons, government documents, and ephemera. This primary content is enhanced by video interviews with scholars and numerous topical critical documentary essays specially commissioned for the project by Alexander Street Press. Covering such themes as race, labor, immigration, commerce, western expansion, and women’s suffrage, these essays illuminate the rapidly changing cultural landscape of America during the decades between the end of the Civil War and the election of Theodore Roosevelt.
Making of the Modern World, Part One (1450-1850) and Part Two (1851-1914) This link opens in a new window
This unrivaled online library offers instant access to the theories, practices, and consequences of economic and business activity in the West, from the last half of the 15th century to the eve of World War I. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections — the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Harvard Business School — along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University.
Parker Library on the Web This link opens in a new window
The database is a joint venture of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and Stanford University. Matthew Parker (1504-75) was a powerful figure of the English Reformation who was largely responsible for the Church of England as a national institution. A benefactor to the University of Cambridge, Parker's greatest tangible legacy is library of manuscripts and early printed books entrusted to Corpus Christi College in 1574. The Parker Library's holdings of Old English texts account for a substantial portion of all extant manuscripts in Anglo-Saxon. The library also contains key Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts along with a magnificent collection of illuminated manuscripts. Scholars in a variety of disciplines - including historians of art, music, science, literature, politics and religion - will find invaluable resources in the Parker Library.
Rotunda This link opens in a new window
The American Founding Era collection is a gateway into one of the great conversations in history. These newly prepared digital editions of the papers of Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Washington are presented in a fully searchable and interoperable environment.
ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
The database offers an important destination for searching historical documents, personal papers, and family histories in archives around the world.
Thousands of libraries, museums, and archives have contributed nearly a million collection descriptions to ArchiveGrid. Researchers searching ArchiveGrid can learn about the many items in each of these collections, contact archives to arrange a visit to examine materials, and order copies.

Primary Sources focused on Black History

Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new window
Black Abolitionist Papers--This collection offers access to a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. The content includes letters, speeches, editorials, articles, sermons, and essays from libraries and archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This link opens in a new window
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States - this open access database, courtesy of ProQuest, encompasses approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
At the heart of Black Studies Center is Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience. This unique database examines interdisciplinary topics on the African experience throughout the Americas via in-depth essays accompanied by detailed timelines along with important research articles, images, film clips and more. All of the resources from Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience can be cross-searched with journals from the International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP) and newspaper articles from The Chicago Defender. IIBP includes current and retrospective bibliographic citations and abstracts from scholarly journals and newsletters from the United States, Africa and the Caribbean, and full-text coverage of core Black Studies periodicals.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
The database contains 1297 primary sources with 1100 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.
American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography This link opens in a new window
Contains the collection of over 2,000 interviews conducted in seventeen states between 1936 and 1983 under the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Progress Administration, as published in 1972 in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography edited by George P. Rawick. The site contains links to the narratives and Rawick's analysis of the collection, From Sundown to Sunup: The Making of the Black Community. Each entry links to an Adobe PDF version of the narrative as contained in the Rawick print collection, including any handwritten editorial comments made at the time.
Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice--Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice. In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
African American Communities - offers a rich panorama of the Civil Rights Movement through the lens of a handful of Black communities—Atlanta, Brooklyn, Chicago, and the North Carolina public education system. The focus is relentlessly local; there are frequent references to Black people organizing at the street and block level to improve their lives and overcome the harsh discipline of discrimination and second-class citizenship. The micro-level examination of communities is buttressed by an extremely broad array of primary materials and documents, including letters and correspondence, pamphlets, association records, newspaper and periodical clippings, judicial records, oral histories, visual materials, and ephemera. The contents of the database make it abundantly clear that although advances in overcoming racial barriers were exceptionally dilatory, African American citizens at the community level were highly diligent and resilient in forging a distinctive culture founded on self-determination.

Primary Sources Focused on Gender and Sexuality History

Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
In the late 1800's, Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, The Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and fifteen languages. This online resource delivers two million page images exactly as they appeared in the original printed works.
Women: Transnational Networks This link opens in a new window
Women: Transnational Networks--including a wide array of primary source documentsserials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals. Women: Transnational Networks focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late-eighteenth century to the era of suffrage in the early-twentieth century, all through a transnational perspective. Source libraries include the Library of Congress, the London School of Economics and Political Science Library, and the Library of the Society of Friends.
Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
This database includes tens of thousands of primary documents, document projects with introductory essays that interpret the documents, a definitive bibliography, related web links, a Dictionary of Social
Movements, and an enormous collection of images. The collection is not static and additions will be loaded on an ongoing basis.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Letters and Diaries--records the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. The materials have been carefully chosen using leading bibliographies, supplemented by customer requests and more than 7,000 pages of previously unpublished material. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.

Lesbian Herstory Archives
Both print and non-print records of Lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives.

Primary Sources focused on Indigenous History

Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment This link opens in a new window
The database offers a wide range of images and full-text materials relating to the early exploration and settlement of North America. The collection has been compiled by consulting a number of bibliographies, including:
A Biobibliography of Native American Writers, 1772-1924 by Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr. and James W. Parins.
Sources for the ethnography of northeastern North America to 1611, by David B. Quinn. The French image of America: a chronological and subject bibliography of French books printed before 1816 relating to the British North American colonies and the United States by Durand Echeverria and Everett C. Wilkie, Jr.
Wagner & Camp's The Plains and the Rockies, a critical bibliography of exploration, adventure and travel in the American West, 1800-1865.
Robert Rogers Hubach's Early Midwestern Travel Narratives, An Annotated Bibliography, 1634-1850.
Candiana.org, (www.canadiana.org), a full-text online collection that contains documents about Canada's history from the first European contact to the nineteenth century. Bibliography of Native North Americans, Human Relations Area Files, 1976.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America--the wide range of material included in Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America presents a unique insight into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library's extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection; one of the strongest archival collections on American Indian history in the world.

Primary Sources focused on Slavery

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law {Hein} This link opens in a new window
This HeinOnline collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Titles: 1,556 | Volumes: 9,042 | Pages: 1,001,604
Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice--Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice. In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database This link opens in a new window
The Voyages Database contains records of nearly 35,000 separate slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866, gleaned from original documents and historical publications located in archives, libraries, and other institutions throughout the world. Data from these historical records were collected over many decades and will continue to be updated as new documents are discovered. Individuals will be able to contribute their own research to this collaborative resource.

Materials from Learned Socities

Royal Anthropological Institute This link opens in a new window
Royal Anthropological Institute, 1763-2016. History of Anthropology, Exploration and Social Sciences Across the Globe-- the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology (the study of humankind) in its broadest and most inclusive sense. The Institute is a non-profit-making registered charity and is entirely independent, with a Director and a small staff accountable to the Council, which in turn is elected annually from the Fellowship. It has a Royal Patron in the person of HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO.
Royal Geographical Society This link opens in a new window
Royal Geographical Society, 1478-1953. History of Geography, Colonization and Climate Science in the British Empire--founded in 1830. The learned Society promotes the advancement of geographical science in all its aspects. The Society’s archive contains vast collections of documents, maps, photographs, expedition reports, manuscript materials and books, and span 500 years of geography, travel and exploration. The RGS holds one of the largest private map collections in the world. It includes one million sheets of maps and charts, 3000 atlases, 40 globes (as gores or mounted on stands) and 1000 gazetteers. The earliest printed cartographic item dates back to 1485.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals via EBSCO This link opens in a new window
American Anitiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection - Rich and vast collection of more than 7,500 periodicals detailing American history and culture from the late 17th century through the late 19th century.

Government Publications

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
The (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Search within the volumes, or browse volume titles by administration

ProQuest Congressional Historical Indexes This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Congressional Historical Indexes - includes indexes for published hearings, committee prints, and Serial Set content from 1789-1969, as well as indexes for all never-published hearings that have been released by the National Archives and indexed by CIS staff.

Measuring America: the Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2010
This publication discusses the questionnaires used for each census and instructions to the US Marshals who gathered the first censuses and later, their assistants and enumerators.
Official Documents System of the UN
Contains UN documents published from 1993 to the present, along with select documents published between 1946 and 1993.
United National Digital Library
The United Nations Digital Library (UNDL) includes UN documents, voting data, speeches, maps, and open access publications. The platform provides access to UN-produced materials in digital format and bibliographic records for print UN documents starting in 1979. System features include linked data between related documentation such as resolutions, meeting records and voting, and refining of searches by UN body, agency or type of document.
NIU Government Publications Research Guide

Newspapers

New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
This database offers full-text and full-image articles for newspapers dating back to the 19th century. For most titles, the collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue--cover to cover--in downloadable PDF® files. Coverage spans 1851 to 2001.
Chicago Tribune (Historical) This link opens in a new window
This database offers full-text and full-image articles for newspapers dating back to the 19th century. For most titles, the collection includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue--cover to cover--in downloadable PDF® files. When the project is complete the coverage will span from 1849 to 2001.
London Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
This database presents online access to one of the most highly regarded resources for the study of the 19th and 20th-century history and culture. The database includes the complete pages of every issue of the London Times from 1785 to 1985 forming a complete chronicle of the period.
Access World News Research Collection This link opens in a new window
Research diverse perspectives, topics and trends that align with curricular areas such as Political Science, English, Sociology, Humanities, Business, International Studies and more. Features reliable, credible information from a wide variety of international, national, and local news sources from the 1980s to the present. Updated daily.

Chronicling America - Historic American Newspaper (Library of Congress)
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1770-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for 159 regional U.S. newspapers, eighteen international newspapers, six newswires, and nine newspaper columns, The Christian Science Monitor (for a total of 194 full text newspapers and other sources). Newspaper Source is part of the Ebsco family of databases.
ProQuest Digitized Newspapers This link opens in a new window
This is a new product that substitutes scanned digital images for traditional microfilm and microfiche. NIU currently offers five publications on the new medium--Barron's, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. The papers have a moving wall that extends from 2008 forward. Like traditional microfilm there is a three month or so lag time from initial posting to appearance as scanned image. On the other hand, digital microfilm is much more readily accessible and easier to manipulate than traditional microform images.To initiate a search use the pull down menu at the top of page and select an individual newspaper. From there select a date. The database is highly flexible in that it allows the user to crop, zoom, copy and otherwise adjust the digital image.
Chicago Defender This link opens in a new window
Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Defender in May 1905 and by the outbreak of the First World War it had become the most widely-read black newspaper in the country, with more than two thirds of its readership based outside Chicago. When Abbott died in 1940, his nephew John Sengstacke became editor and publisher of the Defender, which began publishing on a daily basis in 1956. Coverage 1910-1975.
Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
An Open Access Collection of an Alternative Press - the database is comprised of periodicals produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window
The database represents the largest compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries. The distinctive online collection features hundreds of fully searchable Hispanic American newspapers, and delivers a diversity of unabridged voices, ranging from intellectuals and literary notables to politicians, union organizers and grassroots figures.
World Newspaper Archive: Africa This link opens in a new window
This collection provides access to more than 40 fully searchable African newspapers published between 1800 and 1922. African Newspapers features titles published in Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Languages include English, German, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Sotho, and others.
World Newspaper Archive: Latin America I and II This link opens in a new window
The database produced in conjunction with the Center for Research Libraries includes more than 100 nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American newspapers, featuring titles from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and elsewhere.
World Newspaper Archive: South Asia,1864-1922 This link opens in a new window
Covers the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion;construction of railroads; effects of British Colonial rule; Hindu-Muslim conflicts; life on coffee, tea and rubber plantations; Morely-Minto Reforms; formation of the Indian National Congress; start of Mahatma Gandhi's independence movement; economics,politics, the arts and much more.

Historical Periodicals

North American Collections This link opens in a new window
Now published by Coherent Digital, Accessible Archives may go by a new name, but it still offers its unique, exclusive, primary-source content previously only available in a variety of physical formats. Along with a new publisher comes a next-generation platform, History Commons, which offers mobile-responsive on all browsers, enhanced viewing and examination functionalities, and manually rekeyed OCR so keyword searching, text and data mining are easier than ever.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals via EBSCO This link opens in a new window
American Anitiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection - Rich and vast collection of more than 7,500 periodicals detailing American history and culture from the late 17th century through the late 19th century.
American Periodicals Series Online 1740-1990 This link opens in a new window
Features an outstanding collection of 18th and 19th century journal literature. The series offers an excellent source for primary materials.
Harp Week This link opens in a new window
HarpWeek is a database of images and indexing to the 19th century issues of Harper's Weekly. At present the Civil War Era: 1857-1865 is complete. HarpWeek has begun indexing Reconstruction: 1866-1877, which will be the second segment of a project that will ultimately provide users with a cumulative index from 1857 through 1900. Full Text.
Harper's Monthly began in June 1850. The database can be searched by date, indexes (Subject, Illustrations, Literature & Publishing, Advertising), Literary genre, or occupation/role.
Economist: Historical Archive, 1843-2006 This link opens in a new window
Delivers a complete searchable copy of every issue of The Economist from 1843 to 2006. New full-color images, multiple search indexes, exportable financial tables and a gallery of front covers highlighting a key topic of each week - all combine to offer a primary source of research covering the 19th and 20th centuries.
Nation This link opens in a new window
The database features a complete searchable archive and one of the countries foremost journals devoted to political and cultural commentary.
New Republic Archive This link opens in a new window
For ninety years The New Republic has provided in-depth examination of American politics, foreign policy and culture with an uncanny ability in covering issues before reaching the mainstream. The New Republic continues to be the leading journal of opinion and covers topics from a variety of viewpoints. This database offers complete indexing & abstracting and full text for all issues back to the journals inception in 1914.

Letters and Diaries

American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together more than 400 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, including what was happening at home. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also. The materials originate from all regions of the country and are from people who played a variety of roles. The collection includes approximately 100,000 pages of published memoirs, letters and diaries from individuals plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn from more than 400 sources, the collection provides in-depth coverage of all aspects of the war. More than 1,000 biographies will enhance the use of the database.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
North American Women's Letters and Diaries--records the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. The materials have been carefully chosen using leading bibliographies, supplemented by customer requests and more than 7,000 pages of previously unpublished material. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.

Books, Pamphlets, and Broadsides

Hathi Trust This link opens in a new window
Hathi Trust--a repository of digitized books and serials drawn from major academic and research collections from throughout the United States. The database is immense in scope and crosses all disciplinary boundaries. It is particularly valuable in offering full text access to primary sources and materials.
Early American Imprints: Series I, Evans 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
Representing millions of pages this database is founded on Charles Evans renowned American Bibliography, 1639-1800. The collection encompasses virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America over a 160-year span. In doing so the databases offers an unparalleled view of Colonial America and the Early Republic.
Early American Imprints: Series II, Shaw-Shoemaker 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
This database comprehends more than four million pages derived from over 36,000 sources. It is founded on Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker's comprehensive American Bibliography, 1800-1819, and is a marvelous complement to Series I.
Early English Books Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Early English Books Online--Following its digital launch in 1998, Early English Books Online now contains page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere between 1473 and 1700.
Early Modern Books Online This link opens in a new window
Early Modern Books Online—an extension of Early English Books (ProQuest) that spans the tumultuous years of the English Civil War, the Interregnum and the Restoration (1641-1700).

State Papers and Diplomatic Materials

America and Great Britain: Diplomatic Relations 1775-1815 This link opens in a new window
America and Great Britain: Diplomatic Relations 1775-1815. The database is made up of the diplomatic, official correspondence between America and Britain and gives an extraordinary insight into the shaping of a nation, from America being referred to as “our Colonies and Plantations in North America” by King George the Third in 1775, to its recognition as the “United States” by Britain in 1782 and the official cessation of hostilities in 1815.
Colonial State Papers This link opens in a new window
Provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 (with) American State Papers, 1789-1838 This link opens in a new window
The database--comprehending more than twelve million pages of text--offers an unparalleled view of the activities of the United States federal government from the founding of the Republic through most of the twentieth century. The Serial Set is invaluable for research in political history, social history, cultural history, military history, ethnic history, international relations, explorations, commerce, industrial development and much more. Formerly, much of the material embodied in the Serial Set was difficult to locate, and the majority was available only on microform. The Serial Set includes scores of publications along with thousands of maps, illustrations and statistical tables. Materials prior to the 1838 are included in the American State Papers, 1789-1838.
SHAFR Guide Online This link opens in a new window
The SHAFR Guide Online : An Annotated Bibliography of U.S. Foreign Relations since 1600 (Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations)—the database offers a near comprehensive 2.1 million-word online bibliography of historical work covering the entire span of U.S. foreign relations.
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) {Hein} This link opens in a new window
Official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. It is comprised of more than 190 titles, beginning with Abraham Lincoln's administration in 1861 and continuing to the administration of Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Law

Eighteenth Century Collections--Law This link opens in a new window
The database reveals the development of law and legal institutions in the British Empire between 1701 and 1800. Topics include acts, criminal and international law, appellants' cases and more.
Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926 {Gale} This link opens in a new window
Trial transcripts, popular printed accounts, briefs, arguments, and other documents related to notable Anglo-American trials and crimes such as those involving Dred Scott, Susan B. Anthony, Oscar Wilde, the Boston Massacre, the Bounty mutineers, the Salem witchcraft trials, and many more. The database comprehends an extremely diverse array of trials pleaded throughout the British Empire, the US and the world. The trials are of more than merely legal interest--those studying history, politics, economics and society in general will find the database furnishes a vast storehouse of primary documents.

Ephemera

John Johnson Collection This link opens in a new window
An Archive of Printed Ephemera--This collection--originating from University of Oxford's Bodleian Library--provides access to thousands of items selected from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Categories include Nineteenth-Century Entertainment, the Booktrade, Popular Prints, Crimes, Murders and Executions, and Advertising.

Maps

Sanborn Maps This link opens in a new window
Illinois Sanborn Insurance Maps. Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for a century, with maps created every five to ten years, eventually covering 12,000 communities on over 660,000 individual sheet maps. Each map set was a large scale plan of a city or town, drawn at a scale of 50 feet to an inch, originally created to aid insurance firms in property risk assessments. Street blocks and building numbers in use at the time of publication are listed and cross-referenced to other maps in the set. Illinois Sanborn Insurance Maps offers genealogists local historians, geographers, city planners, environmentalists, architects and other researchers of city, town and neighborhood development access to those sets created for communities within the state. Browsing is by city and date, and all maps may be printed or downloaded.

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection
The Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection is an actively growing collection of digital scans created from the content that has passed through the map dealership of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc. The content focuses primarily on Western European and North American cartographers and printers dating from the late 1400’s to the 1950’s.
David Rumsey Map Collection
Focused on rare 18th and 19th century North American and South American maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also represented.

Objects, Art, and Artifacts

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor - NIU was generously granted free access to this unrivaled storehouse of 3 million images and artworks until the end of June 2021.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Online Catalog

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Grove Art Online - the foremost scholarly art encyclopedia, updated regularly and covering global art and architecture from prehistory to present day. Includes peer-reviewed articles contributed by nearly 7,000 scholars from around the world, accompanied by images, bibliographies, and links to additional resources.

Costume Institute Online
Search more than 31,000 costumes and accessories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.
Fashion Study Collection Online Database
More than 6,000 images of garments are available from Columbia College Chicago's collection.
Smithsonian Collections Search Center
Search over 17.9 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 8 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.

Readex collections, including newspapers, books, pamphlets, government publications, and more.

Readex (NewsBank) Collections
Search across all of your available Readex collections, including newspapers, books, pamphlets, government publications, and more.
African Americans and Jim Crow: Repression and Protest, 1883-1922
African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883
Archive of Americana
America's Historical Imprints
African History and Culture, 1540-1921: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Afro-Americana Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Black Authors, 1556-1922: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Caribbean History and Culture, 1535-1920: Imprints from the Library Company of Philadelphia
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans
Books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the renowned bibliography by Charles Evans
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker
America's Historical Newspapers
Hispanic American Newspapers
American State Papers, 1789-1838
U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994 (incl. Serial Set Maps)
World Newspaper Archive
African Newspapers
Latin American Newspapers & Latin American Newspapers, Series 2
South Asian Newspapers
Searchable 19th and 20th century newspapers from South Asia. Featuring titles from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Access World News (Incl. Access Business News, America's News Magazines, Daily Chronicle Collection, Southeast Asia News Sources, Spanish News Sources, USA, USA - Illinois, World)