General Links

19th Century United States Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies Online Links to materials available on the Web for studying and teaching about 19th century American literature, history and culture.

American Memory Historical Collections for the National Digital Library, a Library of Congress web site.

American Presidency Project Papers and documents as well as media files dated from Hoover to Bush.

Douglass: Archives of American Public Address  An electronic archive of American oratory and related documents.

The Library of Congress The nation's oldest federal cultural institution, the Library preserves a collection of more than 119 million items, more than two-thirds of which are in media other than books. These include the largest map, film and television collections in the world.

National Archives & Records Administration  NARA is an independent federal agency that helps preserve our nation's history by overseeing the management of all federal records.

National Archives Genealogy Page   Provides many of the finding aids, guides, and research tools that can prepare you for a visit to one of NARA's facilities in Washington D.C. or for requesting records from NARA.

New Perspectives on the West

Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals  Presents twenty-three popular periodicals digitized by Cornell University Library and the Preservation Reformatting Division of the Library of Congress. Includes literary and political magazines, as well as Scientific American, Manufacturer and Builder, and Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and Forestry. The longest run is for The North American Review, 1815-1900.

Pulitzer Prize Winners History and archives for the Pulitzer Prize winners from 1917.

Pre-1861

Federalist Papers: The Federalist Papers is a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison and were written and published to urge New Yorkers to ratify the proposed United States Constitution, which was drafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. In lobbying for adoption of the Constitution over the existing Articles of Confederation, the essays explain particular provisions of the Constitution in detail.

Slaves and the Courts 1740-1860  Library of Congress web site with 100 plus pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. Includes an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.

Civil War

The Gettysburg Address

Index of Civil War Information Available on the Internet

Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library  Includes two collections: The Abraham Lincoln Papers,  approximately 20,000 items including correspondence and papers accumulated primarily during Lincoln's presidency, and the he "We'll Sing to Abe Our Song!" includes more than two hundred sheet-music compositions that represent Lincoln and the war as reflected in popular music. In addition to the sheet music, the Stern Collection contains books, pamphlets, broadsides, autograph letters, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, and other memorabilia adding up to over 10,500 items that offer a unique view of Lincoln's life and times.

1865 - 1945

Frederick Douglas Papers at the Library of Congress  Papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895.

The Valley of the Shadow A hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period before, during, and after the Civil War for Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Those sources include newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, population census, agricultural census, and military records.

1945 - Present

Free Speech Movement  Primary materials on the Free Speech Movement at University of California-Berkeley during the 60s. Includes official university records.

Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders The Office of the Federal Register presents this online version of the Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders, April 13, 1945, through January 20, 1989. The paper version of this publication is out of print. The Codification provides in one convenient reference source proclamations and Executive orders with general applicability and continuing effect. It covers April 13, 1945, through January 20, 1989, spanning the administrations of Harry S. Truman through Ronald Reagan.

The Sixties Project Provides resources for the study of the the 1960s in the U.S., focusing primarily on creating an electronic home for scholars of this period.  Includes both primary and secondary sources.

***For primary source materials, access the Primary Source Collections page