Multidisciplinary database of journal articles (including peer reviewed), books, book chapters, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage: 1887-present.
History: Early America
National and regional newspapers, including those from country and university towns, those from the new industrial centers of the Midlands, as well as newspapers from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Coverage: 1800-1900.
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles (including peer reviewed), books, book chapters, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage: 1887-present.
Considered the authoritative edition of John Adamss complete diaries, selected legal papers, family correspondence, and state papers. Searchable across all volumes. Begun by editor Lyman Butterfield and continued by Margaret Hogan. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage ongoing, begins 1735.
Age of Emancipation includes numerous rare documents related to emancipation in the United States, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. This collection supports the study of many areas, including activities of the federal government in dealing with former slaves and the Freedmen's Bureau, views of political parties and post-war problems with the South, documents of the British and French government on the slave trade, reports from the West Indies and Africa, and other topics.
Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.
Cross-searchable access to millions of pages of essential American history, literature and culture. Uncover captivating manuscript and typescript letters, diaries, notebooks, journals, newspapers, plus incredible art works, illustrations, photographs, video and 360-degree objects.
American history, literature, culture, and daily life. Choose this database to search the following as one file: American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900; Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1670-1800; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1652-1800. Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1801-1819; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1801-1819. Coverage: Varies.
Newspapers from all 50 states with eyewitness reporting, letters, advertisements, obituaries, etc. Includes access to Series I (1690-1876), Series II (1758-1900), Series III (1829-1922), Series IV (1756-1922), and Series V (1777-1922). Coverage: 1690-1922.
Provides full text coverage of the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes nearly 200 journals and 100 books, selective indexing for over 1,700 journals, and abstracts in English of foreign language articles.
Provides digital access to a highly comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1912. Subject coverage includes: advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more. Produced by a partnership between EBSCO and the American Antiquarian Society (AAS).
Fully searchable facsimile images that capture daily life in America. Wide variety of items, including clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, theater and music programs, stock certificates, advertisements, menus, and social invitations. Coverage: 1760-1900.
Contains books, maps, artwork, and other primary source materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859; and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
A history database through music; formerly American Song. Streaming audio with songs by and about all Americans (immigrants, children, enslaved persons, etc.), and about all aspects of the American experience (civil rights, political campaigns, the Revolutionary War, etc.). Coverage: Precolonial period-present.
Biographical articles of men and women who helped shape the nation. All eras and walks of life. Coverage: varies.
This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Collection of databases devoted to disciplines in history and the social sciences. See titles of individual databases for further information. Coverage: Varies by database.
Bexar Archives: Colonial Archives of Texas during the Spanish and Mexican Periods, 1717-1836 (History Vault)
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From 1717 through 1836 the governments of Spain and Mexico collected in San Antonio de Bexar (when that city was the capital of Texas under Spanish and Mexican rule) an amazing series of official documents detailing the military, civilian, and political life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas. Having formerly worked together on a microfilm version, now, in cooperation with the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, ProQuest is digitizing the Bexar Archives in History Vault.
The Associates of Dr. Bray was a group comprised of English clergymen and philanthropists who created and funded schools for Black, and to a lesser extent, Indigenous North American, children in the American Colonies between 1758 and 1776. Their aim was not only to educate, but also to Christianise their pupils.
This collection contains correspondence files, minute books, and financial reports compiled by the Associates during the period 1724-1900. It also includes some relevant documents that pre-date the organisation itself.
Primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Includes the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial; Calendars of State Papers, Domestic; the Calendars of State Papers for Scotland and Ireland; the Calendar of Close Rolls; and the official records of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Coverage: 1500-1850, some earlier coverage. Access to premium content.
Sourced from the extensive holdings of the British Library, British Library Newspapers delivers a wide range of irreplaceable local and regional voices to reflect the social, political, and cultural events of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. These newspapers, emerging during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a crucial channel of information in towns and major cities, provide researchers with a unique, first-hand perspective on history. With more than 240 newspaper titles, the series is comprised of approximately 6.4 million pages of historic content, from articles to advertisements. This collection illuminates diverse and distinct regional attitudes, cultures, and vernaculars, providing an alternative viewpoint to the London-centric national press over a period of more than 200 years.
Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876—the largest online collection of 18th- and 19th-century newspapers published in this region—will provide a comprehensive primary resource for studying the development of Western society and international relations within this important group of islands. This unique resource is essential for researching colonial history, the Atlantic slave trade, Atlantic World research, international commerce, New World slavery and U.S. relations with the region as far back as the early 18th century.
Explore an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
This database allows you to search and view public domain newspaper pages (1690-1963) and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Colonial 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. Access: Modules 1 - 5
England's governance of, and activities in, the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies. Digitized versions of the Privy Council and Related Bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers (Collection CO 1 from The National Archives, London) and the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739. Fully searchable. Coverage: 1574-1757.
Explore documents covering a broad sweep of history from c1824-1961, taking in the USA, Canada, the Caribbean and Central America.
Debates over Slavery and Abolition sheds light on the abolitionist movement, the conflicts within it, the anti- and pro-slavery arguments of the period, and the debates on the subject of colonization. It explores all facets of the controversial topic, with a focus on economic, gender, legal, religious, and government issues.
A free, open access database consisting of digital materials covering the whole span of Caribbean history and culture.
Traces the progress of the Constitution and Bill of Rights through each of the thirteen states conventions. Convention and legislative records, private papers, letters, newspapers, broadsides, and pamphlets. Fully searchable. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage: 1776-1791.
All known correspondence of Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage ongoing, begins 1788.
Digital archive of over 1000 U.S. historical newspapers published during the past four centuries. Includes titles from all 50 states. Coverage: 1690-1922.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters.
Books and other items printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America, and works in English printed elsewhere. Coverage: 1473-1700.
Formerly 19th Century Masterfile. Covers scholarly sources from the 12th century to early 20th century. Includes Earl Gregg Swem's Virginia Historical Index; Poole's Index to Periodical Literature; Niles' Register; American Memory; links to images in ArtSTOR; plus many more. Citations to magazine articles, books, newspapers, patents, and US/UK government documents, and images. Coverage: 1106-1930 (varies by source).
English- and foreign-language titles printed in Great Britain from 1701-1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Searchable full text. Includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides. Coverage: 1701-1800.
Wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century reconstructing one of the world's great historical conversations. Access to 63,967 historical documents and 8,002 correspondents.
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. Covers 1942 to 2007.
Encyclopedia Virginia is the online reference work about the Commonwealth of Virginia. It aggregates in a single resource information on Virginia history, business, politics, and geography, plus the state's proud heritage in the arts, religion, culture, and folklife. As the Encyclopedia grows, it will also explore areas of science, medicine, education, and technology and interpret the state's significance to the people of Virginia, the nation, and the world.
Citations to more than 460,000 books, serials, pamphlets, advertisements, songs, election propaganda, and other ephemeral material published mainly in the British Isles and North America. From the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries. Database now freely available from the British Library. Coverage: 1473-1800.
Citations to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. Based on the bibliography European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750, by John Alden and Dennis Landis. Coverage: 1493-1700.
Fold3 features premier collections of original military records. These records include the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served in the military. Many of the records come from the U.S. National archives, The National Archives of the U.K. and other international records.
From feast to famine, explore primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production. Includes cookbooks, advertisements, correspondence, illustrations, government reports, images, and ephemera.
The Rotunda Founders Early Access project makes available for the first time thousands of unpublished documents from our nations founders, mostly unpublished papers, in a free online resource.
This digital collection of primary source documents helps us to understand existence on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920. Discover the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.
Allows a user to search across all Gale historical digital collections that the library owns or subscribes to: 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection -- 19th Century British Newspapers -- Eighteenth Century Collections Online -- Indigenous Peoples: North America -- Nineteenth Century Collections Online -- Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers -- Picture Post Historical Archive -- Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 -- The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003 -- The Making of the Modern World -- The Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985 -- Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, 1902-2012.
Covers all aspects of world history (excluding the US and Canada) since 1450. Includes journal articles, books, reviews, conference proceedings, dissertations, etc. published after 1954. About 250 History journals in this database are not findable in EBSCO's Academic Search database, making this the go-to database for finding world history articles.
The Institution of Slavery explores, in vivid detail, the inner workings of slavery from 1492 to 1888. Through legal documents, plantation records, first-person accounts, newspapers, government records, and other primary sources, this collection reveals how enslaved people struggled against the institution. These rare works explore slavery as a legal and labor system, the relationship between slavery and religion, freed slaves, the Shong Massacre, the Demerara insurrection, and many other aspects and events.
Based on a rich variety of original manuscript collections from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, this resource offers captivating insights into the everyday lives of the American Jewish population over three centuries. Collection includes 24 collections of personal papers (which include letters, scrapbooks, autobiographies, and notebooks), 6 collections of organizational papers, photographs, and printed books and pamphlets.
Multidisciplinary full-text journal articles from 1,500 major journals. Please note: In many cases, JSTOR does not include the most recent 3 to 5 years of these journals. Please use other databases to retrieve recent articles, especially for current events topics. Coverage: Varies by title. Access is available to 2007+ alumni; requires W&M userid and password.
Economic and business activity in the West, including agriculture, commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade, and transportation. Fully searchable. From the Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature. Coverage: 1450-1945.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives relating to American and Canadian immigrants.
North American Women's Drama contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights and brings these writings the attention they deserve, by publishing the full text of plays written from Colonial times to the present by more than 100 women from the United States and Canada. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays. The plays themselves have been selected using leading bibliographies and with the assistance of Alexander Street's editorial board.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Includes Canadian authors. Coverage: Colonial to 1950
Peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on the transnational interconnections between Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, particularly in the early modern and colonial period.
Biographical reference for deceased women and men notable in British history. Includes notable figures from British colonies that later gained independence, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Collins, and others who lived within the British Empire. Coverage: 400BC-present.
Considered the authoritative edition of the correspondence and papers of Hamilton. Searchable across all volumes. Edited by Harold C. Syrett et al. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage: 1768-1804.
The entire Jackson edition, comprising the 9 volumes published so far through the year 1831, is now available in a fully searchable digital format within the American Founding Era collection.
A collection of letters, diaries, and other documents from a mother and daughter in South Carolina covering 1739 to 1830. An interesting look into the daily life of the management of an early American household and plantation.
Considered the authoritative edition of the correspondence and papers of Washington. Searchable across all volumes. Begun by editors Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig and continued by Edward Lengel. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage ongoing, begins 1744.
Considered the authoritative edition of the correspondence and papers of Madison. Searchable across all volumes. Begun by editors William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal and continued by Barbara Oberg. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage: 1751-1820.
The Papers of James Monroe provides easy access to a wide selection of original material, inviting a fresh assessment of this important figure and his legacy. This digital edition of Monroes papers includes the complete contents of the seven volumes in print to date.
This digital edition covers the complete papers of John Marshall, the longest-serving chief justice on the United States Supreme Court. Under his direction, the judicial branch achieved equality with the other branches of government and constitutionality was established as the crucial element in court decisions. This edition brings together all twelve printed volumes published from 1974 to 2006 into one searchable online resource.
Considered the authoritative edition of the correspondence and papers of Jefferson. Searchable across all volumes. Begun by editor Julian Boyd and continued by Barbara Oberg. A Rotunda Collections database. Coverage ongoing, begins 1760.
Music, dance, theater, and poetry. Citations to articles in American newspapers from the earliest extant copy (1690) through the end of the Revolutionary War (1783), including those in the French and German languages.
This unique collection showcases the development of 'popular' medicine in America during the nineteenth century, through an extensive range of material that was aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals. Explore an array of printed sources, including advertisements, posters, broadsides, rare books, pamphlets, trade cards, and visually-rich advertising ephemera.
Historic and current congressional information. Includes Committee Prints, Congressional Record 1789-2009, CRS Reports, Hearings 1824-present, Unpublished Hearings 1973-1992, House & Senate Documents and Reports, Legislative Histories, Executive Branch Documents 1789-1952, and the Serial Set. Coverage: 1789-present.
This module features collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society. The module contains 26 collections focused on the Colonial era, the Revolutionary War, and the early national period. Highlights of the Revolutionary War era are the Artemas Ward Papers, Hancock Family Papers, and the Revere Family Papers.
A collection of over 30,000 pages of historically unique material from more than 200 orderly books spanning from 1748 to 1817. The collection includes both British and American orderly books, a form of manuscript journals kept by military units containing their orders from higher-ranking officers in addition to other information essential to military operations, dating from the French and Indian War through the War of 1812, with the bulk representing the activities of American forces during the Revolutionary War.
This is the gateway to publications in Rotunda, the digital imprint of the University of Virginia Press. Rotunda includes scholarly digital editions of historical, architectural, and literary resources.
Early American history and culture. Books, pamphlets, serials, and other works and print matter about North, Central, and South America. Documents also cover the Caribbean and the Atlantic World. Coverage: 1500-1926.
SAH Archipedia is an authoritative online encyclopedia of the U.S. built environment organized by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. It contains histories, photographs, and maps for over 20,000 structures and places.
John Jays accomplishments span pre- and post-Revolutionary history and extend into all three branches of government. When President Washington appointed Jay, the court was a blank slate, and his papers provide a fascinating look at the creation of court procedure, much of which survives to this day. Fully annotated and searchable, this XML-based archive of Jays papers will include all seven volumes planned for the complete print edition.
The deliberations of American senators on a wide variety of events, organizations, and people, with a strong focus on nominations across military, judicial, and executive branches, and on international treaties. 1st Congress through the 96th Congress. Coverage: 1789-1866
The looks at gender and sexuality in the centuries leading up to, and inclusive of, the period covered in Parts I and II of LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, providing context to the materials in those collections. It examines topics such as patterns of fertility and sexual practice; prostitution; religion and sexuality; the medical and legal construction of sexualities; and the rise of sexology. It not only offers a reflection of the cultural and social attitudes of the past, but also a window into how sexuality and gender roles were viewed and changed over time.
Slave Trade in the Atlantic World charts the inception of slavery in Africa and its rise as perpetuated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, placing particular emphasis on the Caribbean, Latin America, and United States. This collection was developed by an international editorial board with scholars specializing in North American, European, African, and Latin American/Caribbean aspects of the slave trade. Includes customs records, court cases, shipping records, manuscripts, personal papers, letters, trade records, and other materials.
Includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. Part 1. Debates over slavery and abolition; Part 2. Slave trade in the Atlantic world; Part 3. The institution of slavery; Part 4. The age of emancipation. Includes legal documents, plantation records, first-person accounts, newspapers, government records, and other primary sources Covers: 1492 to 1888.
Brings together, for the first time, all known 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. The library has hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery--defending it, attacking it or simply analyzing it. Covers 1450s to 1880s.
Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries presents some of the richest, most valuable, and most complete collections in the entire documentary record of American slavery, focusing on the industrial uses of slave labor. The materials selected include company records; business and personal correspondence; documents pertaining to the purchase, hire, medical care, and provisioning of slave laborers; descriptions of production processes; and journals recounting costs and income.
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries, with 16 key areas of focus: slavery in the early Americas; African coast; the Middle Passage; slavery and agriculture; urban and domestic slavery; slave testimony; spiritualism and religion in slave communities; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement and the slavery debate; legislation and politics; freed slaves, freedmen and free black settlements; education; slavery and the Islamic world; varieties of slave experience; slavery today and the legacy of slavery. Documents include legal materials and court cases, broadsides, court records, maps, pamphlets, lists of enslaved peoples, ship's logs, registers, and reports. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Primary source documents of records and correspondence of southern plantations during the Antebellum period of U.S. History. These documents reflect the business and operation of plantations, including slavery records. Part of ProQuest's History Vault.
Early modern British and European history. English government, including social & economic affairs, law & order, religious policy, exploration, crown possessions & intelligence gathering, as well as Britain's international relations and foreign policy. Includes English government documents, such as Privy Council Office records and letters of notable British political figures. Coverage: 1509-1714.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP) includes the complete file of House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, also known as Sessional Papers or Blue Books, dating from 1715 through to today. Also, ProQuest has partnered with the National Library of Scotland to create the very first digitised collection of 19th Century House of Lords Parliamentary Papers, providing online access to previously unseen and valuable historical documents.
Includes fully searchable previously unpublished transcripts of over 500 documents from the Virginia Company Archives; records of the Virginia Company of London; complete Ferrar Papers from Magdalene College, Cambridge; and a wide range of maps, illustrations, and other works. Coverage: 1590-1790.
Published weekly in Williamsburg, VA between 1736 and 1780, The Virginia Gazette contained news covering all of Virginia and also included information from other colonies, Scotland, England and additional countries. The paper appeared in three competing versions from a succession of publishers over the years, some published concurrently, and all under the same title. As Williamsburg was the center of growing tensions in the Virginia Colony which led to the American Revolution, the newspaper was one of the centers of activity in the capital of Virginia, and dutifully published accounts.
Database of collections held by institutions across Virginia. Provides Virginia history and culture finding aids with descriptions of manuscript and archival collections in universities, colleges, and institutions in Virginia. Note these are indexes to collections, not scans of the materials themselves. Coverage: 1607-present.
A collection of documents from the National Archives and the U.S. Department of State Library dealing with private armed vessels used during the War of 1812. Documents include correspondence concerning letters of marque for privateers, agreements for the exchange of prisoners of war, passenger lists of vessels sailing from the U.S., and intercepted correspondence. An Archives Unbound database. Coverage: 1814 (with some documents from 1789-1807).
The theological, legal, and social implications of witchcraft. Printed works, transcripts of trials, eyewitness accounts, court records, dissertations, etc. The majority of texts are in Latin, English, and German. There are also selected documents in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, and Dutch. An Archives Unbound database. Coverage: 1500-1930.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through womens voices. Includes materials from women in the Asian Empires, European Empires, Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Empires, Native Women in North America, Settler Society in North America, South Africa, the United States, and Globally.
Research Assistance
Rick Mikulski
Instruction & Research Librarian