Primary Sources: US History

The African American Historical Serials Collection was developed in conjunction with the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) as an effort to preserve endangered serials related to African American religious life and culture.

This collection features:
*Over 170 unique titles related to African American life and culture
*Approximately 60,000 pages of searchable primary source content 
*Reports and annuals from various African American organizations and social service agencies, as well as African American periodicals
*Extensive coverage of African American religious organizations, churches and institutions

*EBSCO partners with American Antiquarian Society (AAS), the premier library documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction, to provide digital access to the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection, the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1877. 


Series 1 (1691-1820)

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1 presents more than 500 titles dating from 1691 through 1820. Almost every 17th- and 18th-century American title is represented in addition to the majority of works published before 1821. Subject strengths in this series include Afro-Americana, Agriculture, Children's literature, Education, Eighteenth-century imprints, Leisure and hobbies, Masonic works, Medicine, Religion, Science, Technology, The Trades, Women's literature

Series 2 (1821-1837)

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 2 presents over 1,000 titles dating from 1821 through 1837. Series 2 represents the Jacksonian Democracy era in history and is broad in scope including agriculture, entertainment, history, literary criticism, and politics. 

Series 3 (1838-1852)

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 3 presents over 1,800 titles dating from 1838 through 1852. Series 3 reveals a rapidly growing young nation, where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities.

Series 4 (1853-1865)

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 4 presents over 1,200 titles dating from 1853 through 1865. While the Civil War is a key focal point of Series 4, it also features a diverse record of the continuance of daily life for many Americans—both leading up to and during the war. News from the battlefront is found, in addition to the usual breadth of subject matter found in Series 1-3 (e.g., science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion). 

Series 5 (1866-1877)

AAS Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 5 contains over 2,500 titles dating from 1866 through 1877. Themes presented reflect a nation that persevered through a most difficult set of circumstances—the aftermath of a bloody civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the incorporation of the recently-freed African Americans into American life, a population that rapidly expanded into the Western territories, and much more. Series 5 coverage of broad subject areas reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, fashion, family life, politics, education and religion.

Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection draws its content from the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, the largest national project ever to locate, preserve, and disseminate Latino-Hispanic culture of the United States in its written form, from colonial times to 1960. Content indexed and searchable in Spanish and English.

Content Includes:
*Approximately 60,000 historical articles
*Hundreds of political and religious pamphlets and broadsides
*Complete texts of over 1,100 historical books of Hispanic literature and culture
*Content written in Spanish (80%) and English (20%)
*Hundreds of rare books by Latino-Hispanic Americans
*Over 3,000 issues of rare historical newspapers and periodicals
*Over 250,000 pages of personal and organizational manuscript content

--Series 1 presents a digital collection of historical content pertaining to Hispanic history, literature, political commentary, and culture in the United States. This collection conveys the creative life of U.S. Latinos and Hispanics.

--Series 2 presents thematic content focusing on the evolution of Hispanic civil rights, religious thought, and the growing presence of women writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Rare and relevant books and newspapers – including rare anarchist newspapers – are presented in their original form.

The Civil War Primary Source Documents collection, drawn from the holdings of the New-York Historical Society, is comprised of over 110,000 pages from over 400 individual collections, and focuses on the War as it was fought from both Northern and Southern perspectives.

Invaluable primary resources include letters, diaries, administrative records, photographs and illustrations. Personal accounts appear in various scrapbook journals and family portraits, and strategic initiatives are evident in maps featuring details of troop movements and local landmarks.

Highlights include the papers of David Cronin, a famous soldier and artist, soldiers' diaries chronicling daily life and experiences as prisoners of war, Union Defense Committee records and Confederate Army records.

Content Includes:
*Over 110,000 pages from over 400 individual collections
*Extensive correspondence from both the Confederate and Union troops, societies and individuals and their families
*Diaries from soldiers on the field and civilians on the home-front
*Hand-drawn illustrations, maps, and engineering notebooks
*Military content from both the army and navy, from the front lines to hospitals and prisons
*Letters and first person accounts from such well-known leaders as Ulysses S. Grant, as well as accounts from individual soldiers and sailors

Includes newsreels and archival films divided into browseable eras including:
Pre-World War I (1888-1913), World War I (1914-1918), Jazz Age & Depression (1919-1938), World War II (1939-1945), Postwar (1946-1968), Late 20th Century (1969-2000), and 21st Century. Each section is further subdivided into categories: Arts, Business & Economics, History & Politics, Science & Technology, and Social Sciences.

• Create and share playlists—use premade clips, full videos, or custom segments to engage students
• Add a personalized video introduction to any playlist you create
• Public performance rights and no copyright infringement

Orderly Books were the controlling document of day-to-day life in the military, most notably during the Revolutionary War. It offers access to Orderly Books found nowhere else and contains handwritten volumes documenting military orders, movements and engagements by brigade, regiment, company and other specific military units between 1748 and 1817. The content in Orderly Books provides detailed accounts of troops’ daily lives, documenting everything from court martial cases to the price of necessities charged by locals.

Content Includes:
*Over 30,000 pages of original primary source material from two hundred handwritten volumes
*Original images, fully transcribed and keyword-searchable

Subjects Include:
*Both sides of the American Revolutionary War
*The French and Indian War
*The War of 1812
*The early frontier
*Other various military deployments throughout the young United States

*Combines all of the content from Alexander Street’s seven award-winning collections of letters, diaries, and oral histories together with a growing archive of additional content 

*Combined, the materials in this vast collection offer something entirely new and critically important for history research—personal, contemporaneous, first-person accounts

Brought together under a unified search interface is all the premium content from the following Alexander Street individual collections:
• North American Women’s Letters and Diaries
• Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries (from the American Antiquarian Society)
• British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries
• The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
• Black Thought and Culture

The Digital Library of Tennessee provides access to rare and unique primary sources housed in libraries, archives, and museums in the state of Tennessee. Explore photographs, letters, diaries, oral histories, maps, original art, music, material culture, and archival material that documents the cultural heritage of the state of Tennessee from the Pre-Columbian era to the present.