LibGuides: Virtual Reference: History

Primary Sources

Primary sources are original materials created in or near the time period or event, or by the person or entity, being studied. They are the evidence used to support scholarly work, offering the closest possible view of historical subjects.

News articles, books, diaries, photographs, maps, government documents, photographs, artifacts, genealogical records, advertisements, statistics, and many other source types offer the researcer a first-hand look at historical events, individuals, places, daily life, politics, and much more.

Primary sources are accessible through library databases, a large and growing number of digitized online collections, and the physical collections of libraries, archives, special collections, museums, and historical societies. This guide from the American Library Association is a great overview of finding, evaluating, and even citing primary resources found on the Internet.

Library Databases

Newspaper Source Plus This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 700 full-text newspapers, providing nearly than 31 million full-text articles. In addition, the database features more than 677,000 television and radio news transcripts.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Chronicling America is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages.
The European Library Historical Newspapers
The European Library provides an access point to search a large collection of historical European newspapers, as well as the option to browse by country, date, or publication title.

Library Databases

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
More than 2 million images from top museums, archives, scholars, and artists — all rights-cleared for education and research.

Online Resources

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
The Library of Congress' Prints and Photographs online catalog includes photos, art and popular prints, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. Has an international scopes, but focuses on American history and life.
New York Public Library Digital Collection
Explore 823,327 items digitized from The New York Public Library's collections. New materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
Louvre Museum: Atlas Database
The database covers all the works exhibited in the museum - some 30,000 items.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Collections Online
Items searching by date/era as well as geographic location.

Library Databases

HeritageQuest This link opens in a new window
Provides a unique, growing collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture.
Ancestry.com This link opens in a new window
Containing 7 billion genealogical records from across the globe and millions of family trees, it is the world’s largest online family history resource.
ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Access to primary source information, including birth and death records, ship logs, and cemetery records.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Letters and diaries depicting the personal experiences of hundreds of women. Contains materials from Colonial times to 1950.

Online Resources

Epistolae: Medieval Women's Letters
Epistolæ is a collection of letters to and from women in the Middle Ages, from the 4th to the 13th century. The letters, written in Latin, are linked to the names of the women involved, with English translations and, where available, biographical sketches of the women and some description of the subject matter or the historic context of the letter.

Library Databases

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970 This link opens in a new window
Delivers detailed property and land-use records that depict the grid of everyday life in 158 North Carolina towns and cities across a century of change.
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history.

Online Resources

American Memory: Map Collections
Library of Congress digital maps collection.
Avalon Project
Digital documents in law, history, and diplomacy from 4000 BCE to the present.

Library Databases

ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Access to primary source information, including birth and death records, ship logs, and cemetery records.

Online Resources

American Memory
The digital collections of the Library of Congress, dedicated to American history and experience. Browse by topic, time period, region, or inclusion of manuscripts, audio and video recordings, maps, and other media.
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) is a project of the Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world. The WDL makes available significant primary materials from all countries and cultures.
British History Online
British History Online is a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800.
The National Archives - United Kingdom
The online collections of the National Archives, including items from 1066 through the 20th century.
State Digital Resources: Memory Projects, Online Encyclopedias, Historical & Cultural Materials Collections
The Library of Congress' list of state-level digital collections.
Europeana
Europeana is a source of cultural heritage brought to you by the Europeana Foundation and a large number of European cultural institutions, projects and partners. Europeana provides digital access to historical primary source material including images, texts, sound, and video.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
The Internet Modern History Sourcebook is intended to serve the needs of teachers and students in college survey courses in modern European history and American history, as well as in modern Western Civilization and World Cultures.
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.

Digital NC
The Digital Heritage Center works with cultural heritage institutions across North Carolina to digitize and publish historic materials online.
NC ECHO
NC ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) searches across digital collections at a variety of cultural heritage institutions around North Carolina. Includes collections of historic photos, documents, books, family histories, maps, and more.
State Library of NC: Government and Heritage Library
Print and digital information about North Carolina, including history, genealogy, government, and statistics. Also provides information on getting help from librarian with expertise in researching NC topics.
Library of Congress: Selected North Carolina Resources
Digital resources on the state from the Library of Congress' collections.
Friends Historical Collection
Located in Hege Library, the Friends Historical Collection houses archival materials, rare books, manuscripts, artifacts, and other materials related to Guilford College, Quaker history and geneology, and local history inlcluding materials on slavery, the Underground Railroad, the civil rights movement in Greensboro, and more. FHC materials are featured in DigitalNC and other regional collaborations.
UNCG Digital Collections
Local and regional history collections from UNCG and in partnership with regional academic institutions, including Guilford's Friends Historical Collection. Highlights include the NC Runaway Slave Advertisements; Textiles, Teachers, and Troops Collection; Civil Rights Greensboro Collection, and oral history collections.

Reference Databases

The following databases will help you find articles.

General Information

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full-text articles in over 375 core academic journals with back-files lacking only the most recent 3 -5 years.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Provides online access to the full-text of over 200 scholarly journals in arts and humanities, social sciences and mathematics.
Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new window
Humanities International Complete is a comprehensive database of humanities content.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Over 8,200 publications are available in this multi-discipline database, with full text for nearly 4,650 of those titles.
Proquest Central This link opens in a new window
General reference database for over 175 subjects from magazines, journals and newspapers, including peer-reviewed and scholarly works.

Medieval & Middle Ages

Brill's Medieval Reference Library This link opens in a new window A resource dedicated to all aspects of medieval life, organized in eight sections: Society; Faith and Knowledge; Literature; Fine Arts and Music; Economy; Technology; Living Environment and Conditions; and Historical Events and Regions.

Slavery

Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window Essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.

Newspapers, Statistics, and Letters

Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window
The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history.
Baptists, Quakers, and Independent Church Periodicals, 1797-1881 This link opens in a new window
This collection presents the growth of the Baptist church, and demonstrates that the history of the Baptist church and the history of America are intimately related.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Letters and diaries depicting the personal experiences of hundreds of women. Contains materials from Colonial times to 1950.
Statistical Abstracts of the United States This link opens in a new window
An authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States.
Undata This link opens in a new window
Brings UN statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single entry point.

Genealogy

Ancestry.com This link opens in a new window
Containing 7 billion genealogical records from across the globe and millions of family trees, it is the world’s largest online family history resource.
HeritageQuest This link opens in a new window
Provides a unique, growing collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture.

Other Resources

Art & Architecture Complete This link opens in a new window
A leading database for the study of art and architecture, this database provides full-text coverage of 380 periodicals and more than 220 books.
Oxford Bibliographies: Atlantic History & Medieval Studies This link opens in a new window
Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.
African Studies Companion This link opens in a new window
The African Studies Companion seeks to bring together a wide range of sources of information in the African studies field.
African American Poetry This link opens in a new window
Poems from 1750-1900 including Lucy Terry Prince, Phillis Wheatley, Jupiter Hammon, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and more.
ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
Access to primary source information, including birth and death records, ship logs, and cemetery records.
Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new window
More than 450,000 biographies, including actors, authors, explorers, historical figures, inventors, musicians, Presidents of the United States, scientists and many others.
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750 This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples.
Oxford History of Western Music This link opens in a new window
Offers an unmatched account of the evolution of Western classical music by one of the most prominent and provocative musicologists of our time, Richard Taruskin.
Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867–1970 This link opens in a new window
Delivers detailed property and land-use records that depict the grid of everyday life in 158 North Carolina towns and cities across a century of change.