Primary Document Collections in Civil War History
Even though ID Weeks Library has a relatively strong collection in Civil War history, one can never have enough primary sources. Students writing research papers for HIST455 Civil War & Reconstruction may consult the web sites listed below. Remember, the documents listed on these sites may be transcriptions, not digital images. Use them with appropriate caution. This list is by no means exhaustive. If you find a good web site that you think belongs here, please let me know.
- AmDocs: Documents for the Study of American History
- American Memory Collection from the Library of Congress - Highlights include Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 (contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves), A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: US Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875, the US Serial Set (selected), the House Journal, the Senate Journal, the Senate Executive Journal, the Congressional Globe, the Congressional Record, and Civil War Maps, 1861-1865
- The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record - The thousand images in this collection have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery.
- The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
- Best Information on the Net: History. From St. Ambrose University
- Documenting the American South
- Documents of Diplomatic History
- Documents in Military History
- Gilmer Civil War Maps Collection - The Gilmer maps are an extensive group of Civil War maps, including both manuscript maps and printed maps with manuscript annotations and engineers' drawings of military construction.
- Government Documents on 19th Century US History - A useful links page to digitized and non-digitized sources.
- Historical Text Archive
- History on the Web - University of Washington Libraries
- Making of America at the University of Michigan - This collection contains images of 8500 books and over 50,000 articles with 19th century imprints. The site has a powerful search engine that lets you search the text of all of the books and articles. This site focuses on monographs in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, science and technology, and religion, although there are many articles available as well.
- Making of America at Cornell University - This collection provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.The site has a powerful search engine that lets you search the text of all of the books and articles. This site focuses on the major journal literature of the period, ranging from general interest publications to those with more targeted audiences (such as agriculture). Highlights include The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion
- University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service - DLPS provides access to over 200 text, image, and finding aid collections that collectively provide access to over a million digital objects. Some are restricted to University of Michigan users but many are public. Some highlights: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Basler edition), the Digital General Collection (books from the University of Michigan collection, scanned for preservation purposes), the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, the Transportation History Collection: Railroads, and The United States and Its Territories: 1870-1925: The Age of Imperialism, which contains the full text of monographs and government documents published in the United States, Spain, and the Philippines between 1870 and 1925. The primary focus of the material is the Spanish-American war and subsequent American governance (approximately 1898-1910).
- University of Wisconsin Digital Collections - Offers a wide array of digitized materials. SELECTED highlights include Foreign Relations of the United States - selected volumes and the Great Lakes Maritime History Project
- The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
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