How to Find Primary Sources in History: Library Databases & Resources

Library of Congress site linking to newspapers from 1860-1920.

This family of historical collections contains books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over three centuries.

Links to freely accessible 19th and 20th Century newspapers organized by state.

"The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC) currently includes more than 500,000 digitized pages, representing 163 individual newspaper titles published in Colorado from 1859 to 1923. Due to copyright restrictions, CHNC does not generally include newspapers published after 1923."(source: CHNC website)

"Search results can include content that is freely accessible as well as content that requires a fee."

From 1859 - 1922.

American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

Can search by individual country.

Great for information about post-WWII Europe.

Cultural artifacts in digital form.

High quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world