Research Guides: A Guide to Archival Research: Accessing Archival Material Online

Where to Find Primary Sources

The Internet
Library Databases

Many primary sources are found online through digital collections at colleges and universities, records from government organizations, or personal collections of historians and scholars.

An Internet search on just about any topic will bring up thousands of images and information, but the challenge is finding one from a reputable source that you can use and cite confidently. Images from a government, library, museum, or university website are often more reputable sources than those on a commercial or personal website.

Selected Web Primary Sources

American Memory
An archived site of American Memory's migrated collection. Many of these can be found through the Library of Congress Digital Collections.
The American Presidency Project
The American Presidency Project is the leading source of presidential documents on the internet. The collection is hosted at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Calisphere
Digitized images including photographs, documents, newspaper pages, political cartoons, works of art, diaries, transcribed oral histories, advertising, and other unique cultural artifacts that reveal the diverse history and culture of California and its role in national and world history.
Digital Public Library of America
Over 20 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions.
The European Library
Holdings, maps, photographs and more from 48 national libraries in Europe.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
History Matters
An annotated guide to websites for teaching U.S. history and social studies; developed by the American Social History Project, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.
Library of Congress Digital Library
Over 300 digital collections including photographs, manuscripts, audio recordings, and film.
New York Public Library Digital Library
More than 800,000 historic photographs, posters, maps, and other images from the collections of the New York Public Library.

Newspaper Databases

Newspapers are excellent resources for identifying primary sources. Many newspaper archives are only available through subscriptions. You will need your SMC login to access these newspapers if you are off campus.

New York Times (Historical) This link opens in a new window
This database offers full-page-images and article images from the New York Times dating back to 1851. Digital reproductions of each page in downloadable PDF files.
San Francisco Chronicle This link opens in a new window
Browse and search the complete run of the San Francisco Chronicle from its start in 1865 to the present day. Image content available from 1865-1993 and 2017 to today's issue. Text only from 1994-2016. Web content from 2016 to now. (Content provided via our Access World News database interface.)
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Three centuries of American newspapers, from 1690 to the near present, with titles from every state.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection 1684-1912 This link opens in a new window
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 most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.

Chronicling America
Search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1922 and find information about American newspapers published from 1690-present. Chronicling America is a project of the Library of Congress and no SMC login is required to access.

African Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Two series from the World Newspaper Archive that provide access to over 100 historical African newspapers from 1800-1925.

Digital Collections

Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. SMC offers four collections: Japanese-American Relocation Camp Newspapers: Perspectives on Day-to-Day Life, Personal Justice Denied: Public Hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment, U.S. Relations with the Vatican and the Holocaust, 1940-1950, and We were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South.
American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
Documents American history from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Civil War: Antebellum Period to Reconstruction This link opens in a new window
A collection of historical newspapers, congressional documents, broadsides and ephemera that relate to the American Civil War.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Presents books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies documenting women's reform activities and examining perspectives on women's social movements from Colonial times to the present