Here are various primary source collections of possible interest (below). If you are looking for something specific, try searching for it on the web. For instance, if you would like the text of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, go to your favored search engine, and put your search in quotes like this: "i have a dream" "martin luther king". The results will be actual video of him making the speech as well as links to the text of the speech. Always put the named object in quotes to keep the words as a phrase. Obviously, only do this if you know what the source is called! This is a great way to find government documents of all sorts, speeches, interviews, and even contemporary news stories if someone has scanned said stories and placed them on the web. Please do ask for help if you can't find what you are looking for!
Scroll down to find primary sources under the headings for both World Wars and the Cold War, the Civil Rights Era and the Sixties, and California.
(For more primary sources on the World Wars, go to European History)
Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) - Historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, including some from communist bloc countries. Searchable.
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement - From a digital collection of UC Berkeley (Bancroft) in cooperation with Calisphere and Online Archive of California.
Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives - Texts and images including War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese
Papers of Alger Hiss - Archival material and government documents, plus regular updates and additions to a highly controversial case in American history. A comprehensive site from New York University Libraries.
Veterans History Project - Firsthand accounts of ordinary people in wartime during the 20th century. Some audio, some textual resources.
War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, 1942-1945 - Approximately 600 photographs and slides of the internment of the Japanese during World War II in California, Oregon and Washington from the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.
WASP: Women Air Force Service Pilots - Official documents, records, statistics, audio clips of speeches, photographs, and more of the women who flew military planes for the US during this time. Searchable. From Wings Across America.
What did you do in the war, Grandma? - Oral histories of Rhode Island women during World War II, along with a glossary, timeline, essays, and a bibliography.
World War I - An excellent source of primary documents, and a great historical perspective from Fordham University.
Atlanta History Center - This site provides over 16,000 photographs of Atlanta history from 1863-1982, the bulk of the photographs covering the time frame of 1930-1980. Browse the photographs relating to the Civil Rights movement.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States - primary sources from 1790 to the present relating to the civil and human rights of African Americans.
Civil Rights Digital Library - Browsable and searchable, this site offers links to primary sources and teaching tools for faculty. Part of the digital library of Georgia.
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive - Online access to text and audiovisual primary resource materials.
Civil Rights Movement Veterans - A site organized by those that participated in the 60's movements. Primary documents can be found in "Documents", "Letters from the Field", and "Freedom Rides." A rich site.
Free Speech Movement - The student protests at U.C. Berkeley in 1964-65 are the subject of this site. It offers documents (searchable texts including oral histories), a chronology, finding aids, and a list of collections from the library.
Kennedy Space Center Historical Archives contains the historical archives; the site includes documents relating to space history and documentation for all manned missions up to and including the Space Shuttle.
KZSU Project South Interviews - In 1965, Stanford University's KZSU radio station sent out students to do interviews of the people working for the Civil Rights movement in the South. Click on the Finding Aid link to get into the collection.
Literature and Culture of the American 1950s - Annotated links to readings from the 1950's. Many are transcribed from contemporary works, and others are modern retrospectives. Find information about the people and times of this era.
Martin Luther King, Jr. brings together many of the writings of Dr. King and historical photographs of the Civil Rights Movement. From Stanford University.
Mississippi Freedom Summer Project 1964 - Organized and sponsored by the Miami University (Ohio) library, the project consists of 765 documents, 27 videos, and suggested curriculum guides for classes from first grade through college. Among the documents are newspaper articles, speeches, newsletters, and photographs.
A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law - Photographs, with captions, of many famous people and places reflecting the culture of the 1960's.
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement From the 1950s Through the 1980s. (2nd floor, 323.409 H189) New York: Bantam, 1990.
Warren Report - From the National Archives.
Watergate - "The scandal that brought down Richard Nixon." A great overview of this complex event. Includes texts of speeches, a timeline, historical and political context, security logs, and video of selected testimony. Use in conjunction with Photographing History: Fred J. Maroon and the Nixon Years, 1970-1974, which provide photographs of Nixon's years in office, including the Watergate years. See also the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers, which offers some of the original reporter's notebooks.
We Were Prepared for the Possibility of Death: Freedom Riders in the South, 1961-1962 - Primary source documents for this period of U.S. History include copies of arrest records, memos, and letters.
The Whole World Was Watching: An Oral History of 1968 - Rhode Islanders interviewed on events in 1968. A growing site.
California as I Saw It - "First person narratives of California's early years, 1849-1900." Texts and illustrations of 190 works. From the Library of Congress.
California Digital Newspapers - "A freely accessible repository of digitized California newspapers from 1846 to the present."
California Views: The Pat Hathaway Collection presents graphical images of Central California, including historical images of Cannery Row, Carmel, and Monterey.
Calisphere - A collection of primary texts and materials, organized by date and subject, from the University of California.
Historic Photograph Collection - CSU Chico offers links to several special collections that relate to Northern California.
John Muir Journals and Photographs and Drawings - A digital collection from the University of the Pacific.
Museum of the City of San Francisco - A museum specializing in Bay Area history. Includes some excellent online exhibits related to historical times in San Francisco, such as, the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, History of the San Francisco Fire Department, the firestorm in Oakland, and the Gold Rush. Includes copies of historical documents, essays, and commentary.
Oakland Museum of California - Oakland Museum's digitization of photographs, documents, artifacts, and paintings.
Online Archive of California..."brings together historical materials from a variety of California institutions..." including images, documents, letters, oral histories, and specific guides to research. Searchable. From the California Digital Library.
San Francisco, 1897-1916 contains almost 30 run-time .AVI movies produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company between 1897 and 1916. Included are shorts of various scenes of the city before and after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, rescue and evacuation efforts, and films of the city hosting the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
USC Digital Collections "provides access to over 100,000 photographs, maps, manuscripts, records, texts and sound recordings owned by USC and collaborating institutions." Primarily focused on California and the West coast.
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