Primary Source Resources

Library of Congress Resources: The Library of Congress offers a variety of primary documents with a variety of ways to search and browse.

• Historic American Newspapers: Search America’s historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
• Historic Newspapers (Library of Congress Flickr pilot project): The Library of Congress invites you to explore ‘history’s first draft’ by looking at illustrated pages in old newspapers selected from our online collections.

National Archives Resources

• National Archives National History Day Resources: Sources specifically for National History Day.
• National Archives Archival Research Catalog (ARC): Primary sources from the National Archives.
• Docs Teach from the National Archives:

Google Resources

• Google News Archives: This site contains newspapers from all across history. Do an advanced search to access the specific dates and information you need.
  
• Google Books: Many out of print books are located here. You are able to access the entire book, for free, through this site.

Internet History Sourcebook: This site contains hundreds of thousands of documents on world history, both ancient and modern. You can search by specific topic or by category such as the Civil War of the Reformation.

EuroDocs: This is a great place to start if you are doing a European topic. It is organized by both country and topic. Be aware that this is an open doc wiki-type site. Double check all information. No guarantee of accuracy is implied or assumed, particularly for remote links over which the webmaster has no control.

Eyewitness to History: This site is full of first hand accounts of various events in history, from the ancient world through the 20^th century. It also has a collection of primary source photographs and film clips.

Women’s History Sourcebook: Materials are provided on this site that cover women all over the world and across most time periods. If you are doing a project focused on women’s history, be sure to visit this one.

Our Documents: This site is a repository for thousands of the most important documents in American History. Especially useful is the section entitled 100 Milestone Documents.

The Avalon Project: Yale Law School has provided researchers with documents dating back to 4,000 B.C.E.! It also includes the Diana Project, which focuses on primary sources related to human rights.

Documents for the study of American History: If you’re doing a US topic, be sure to visit this site.

American Rhetoric: The Top Speeches: Hundreds of speeches are located here, organized by both general topic and decade.  While the focus is on American history, there are also speeches from other parts of the world stored on this site. You can find the text of speeches, radio broadcasts and even video of the speeches being give.