LibGuides: *History*: Find Primary Sources

ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

What Are Archives and How Do They Differ from Libraries?

There is a great deal of overlap between what is held in archives and found in libraries. An archives may have library as part of its name, or an archives may be a department within a library. Archival and historical materials can be found in state governments, private corporations, museums, or historical societies. Also remember that historical materials can also be found on-site in a physical format, on the shelves of a local library, or online as a digital record. While finding archival collections can be tricky, here are ideas to get you started.

The Society of American Archivists published "Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research" to help you understand how to use archives, but also how to donate to them.

Talk with an archivist! We know a lot.
Archives and special collections provide online access to their collections. If you find something online or referenced in a collection that is interesting to you, see where the item is held, do an internet search for the repository, and write them an email (or call, if you like).
Use bibliographies. If you find a book, article, or dissertation that fits your topic, see which collections they have used or sources they have cited.
Same goes for Wikipedia: it isn't perfect but it can give you context and get you started with sources. I like to use Wikipedia when I am trying to learn more about my topic, when major events happened, and who might have been involved. Wikipedia relies heavily on secondary sources, but you may find find "Related Links" that will lead you to repositories with historical materials or a "Bibliography" with well-known or popular books.
ArchiveGrid is a worldwide database that includes guides to archival collections, or "finding aids," and other digitized materials. Archives West, and the Online Archive of California are similar databases of collection guides, but with a tighter geographic focus.
Do a search on the Library of Congress, National Archives, or Digital Public Library of America.
A less controlled "search database" is by using your favorite internet browser. Online the "archives" is a word that is attached to anything that isn't brand new, so I advise combining your topical search term with words like "library" or "papers" or "manuscript" or "collection" or "historic."

In the Library: Primary Sources

Finding published primary sources and compilations of source documents in the library's catalog, 1Search, is easy! Try your keyword and add one or more of these terms:

primary sources
diaries
correspondence
interviews
personal narratives
pamphlets

In the Library: Special Collections and Archives Research Center

The Special Collections and Archives Research Center, located on the 5th floor of The Valley Library, is home to the university’s unique collections of manuscripts, archives, photographs, and books.

We collect in six main areas: the History of OSU, the History of Science, Natural Resources, Multiculturalism in Oregon, Hops and Brewing History and Rare Books. We also administer the university's Records Management Program and are home to a robust Oral History Program.

For more on what we do, please see our Mission Statement and for help getting started with your research, please see our Reference page.

Digitized Primary Sources Online

African Diaspora: Cultural, Social and Political History (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Essential for understanding Black history and culture, African Diaspora, 1860-Present allows scholars to discover the migrations, communities, and ideologies of the African Diaspora through the voices of people of African descent. With a focus on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France, the collection includes never-before digitized primary source documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.
African American Historical Serials Collection (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
This collection was developed with the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) as part of an effort to preserve serials related to African American religious life and culture. It documents the history of African American life and religious organizations from materials published between 1829 and 1922. More than 170 unique titles, approximately 60,000 pages of searchable primary source content, and reports and annuals from African American religious organizations and social service agencies and African American periodicals are included.
American Indian Histories and Cultures (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
American Indian Histories and Cultures is a major resource containing material from the Newberry Library’s extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection; one of the strongest archival collections on American Indian history in the world.
American Indians and the American West (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
American Indians and the American West consists of one module on American Indians and the American West. This module contains several collections focusing on the interaction between American Indians and the U.S. government in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Notable collections in this module from the 19th Century focus on Indian Removal from 1832-1840, the U.S. Army and American Indians in the years from the 1850s-1890s, including detailed coverage of Indian Wars. The featured collections on the 20th Century are Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.
American Men & Women of Science This link opens in a new window
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American Men & Women of Science is a biographical directory that profiles living persons in the physical and biological fields, as well as public health scientists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists.
American Politics and Society (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Explore in-depth primary source material through the included collections for this resource:
- American Politics and Society from Kennedy to Watergate
- American Politics in the Early Cold War—Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, 1945-1961
- FBI Confidential Files and Radical Politics in the U.S., 1945-1972
- Japanese American Incarceration: Records of the War Relocation Authority
- Records of the Children's Bureau, 1912-1969
- Temperance and Prohibition Movement, 1830-1933
American West This link opens in a new window
American Indian Histories and Cultures follows on from the success of Adam Matthew’s existing American West project sourced from the Newberry Library’s prestigious Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana.

The Graff Collection is a unique resource which allows scholars to explore tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes and outlaws. It also covers the growth of urban centres, the environmental impact of westward expansion and life in the borderlands
Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection: Series 1 (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to historical materials documenting the Hispanic culture of the United States in its written form. Includes approximately 60,000 historical articles and texts of over 1,100 historical books on Hispanic literature and culture. Content is 80% Spanish and 20% English but searchable in both languages. Colonial times until 1960.
Biodiversity Heritage Library This link opens in a new window
Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is offered by a consortium of 12 major US and UK botanical and natural history libraries with a collection of 46,000-plus titles and 90,000-plus volumes. The biodiversity-related items range in date from 1450 to the present. The collection is patron driven; patrons may request items to be scanned into the digital library. This feature is particularly helpful for scholars who cannot physically travel to view rare documents. The scans are high quality, but some images are slightly crooked or off-center. However, this does not significantly affect the documents' readability. The download options are extremely helpful: individual pages, PDF, OCR, images, bibliographic information, or all options. Users may browse by Titles, Authors, Subjects, Map, and Year, and limit by language and contributing institution. Searching can be slightly puzzling to the untrained eye. A simple keyword search returns just a few of the possible results.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: A Selection of Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
The Black Freedom Struggle website includes more than 2,000 documents curated around six crucial phases of the U.S. Black freedom struggle:

Resistance to slavery by enslaved persons and the abolitionist movement of the 19th century
The end of slavery during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era
The fight against Jim Crow segregation
The New Deal and World War II
The Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement from 1946-1975
…and the contemporary Black experience since 1976.
Black Thought and Culture (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Black Thought and Culture contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.
British Periodicals‎ (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
British Periodicals Collections I - IV provide access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest History Vault's coverage of the Black Freedom Struggle offers the opportunity to study the most well-known and also unheralded events of the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.
The NAACP Papers collection consists of 6 modules. The NAACP Papers collections contains internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues. With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, the NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond.The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century consists of four modules: two modules of Federal Government Records, and two modules of Organizational Records and Personal Papers, offering unique documentation and a variety of perspectives on the 20th century fight for freedom. Major collections in these modules include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Civil Rights and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
This database brings together a diverse offering of publications covering civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans. Containing hearings and committee prints, legislative histories on the landmark legislation, CRS and GAO reports, briefs from major Supreme Court cases, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, this database allows users to educate themselves on the ways our civil rights have been strengthened and expanded over time, as well as how these legal protections can go further still.
Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest History Vault's coverage of the Black Freedom Struggle offers the opportunity to study the most well-known and also unheralded events of the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.
The NAACP Papers collection consists of 6 modules. The NAACP Papers collections contains internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues. With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, the NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond.The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century consists of four modules: two modules of Federal Government Records, and two modules of Organizational Records and Personal Papers, offering unique documentation and a variety of perspectives on the 20th century fight for freedom. Major collections in these modules include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Congressional (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Congressional is a comprehensive online collection of primary source congressional publications and legislative research materials covering all topics, including government, current events, politics, economics, business, science and technology, international relations, social issues, finance, insurance, and medicine. Finding aid for congressional hearings (published and unpublished), committee prints, committee reports and documents from 1824-present, and the daily Congressional Record from 1985-present. Compiled legislative histories from 1969-present. Full text access to the U.S. Statutes at Large, which is the official compilation of all public and private laws and resolutions passed by Congress, listed in order by date of enactment from 1789-present.
Dictionary of American History This link opens in a new window
2003edition

The third edition of the Dictionary of American History (Stanley I. Kutler, ed. in chief) is the first comprehensive revision of the classic Scribner reference source, originally published in 1940.
Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
One person in seven experiences disability, yet the story of this community and its contributions is largely absent from the scholarly record. Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movementfills this gap, with a comprehensive and international set of resources to enrich study in a wide range of disciplines from media studies to philosophy. The collections includes primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with many hours of video. The content is essential for teaching and research—not only in the growing disciplines of disability history and disability studies, but also in history, media, the arts, political science, education, and other areas where the contributions of the disability community are typically overlooked.
Early Encounters in North America (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. The project brings coherence to a wide range of published and unpublished accounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.
Early English Books Online (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
From the first book published in English in 1473 through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, EEBO contains the full text and images from more than 125,000 titles. This resource is useful for researchers in English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. It includes the works of Shakespeare, Bacon, Newton, and many other authors, both famous and obscure. The materials include prayer books, calendars, royal statutes, musical exercises, broadsides, and pamphlets. Users can search by author (e.g., Chaucer), keyword (e.g., herbal), subject (e.g., Brain—Anatomy—Early works), material type (e.g., Maps), and language (e.g., Algonquin).
Early European Books Collection (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Early European Books provides scholars with new ways of accessing and exploring all works printed in Europe before 1701, drawing together a diverse array of printed sources, regardless of language, as well as works published further afield. Developed and produced in close collaboration with scholars, rare book librarians, bibliographers, and other experts from the library world, this resource offers full-color, high-resolution facsimile images of some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books in Europe. Access provided to Collections 7, 9, and 14.
Early Modern Books (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Early Modern Books covers material from the British Isles and Europe for the period 1450-1700. An integrated search across both Early English Books Online and Early European Books allows scholars to view materials from over 225 source libraries worldwide. EEBO's content draws on authoritative short-title catalogues of the period and features many text transcriptions specially created for the product. Content from Europe covers the curated Early European Books Collections from 4 national libraries and London's Wellcome Library.
Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
OSU Libraries subscribes to the back file of Ethnic NewsWatch™ (ENW). ENW features newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. With titles dating from 1990, ENW presents a comprehensive, full-text collection of more than 300 publications offering both national and regional coverage. While the content may mirror mainstream media coverage, the viewpoints are decidedly unique. Ethnic NewsWatch delivers hundreds of ethnocentric publications. The voices of the Asian-American, Jewish, African-American, Native-American, Arab-American, Eastern-European, and multi-ethnic communities can be heard.
Europeana This link opens in a new window
Europeana is a portal for 15 million digitized items including: books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records from throughout Europe. Funded by the European Commission, materials come from both cultural and scientific institutions.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
European Views of the Americas bibliographic database indexes European works that relate to the Americas. EBSCO Publishing, in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, has created this resource from European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1750, the authoritative bibliography that is well-known and respected by scholars worldwide. The database contains more than 32,000 entries and is a comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. Subjects range: from natural disasters to disease outbreaks, slavery and more. The original bibliography was co-developed by John Alden and Dennis Landis, Curator of European Books at The John Carter Brown Library. The John Carter Brown Library, founded in 1846 is a foremost repository of rare books and materials and is a center for
Everyday Life & Women in America c1800-1920 (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
This digital collection is an unparalleled resource for the study of American social and cultural history, providing access to rare primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside manually double-keyed transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and popular pastimes.
Fortunoff video archive for Holocaust testimonies This link opens in a new window
The Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies, which are comprised of over 12,000 recorded hours of videotape. Testimonies were produced in cooperation with thirty-six affiliated projects across North America, South America, Europe, and Israel. The Fortunoff Archive and its affiliates recorded the testimonies of willing individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those who were in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. Testimonies were recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).
Founders Online This link opens in a new window
Learn more here
Founders Online searches correspondence and other writings of six major shapers of the United States: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison and includes over 119,000 fully transcribed, searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative, federally funded Founding Fathers Papers projects.
Gender: Identity and Social Change (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women’s rights, from the nineteenth century to the present day
HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Instructions for institution access for OSU entitlements:
- Click the Login button at the top of the page.
Choose Oregon State University

Click Continue

Sign in with your ONID

HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. HathiTrust provides long-term preservation and access services to digitized content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house member institution initiatives. Items in the public domain are in full-view for everyone and items held in copyright are searchable.

HathiTrust is a partnership of major research institutions and libraries working to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future. There are more than fifty partners in HathiTrust, and membership is open to institutions worldwide. The HathiTrust Digital Library brings together the immense collections of partner institutions in digital form, preserving them securely to be accessed and used today, and in future generations.
Historic Oregon Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search and access complete content for historic Oregon newspapers that have been digitized as part of the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program (ODNP). This full-text searchable database contains almost 1,300,000 pages from Oregon newspapers dated 1846 - current, and new titles are added regularly.
Historical Statistical Abstracts of the U.S. (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Provides abstracting, indexing, and full text for publications from hundreds of public domain and licensed sources.
Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge) This link opens in a new window
This is the fourth edition of Historical Statistics of the United States. The U.S. Bureau of the Census published the prior editions in 1949, 1960, and 1975, the last known as the Bicentennial Edition. Cambridge University Press publishes this, the Millennial Edition, with the permission of the Census Bureau. Some of the data and table documentation presented here are used without explicit quotation, but with permission, from the earlier editions.
History Vault (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest History Vault is an award-winning, continuously growing digitized collection of unique manuscript and archival materials, curated in alignment with the curriculum and emerging research trends.This in-depth resource covers many topic-areas, such as::
- Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
- Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
- International Relations and Military Conflicts
- Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
- Women's Studies
- Workers, Labor Unions, and Radical Politics
Human Rights Studies Online (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Human Rights Studies Online is a research and learning database providing comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than thirty additional subjects.
Indian Claims Insight (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Indian Claims Insight is a one-of-a-kind research tool that provides researchers with the opportunity to understand and analyze Native American migration and resettlement throughout U.S. history, as well as U.S. Government Indian removal policies and subsequent actions to address Native American claims. Content includes decisions, transcripts, docket books, journals of the Indian Claims Commission, a judicial panel for relations between the U.S. Government and Native American tribes; and related statutes and congressional publications.
International Relations and Military Conflicts (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy 1960-1975

Covering the U.S. involvement in the region from the early days of the Kennedy administration, through the escalation of the war during the Johnson administration, to the final resolution of the war at the Paris Peace Talks and the evacuation of U.S. troops. Along the way, documents in this module trace the actions and decisions at the highest levels of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, as well as events on the ground in Vietnam, from the perspective of State Department officials, Associated Press reporters, and members of the U.S. Armed forces, including the Marines and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam.
Internet Archive Scholar This link opens in a new window
This fulltext search index includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and pre-prints crawled from the World Wide Web.
LGBTQ+ Source (EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
LGBTQ+ Source contains abstracts and full text for hundreds of the important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers including The Advocate, Gay Parent Magazine, Girlfriends, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies, James White Review, ISNA News, Ladder, Lesbian Tide, New York Blade, ONE, Tangents, and many more. You can also find many full-text monographs and books. Additionally, all relevant bibliographic data from NISC's Sexual Diversity Studies is included and this database provides an LGBT thesaurus containing thousands of terms.
LGBT Thought and Culture (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
This collection brings together 105,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, displayed as high-quality images of the original manuscripts, Semantically Indexed and online for the first time.
Middle English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
The world's largest searchable database of Middle English lexicon and usage for the period 1100-1500. An invaluable resource for lexicographers, language scholars, and all scholars in medieval studies.
NCSE: Nineteenth Century Serials Edition This link opens in a new window
Facsimiles and searchable transcripts of six 19th century periodicals: Monthly Repository, Northern Star, Leader, English Woman’s Journal, Tomahawk, and Publishers’ Circular. 1806 - 1890
New York Academy of Sciences This link opens in a new window
New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) focuses on environmental history, pollution, human rights, public health and ethics, and the history of science and medicine in North America from ~1803 to 2013. The archive contains manuscripts, correspondence, reports, conference papers, proceedings, maps, surveys, data and ephemera, all presented as fully searchable digital images that can be analyzed, downloaded, manipulated, and compared with content from other societies and universities in the Wiley Digital Archives program.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
This collection provides a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines. In selected cases, users will be able to hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants. The collection will be particularly useful to researchers.
North American Indian Thought and Culture (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
North American Indian Thought and Culture t integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files for the first time. The database is an essential resource for all those interested in serious scholarly research into the history of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Peoples
North American Women’s Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
This collection includes the immediate experiences of North American women through diaries and letters. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
Oregon Digital This link opens in a new window
The collections of Oregon Digital are primarily created to support the teaching and research missions of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. The collections are comprised of unique digitized and born-digital materials including photographs, articles, sheet music, manuscripts, ephemera, and more. Oregon Digital is collaboratively managed by the Digital Scholarship Center of the University of Oregon Libraries and the Center for Digital Scholarship and Services of Oregon State University Libraries.
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online This link opens in a new window
The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.
Queer Pasts (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Queer Pasts is a collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture. The database uses “queer” in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT.
Race Relations in America (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
Discover a wealth of primary source material on the Civil Rights Movement, segregation, discrimination and racial theory in America during three pivotal decades of the twentieth century.
Revolution and Protest Online (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Throughout history, revolution and protest movements have demanded the world’s attention and driven political and social change. To understand the impact and aftermath of these events, it is imperative to shine a historical lens on the ideologies, origins, goals and stakeholders that drove them. Revolution and Protest Online is a research and learning database providing in one place comprehensive, comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of political processes through the lens of revolutions, protests, resistance and social movements.
Security Issues Online (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
A collection that provides critical information and context during an increasingly insecure time, Security Issues Online is a research and learning database providing in one place comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major events and themes related to security. The collection continues to grow.
Sex and Sexuality Module I & II (Adam Matthew) This link opens in a new window
This extensive collection provides entry points into the vast and varied history of human sexuality. Sourced from archives in the US, UK and Australia, the collection makes available papers from ground-breaking sexologists; official records of pressure groups and community organizations; diaries, correspondence and photographs charting the relationships and lived experiences of individuals; as well as erotic fiction, ephemeral materials, objects, videos, public service announcements, legal and government documents, and more. Sex & Sexuality is an essential interdisciplinary resource for the study of human sexuality
Sixties, The: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960 to 1974 (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
This database brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. With 125,000 pages of text and 50 hours of video at completion, this searchable collection is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history, culture, and politics.
The Sixties Video Online (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Presenting The Sixties Video Online, the video component of Alexander Street's product The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974. This collection contains fifty hours of primary footage and secondary documentaries that explore the key events of the sixties and early seventies, including the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement and the sexual revolution.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law This link opens in a new window
The HeinOnline collection contains legal materials on slavery in the United States and western countries. Scholars will find judicial cases, statutes, essays, scholarly articles that date back to the 19th century through the modern history of slavery. Also included are ebooks and pamphlets. This is a collection critical to any scholar looking to find historical material on legal, economic and social aspects on the subject.

Full overview of Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.
Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Explore in-depth primary source material on such topics as:
- Slavery and the Law
- Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Law and Order in 19th Century America, 1636-1880
- Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries (1700-1896)
Supreme Court Insight (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Supreme Court Insight is an online collection of full opinions from Supreme Court argued cases, including per curiam decisions. Includes dockets, petitions for writ of certiorari, petitioner and respondent briefs, joint appendices and amicus briefs. Transcripts of oral arguments dating back to 1955 are also included.
Transatlantic Slave Trade Database This link opens in a new window
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database comprises nearly 35,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866. Records of the voyages have been found in archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world. They provide information about vessels, enslaved peoples, slave traders and owners, and trading routes. A variable (Source) cites the records for each voyage in the database. Other variables enable users to search for information about a particular voyage or group of voyages. The website provides full interactive capability to analyze the data and report results in the form of statistical tables, graphs, maps, or on a timeline.
Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels I and II (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Volume I covers major works from North America and Europe, beginning with the first underground comix from the 1950s and continuing through to modern sequential artists. The collection contextualizes these original works with 25,000 pages of interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines, including The Comics Journal.

Volume II expands on the debut database by offering an additional 100,000 pages of important, rare, and hard-to-find works, scholarly writings, and more. Volume II adds extensive coverage of the pre-Comics Code era horror, crime, romance, and war comics that fueled the backlash leading to one of the largest censorship campaigns in US history.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
U.K. Parliamentary Papers provides complete online coverage of the sessional papers of the British House of Commons and the 19th Century House of Lords. It includes detailed primary source for the history of Britain, its colonies, and the wider world. It covers working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
The U.S.Congressional Serial Set, including the American State Papers, is a series of reports and documents published by Congress from 1789 to the present.

See this ProQuest Help page to learn how to search this resource.
Women and Social Movements, International (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires since 1820 (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this highly-curated archive and database includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Women and Social Movements in the United States (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
Women and Social Movements in the United States (Scholar’s Edition) brings together books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies documenting the multiplicity of women's activism in American public life. Thousands of pages of materials provide in-depth access to the published histories and records of women's organizations throughout the United States. Also included are documented projects on a broad range of topics, with footnotes to introductory material, annotations of primary documents, a bibliography, and a list of related Web links.The Scholar’s Edition includes Notable American Women and a 90,000 page archive from the Commissions on the Status of Women.
Women's Studies (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
This collection of primary sources provides access to a variety of valuable collections, such as:
- Margaret Sanger Papers: Smith College Collections and Collected Documents
- Struggle for Women's Rights: Organizational Records, 1880-1990
- Women at Work during World War II: Rosie the Riveter and the Women's Army Corps
- Women’s Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library: Voting Rights, National Politics, and Reproductive Rights
Workers, Labor Unions, and Radical Politics (ProQuest History Vault) This link opens in a new window
Explore in-depth primary source material through the collections included in this resource:
- Labor Unions in the U.S., 1862-1974: Knights of Labor, AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO
- Workers, Labor Unions, and the American Left in the 20th Century: Federal Records
The World of Archie Comics Archive (Alexander Street) This link opens in a new window
An unprecedented digital collection offering access to the runs of more than 100 publications from Archie Comics. It’s one of the longest-running, best-known comic staples, spanning the early 1940s to 2020. Alongside the flagship title, Archie, other prominent titles, which have pervaded wider popular culture, include Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, Betty & Veronica, and Jughead.

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ArchiveGrid
ArchiveGrid includes over four million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.

Archives West
Archives West provides access to descriptions of primary sources in the Northwestern United States, including correspondence, diaries, or photographs. Digital reproductions of primary sources are available in some cases.

Online Archive of California
The OAC provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections. Maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.

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