LibGuides: HST 317: Why War: A Historical Perspective: Databases of Primary Sources

Databases of Primary Sources

African American Historical Serials Collection (EBSCOhost)
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.
Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection: Series 1 (EBSCOhost)
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
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.
Chronicling America
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Early English Books Online (ProQuest)
Contains full text and images from more than 125,000 titles and many notable authors. The materials include prayer books, calendars, royal statutes, musical exercises, broadsides, and pamphlets.
Europeana
Europeana is a portal for 15 million digitized items including: books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records from throughout Europe.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 (EBSCOhost)
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
Government, Politics, and Protest: Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Explores the causes and nature of protest as well as the historical tension between protest and government, including underlying causes. 2007 edition.
HathiTrust Digital Library
Instructions and More Information: If you're new, click here to learn more.

HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
Human Rights Studies Online (Alexander Street)
Features 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. The editorial board includes Laetitia Atlani-Duault (IRD; Hunter College/CUNY), Olivier Bercault (University of San Francisco), Phillip Cantrell (Longwood University), Catherine Filloux (Playwright), Pamela Graham (Columbia University), Adam Jones (University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus), Laura McGrew (Consultant, Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation), David Scheffer (Northwestern University), and Ruti Teitel (New York Law School; London School of Economics.)
NCSE: Nineteenth Century Serials Edition
Facsimiles and searchable transcripts of six 19th century periodicals: Monthly Repository, Northern Star, Leader, English Woman’s Journal, Tomahawk, and Publishers’ Circular. 1806 - 1890.
Oregon Digital
These collections 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.
Transatlantic Slave Trade Database
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.
War and Terrorism (Gale OneFile)
This definitive, full-text collection for analysts, risk management professionals, and students of military science, history, and social science provides valuable insight into conflicts and their causes, impact, and perception on a global scale
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (ProQuest)
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.
Western Waters Digital Library
The Western Waters Digital Library provides free public access to a wide range of key archival holdings related to water policy and environmental history in the western United States from 29 participating institutes and libraries. Available resources include classic water literature, legal transcripts, maps, reports, personal papers, water project records, photographs, audio recordings, videos and other material.
Women and Social Movements, International (Alexander Street)
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)
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.

Ebooks with Primary Sources

American Decades Primary Sources, 1900-2000
Cross-disciplinary source spanning the 20th century. Each volume in the set includes full or excerpted primary sources representing the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from a decade. Includes oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoons, recipes, and more.
Crime and Punishment: Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Explores the development, diversity, and duality of attitudes and arguments related to crime and punishment.
Government, Politics, and Protest:Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Explores the causes and nature of protest as well as the historical tension between protest and government, including underlying causes.
Immigration and Multiculturalism: Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Offers insight into two centuries of global changes in populations and cultures.
Terrorism: Social Issues Primary Sources Collection
Provides insight into the scale and complexities of terrorism across a sweeping landscape of time, geography, act, and motive.
US History In Context
Provides contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in U.S. History. Includes reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites.
Women Writers Online, 1400-1850
The Brown University Women Writers Project offers texts by pre-Victorian women writers.

HST 317: Why War: A Historical Perspective

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