This list is a great starting point for finding primary resources, but it is not comprehensive of all primary resources available to you through McNairy Library!
You can find primary sources (first-hand historical accounts from people who experienced it) using these databases. Each database will contain different primary sources, so be sure to search multiple databases to find what you need!
Primary source materials in American history, including vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, advertisements, genealogical records, historical newspapers, and books.
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1949 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Nearly 300,000 recent and historical and government documents, including law-related periodicals, federal laws and regulations, treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, and US Presidential records.
The PA Digital Cultural Heritage Collaborative is a consortium of cultural institutions interested in digitizing Pennsylvania newspaper and manuscript collections.
Documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Digitized images of American magazines and journals from 7,600+ periodicals with 7 million images.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.
Contains major articles gleaned from over 2,500 issues of The New York Herald, The Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Enquirer, published between November 1, 1860 and April 15, 1865.
Full text of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints. With subjects ranging from captivity narratives to playbills to atlases to sermons to juvenile literature, this collection provides information about all aspects of American life and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Correspondence and other writings of 6 major shapers of the United States: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. Over 180,000 searchable documents.
Informational pamphlets, government reports, instructions, regulations, declarations, speeches, and propaganda materials distributed by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) during the Second World War.
The papers of James Buchanan (1791-1868), representative and senator of Pennsylvania, secretary of state, and fifteenth president of the United States, and those of his niece and White House hostess Harriet Lane Johnston (1830-1903) contain approximately 1,600 items dating from 1825 to 1887.
A digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century, created by Dickinson College and Millersville University.
Information on more than 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Hundreds of thousands digitized materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the country, celebrating the vital efforts of the individuals and institutions that have helped to preserve African American history and culture.
The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
Available through Making of America and Cornell University, this is the online version of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, now through Hathi Trust
An ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
