Free and Open Digital Collections
Digital collections freely available online, mostly in U.S. history. For help with finding collections on other subjects, places, and time periods, see the following pages: Research Resources and Research Guides.
In addition to the digitized archives below (and with some overlap), check out Nicole Donawho's spreadsheet of online primary sources.
In addition to the digitized archives below (and with some overlap), check out Nicole Donawho's spreadsheet of online primary sources.
United States1918-1919 Flu PandemicThe American Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919
University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: Resources in the Collections
Beinecke Library, Yale University AdvertisingAd*Access Project (1911-1955)
images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers & magazines African American HistoryAmos Beman Scrapbooks
Digitized scrapbooks relating to the life of a nineteenth-century Black minister Black Film Archive Black films made from 1915 to 1979 currently streaming Black Liberation 1969 Archive Black student protest movement at Swarthmore College Colored Conventions Project General project page on Black organizing in the 19th century Colored Conventions Project: Digital Records Digitized primary sources Freedmen's Bureau Search Portal Text-searchable data Freedmen's Bureau collections Freedom on the Move A database of fugitives from North American slavery Historically Black College and University Archives HBCU Library Alliance Last Seen Finding family after slavery North American Slave Narratives Slave Voyages A digital memorial The Freedmen's Bureau Records National Museum of African American History and Culture & The Smithsonian Chicana/o/x HistoryImmigration / EthnicityArchive of Immigrant Voices
University of Maryland Oral History Archive Brancero History Archive Ellis Island / Port of New York Records Ellis Island Photographs New York Public Library Immigration to the United States, 1789 - 1930 Harvard University Onda Latina: The Mexican American Experience South Asian Oral History Project Focused on the Pacific Northwest Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation Oral History Interviews Native American HistoryAmerican Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection
University of Washington Libraries Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History University of Oklahoma Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian Twenty volumes of Curtis's work, including text and images Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Explorer 374 treaties between Indigenous peoples and the United States First Nations Collection Southern Oregon University LGBTQ+ HistoryACT UP Oral History Project
A collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York African American AIDS History Project A crowd-contributed archive of African American responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic AIDS Education Posters Collection Over 8,000 posters Digital Transgender Archive Online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world Gay Community News Northeastern University Library LGBTQ+ Politics and Political Candidates Web Archive Library of Congress collection of LGBTQ+ people in politics LGBTQ History Digital Collaboratory The hub acts as a growing resource for oral histories practitioners and the public LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive Library of Congress collection of a variety of digital items related to LGBTQ+ history Lesbian Herstory Archives Lesbian Tide The Queer Zine Archive Project An digital repository of queer zines Women's HistoryAlice Marshall Women's History Collection
Literary, graphic, and manuscript materials dealing with the issues and individuals that comprised women's history from the 15th century to the early 1980s Anna Julia Cooper Collection Howard University Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection More than 1,200 books, objects, correspondence, periodicals, lobbying materials, postcards, and more Arabella Chapman Project Two photo albums assembled by an African American woman and her family in the last decades of the nineteenth century Black Women Oral History Project The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981 Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938 Library of Congress Chicago Women's Liberation Union CWLU was formed in 1969 and played a leading role in the women’s liberation movement in Chicago during the 1970s Chicana Por Mi Raza The online digital repository currently contains approximately 7,000 available digital records and over 500 interview clips Click! An archive/interactive timeline of the ongoing feminist revolution College Women Documents the history of women in Higher Education Digital Witchcraft Collection Cornell University Discovering American Women's History Online Access to digital collections of primary sources Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker Diary New York Public Library Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers Library of Congress Frances Willard’s Digital Journals Provides access to Willard’s complete journals The Heretics The inside story of the Second Wave of the Women’s Movement Her Hat Was in the Ring U.S. Women Who Ran for Political Office Before 1920 Medical Heritage Library Historical American Medical Journals History of Woman Suffrage Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage Independent Voices An open access collection of an alternative press In Her Own Right A Century of Women's Activism, 1820-1920 Jane Addams Digital Edition Jane Addams's correspondence and writings Jewish Women's Archive Mary Elsie Fox Photograph Collection George Mason University Mill Girls in Nineteenth-Century Print American Antiquarian Society North American Slave Narratives UNC Documenting the American South Project Our Bodies Ourselves OBOS’s influence, impact, and ongoing advocacy work, and about Our Bodies Ourselves Today, a new collaboration with the Center for Health & Human Rights at Suffolk University OutHistory Evidence-based features on U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history; homosexual and heterosexual history; the history of people who did not conform to dominant norms of sexuality and gender—and people who did The Real Rosie the Riveter Project New York University Rosa Parks Papers Library of Congress Reno Divorce History Illuminating Reno's divorce industry The Salem Witch Trials Documents and transcriptions Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection Cornell University Schlesinger Library Digitized Collections Harvard University Seward Family Digital Archive University of Rochester Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee Digital gateway Tradeswomen Archives Project Collection CSU Dominguez Hills Veterans History Project Library of Congress Women in Computing Oral History Interviews Minnesota Libraries digital conservancy Women’s History in Digital Collections New York Public Library Women’s Liberation Movement Print Culture Duke University Women Veterans Historical Project The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP), established at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) in 1998, documents the contributions of women in the military and related service organizations since World War I Women Working, 1800-1930 An exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression World War IWorld War I Portal
National Archives |
Newspapers, Magazines, PeriodicalsBrooklyn Newsstand
California Digital Newspaper Collection Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers from the Library of Congress Digitized Newspapers from the National Library of Australia Hot Wire: The Journal of Women's Music and Culture Making of America New York State Historic Newspapers Physical Culture Magazine Digital Collection Reveal Digital The Colored American Magazine Utah Digital Newspapers Women's Voice Archive More Digitized RepositoriesInternet Archive
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Brooklyn Public Library Digital Collections Digital Collections in U.S. Foreign Relations (SHAFR) Documenting the American South Early American Sources Kentucky Digital Library Massachusetts Historical Society Digital Collections Newberry Library New York Public Library Northwestern University Digitized Collections SMU Digital Collections UCLA Library Digital Collections University of Hawaii at Manoa Digital & Digitized Collections University of Nevada, Las Vegas Digital Collections World CollectionsThe CaribbeanEuropeRussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Eastern & Central EuropeWorldwide |