History: A Guide to United States Historical Research at Cornell

Online collections created by the Cornell Library, many from Kroch Rare & Manuscripts.

Two parts--manuscripts and pamphlets and leaflets. Created by Cornell University Library. Covers the anti-slavery struggle at local, regional, national, and international levels during the ante-bellum and Civil War periods in America. Includes essays, sermons, speeches, court proceedings and decisions, etc.

75,000 images drawn from archives around the country, documenting the camp and battle experiences of Union and Confederate soldiers of all ranks, time spent in hospitals and in prisons, civilian life in cities and towns close to and far from the front lines of war, and the demeanor of the politicians whose decisions could bring the nation together or tear it apart. Many of the images in the collection were captured by famous and lesser-known innovators working with the burgeoning medium of nineteenth-century photography. Additionally, graphical content such as envelopes, song sheets, recruiting posters, imprints, and cartoons.

The Valley Project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from the time of John Brown's raid through the era of Reconstruction. In this digital archive you may explore thousands of original letters and diaries, newspapers and speeches, census and church records, left by men and women in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Giving voice to hundreds of individual people, the Valley Project tells forgotten stories of life during the era of the Civil War

Includes collections such as The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective, November 1860-April 1865; The Charleston Mercury; The New York Herald; Richmond Enquirer.
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century; Freedom's Journal, March 16, 1827-March 28, 1829; The Colored American (Weekly Advocate), January 7, 1837-December 25, 1841; The North Star, December 3, 1847-April 17, 1851; Frederick Douglass' Paper, 1851-1856; The National Era, January 7, 1847-March 12, 1860; Provincial Freeman, 1854-1857; The Christian Recorder, 1861-1898.

Covers 1770-1993. Provides comprehensive indexing to the contents of 4,250 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences, from their first issues (some as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries) to 1993. The scope is international, including journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other Western languages.

The Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the Antebellum period through Reconstruction. A joint effort of the University of Michigan and Cornell University.

Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.

Based at Cornell University. In progress. A database of fugitives from North American slavery based on historical newspapers. With the advent of newspapers in the American colonies, enslavers posted “runaway ads” to try to locate fugitives. Additionally, jailers posted ads describing people they had apprehended in search of the enslavers who claimed the fugitives as property.

During Reconstruction, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen's Bureau) provided assistance to tens of thousands of the formerly enslaved and impoverished whites in the Southern States and the District of Columbia.

Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, and Daniel Webster.

Documents the international and domestic traffic in slaves in Britain's New World colonies and the United States, providing important primary source material on the business aspect of the slave trade. Collections in this module on the slave trade are sourced by ProQuest from the Rhode Island Historical Society, Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the U.S. National Archives. In addition to records on the slave trade, this module also includes a series of letters received by the Attorney General on law and order in nineteenth century America. These letters cover the slave trade, general slavery matters including runaway slaves and rights of slaves, and other legal issues.

Slavery and the Law features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867. These petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with amazing candor. Slavery and the Law also includes the important State Slavery Statutes collection, a comprehensive record of the laws governing American slavery from 1789-1865.

A component of Hein Online-- cases, laws, and other legal material.

Manuscripts of Southern plantation records. Limited searching.

Focuses on the industrial uses of slave labor. Includes company records; business and personal correspondence; documents pertaining to the purchase, hire, medical care, and provisioning of slave laborers; descriptions of production processes; and journals recounting costs and income. The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide extraordinary insight into slave life. Includes such enterprises as gold, silver, copper, and lead mining; iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brickmaking, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and more. The manuscript collections included are from Duke University Library; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Virginia Historical Society; and University of Virginia Library.

A selection of core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines published between 1850 and 1950.

Full text of all the reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Indexes information produced by or pertaining to the United States Congress from 1789 to the present. Provides full text for many titles, generally from the early 1990’s to the present. Includes bills, laws, legislative histories, committee prints, House and Senate documents and reports, the Congressional Record, Code of Federal Regulations, and Federal Register. Includes full text of Congressional Research Service reports, 1916-present; full text of Congressional hearings, 1824-2003; full text of Committee Prints, 1830-2003; and full text of the Serial Set Collection with Maps, 1789-1969. For a complete description of contents, coverage, and update frequency, consult the online Help section.

Diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc.

Alexander Street Press.
"...over 1,500 hours of footage--the full surviving broadcast run from 1947 to present day--available online in one cross-searchable interface. Network television's longest running program--with its thousands of interviews, panels, and debates--is available via streaming online video." [home page] For more streaming video of television news including the commercials, see Television News Archive, below.

Adam Matthew Digital.
"Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. The collection includes pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, underground magazines, visual and video materials and ephemera and memorabilia. Part II contains additional material, such as music, press kits, mail order catalogues, advertising proofs, additional photos from the Mirrorpix archives, and documents on student unrest and the Troubles in Northern Ireland." [home page]

Includes 102 document projects and archives with more than 4,050 documents, and 145,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by some 2,200 primary authors. It includes book, film and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.

Full-text database of letters and diaries of women who lived in North America before 1950. Browsing and searching of both the bibliographic and full-text elements provided by PhiloLogic software.