Archival Research (during Covid)
See our new Online Archival Research Guide to help assist you in accessing archival collections during the Covid-19 Crisis.
Digitized Primary Sources blog-post.
Barbara Gray’s tipsheet at this link Archives for Investigative Data.
Archives for Investigating Data.
Diaries & Documents
-
Chronology of US Historical DocumentsFull-text of U.S. historical documents. From the University of Oklahoma's School of Law.
-
Manuscript Women's Letters and DiariesOver 102,000 pages of personal writings by American women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries drawn from the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society. The manuscripts date from 1750 to 1950 and include letters and diary entries of ordinary women that document their daily lives, and those of more well-known women such as Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller; Ellen Tucker Emerson, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who describes life in Concord during the Civil War; and Abby Kelley Foster, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights.
US Government Docs
Historical US Newspapers
-
Accessible Archives
Full-text access to 18th and 19th century American newspapers, magazines, books, and other publications. Collections include African American newspapers, Civil War publications, anti-slavery periodicals, early women’s magazines, a collection of women’s suffrage periodicals, and publications by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and more. Over 170 books and more than 70 journals are included.
-
African American Historical Newspapers from ProQuest (NYPL database)This NYPL database is available to users onsite or remotely with a library card. Includes African American historical newspapers from around the United States, such as the Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1910-1975), Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921-2003), Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001), and Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002).
-
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals CollectionsA collection of over 7500 digitized American periodicals published from the 17th century through the late 19th century. The Graduate Center subscribes to the five series which cover all aspects of American society, including science, medicine, literature, politics, the history of slavery, the Civil War, Westward expansion, industry and professions, agriculture, religion, fashion, family life, culture and the arts, and more.
-
American Periodicals (1740-1940) via NYPLPlease log in using your New York Public Library credentials!
This database contains over 1,800 magazines, journals, and newspapers published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically significant titles. -
Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the PresentOver 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, speeches, letters, political leaflets, periodicals, trial transcripts, and interviews by major American Black teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other leaders, covering over 250 years of history. Writers include James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Bunche, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Huey Newton, Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Bobby Seale, Booker T. Washington, Cornel West, Richard Wright, and many others. Search across the collection or browse by person, subject, title, historical event, content type, place, or publisher.
-
Brooklyn NewspapersDeveloped by the Brooklyn Public Library, this free resources provides access to the full-text of more than 40 newspapers published in Brooklyn from 1809 to 1999. Papers include the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1841-1963), The Caravan (1953-1961), The Chat (1903-1929), and The Williamsburg News (1952-1965), among others. Browse by title or date, or search across the archive.
-
Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Online CatalogThe Center for Research Libraries provides a shared collection of five million books, journals, documents and newspapers to supplement member libraries’ holdings in the humanities, science, and social sciences. With a strategic emphasis on expanding electronic access to international primary source collections, CRL participates in a number of cooperative digitization efforts, yielding over 15 million pages of digitized content to date.
-
Chronicling America: Historic American NewspapersThis site from the Library of Congress includes a searchable directory containing information on more than 150,000 newspapers published in the U.S. since 1690. It also includes searchable digitized images of 3,600 selected local and regional newspapers published from 1777 to 1963, including more than 20 New York papers.
-
Fulton Search: Historical Newspapers (U.S. & Canada)A searchable database of newspapers published in the U.S. and Canada. Create an account to log in and search and see the Help & FAQs section for tips on using the site. Fulton Search is an alternative search option for FultonHistory.com. Users may also browse the list of newspapers.
-
HathiTrust Digital LibraryMillions of books digitized by a variety of major research institutions. See this post for more information about public domain items available to all via HathiTrust.
-
Internet ArchiveThe Internet Archive, a vast digital library, includes a large number of newspapers, journals, and other periodicals. Search text collections by title or subject.
-
Periodicals in the US-Mexico Border Region
This bilingual research portal provides access to digitized periodicals that offer first-hand access to reporting on major events that shaped the US border and allow for greater recognition of the diversity within Latino/a experiences. The selected periodicals reflect a priority for local news and works by Hispanic writers and publishers and are derived from Arte Público Press, Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage (Recovery) Digital Archive in collaboration with the US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH).
-
New York City Record, 1873-1947The City Record is has been published daily in NYC since 1873 and includes "official listings of more than 100 city agencies and departments about public hearings, meetings, property auctions, agency rules, personnel changes and contracts to be awarded" as noted in a profile article in the New York TImes. Browse or search across PDFs of every issue published between 1873-1947.
-
Newspapers.com via NYPL*Please log in using your New York Public Library credentials!*
Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 300+ million pages of historical newspapers from 11,100+ newspapers from around the United States and beyond, with a special focus on full runs and portions of runs of well-known, regional and state titles in addition to small local newspapers. The collection includes a broad range of dates, mostly covering the 19th and 20th centuries.
-
New York City NewspapersSee the "Newspapers" article in the 1995 edition of the Encyclopedia of New York City for a history of newspapers in New York and lists of 18th Century newspapers, daily newspapers, and foreign-language newspapers published in NYC, organized by date of first publication.
-
New York City Newspapers at the NYPLProvides an overview of the NYPL's collection of New York City newspapers and facilitates access to the most frequently requested titles.
-
New York State Historic NewspapersOver 11 million pages from newspapers published in New York State between 1725 and 2020. The newspapers on the website are either in the public domain (any papers published before January 1, 1924) or have been cleared for use by the original copyright holders for members of the public for noncommercial, educational, and research purposes.
-
New York Times Archive, 1851-2018Actual page images from 1851 through 2018. Following years are added annually. When the results of a search are displayed, you have three retrieval options: 1. bibliographic citation and abstract; 2. article image (retrieved with Adobe Acrobat Reader); 3. page map, displaying the entire page on which the article appears. For current access, see New York Times Academic Pass.
New York Sun
Archival collections
There are scores of archival collections within 2 hours of NYC, a few of the major sources are listed below. Detailed guides to archival holdings (finding aids) are frequently being made available online. While most archival collections require a visit to the holding library, some collections do fill photocopy requests.
-
Archive GridSearchable database containing over 7 million records describing archival collections in 1,400 libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies around the world. Also useful for identifying archival repositories by location. Read more in our GC Library blog post about ArchiveGrid.
-
Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryThe collections span more than 4,000 years and comprise rare printed works, cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets, papyri, and Coptic ostraca; medieval and renaissance manuscripts; as well as art and realia. Some 500,000 printed books and 14 miles of manuscripts, personal papers, and records form the core of the holdings.
-
European Library CatalogCombined searching of the resources of European national libraries.
-
Founders OnlineCorrespondence and other writings by Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington
-
New York State Historical Liberature (Cornell University)A collection of selected monographs, pamphlets and other materials with expired copyrights chosen from from the Cornell Library's extensive collection of New York State Literature.
-
Nineteenth Century Collections OnlinePrimary sources dealing with East-West diplomacy; British politics and society; British theater, music, and literature; European literature; photography; science, technology, and medicine; and the status of women.
-
NYPL Archives & ManuscriptsThe Division holds nearly 29,000 linear feet of archival material in over 3,000 collections, dating from the third millennium BCE to the current decade. Greatest strengths: the papers and records of individuals, families, and organizations, primarily from the New York region, which date from the 18th through the 20th centuries, support research in the political, economic, social, and cultural history of New York State and the United States.
-
NYU Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor ArchivesAn important repository for labor history. Materials include books, pamphlets, and serials focusing on the history of labor, politics, political thought, civil rights, women's history, the Spanish Civil War, literature, the history of New York City, and the arts. Broadly speaking, the collections cover labor and the Left.
-
Perseus Digital LibraryThe flagship collection covers the history, literature and culture of the Greco-Roman world. Many full-text materials are available online in ancient Greek and Roman.
-
Roper iPoll (formerly Roper Center Archives)
The world’s largest collection of poll data from 1935 to present. Contains hundreds of thousands of questions and tens of thousands of individual-level datasets, with hundreds more added yearly. Includes broad topical coverage of opinions and behavior on social issues, politics, the environment, science and technology, health, economics, and more. It also includes global data from over 120 countries, and historical archives that feature questions on topics such as World War II, the civil rights movement, and women’s history, along with a general social survey with cumulative data from 1972-2016 featuring a standard core of demographic and attitudinal variables.
Access through the Graduate Center Library enables you to access all tools and features. Create a free personal account to save items to folders and view your complete search history. Users who have accounts on the old "classic" Roper iPoll website will need to register again on the new site.
Learn more about how to use Roper iPoll online: Roper Tutorials.
-
Rutgers University Archives and ManuscriptsManuscripts are findable in the library catalog. The finding aids for the archival collections are online and found at this web site.
-
Slavery and Anti-SlaveryBooks, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, Supreme Court records, and other nineteenth-century materials related to slavery and abolition.
-
Trans-Atlantic Slave TradeInformation on almost 35,000 American slaving voyages between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Subject Guide
History Video
-
American History in VideoOver 1,600 hours of historical video from commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.
-
World History in VideoMore than 900 documentaries exploring human history from the earliest civilizations to the late twentieth century.