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Primary Sources: Databases
This guide is intended to help students find primary resources. More and more primary resources are being digitized and made available to researchers on the web but it can be quite difficult to find them. This guide will provide links to collections as we
Many of the databases below are paid subscriptions by Briggs Library. Access to those databases is limited to SDSU students, staff, and faculty and to those physically in Briggs Library.
Briggs Library is open to the general public with computers and wi-fi available to all visitors.
Documents key aspects of the history of slavery in the United States, from its origins in Africa to its abolition, including materials on the slave trade, plantation life, emancipation, pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments, religious views on slavery, and other related topics. This digital archive provides access to a wide variety of documents - personal narratives, political speeches, sermons, plays, songs, poetic and fictional works, and more - published from the time of the transatlantic slave trade to the post-Civil War period.
This collection includes historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
This collection includes FBI reports dealing with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organization as well as FBI surveillance of several other anti-Vietnam War groups.
Provides access to primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life, among other subjects.
Collection of historical maps of South Dakota communities created by Sanborn Map Company from 1867 to 1970. Large scale plans of a city or town, drawn to a scale of 50 feet to an inch, created to assist fire insurance companies as they assessed the risk associated with insuring a particular property. Includes building outlines, size and shape, windows and doors, street and sidewalk widths, boundaries, and property numbers. Plans often include details on construction materials and building use; and also depict pipelines, railroads, wells, water mains, dumps, and other features likely to affect the property's vulnerability to earthquake, fire, and flood. Multiple editions allow community development to be tracked over time.
Documents the revolution and war that created the United States of America, from the Paris peace treaty in 1763 through the early protests in 1785 to the Paris peace treaty of 1783. The collection examines the political, social, and intellectual upheaval of the age, as well as the actual war for American independence through its eight long years of conflict.
Documents the war that transformed America, ending slavery and unifying the nation around the principles of freedom. This digital archive includes a variety of primary source documents - personal narratives and memoirs, pamphlets and political speeches, sermons and songs, regimental histories and photograph albums, legal treatises, and children's books
Documents key aspects of the history of slavery in the United States, from its origins in Africa to its abolition, including materials on the slave trade, plantation life, emancipation, pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments, religious views on slavery, and other related topics. This digital archive provides access to a wide variety of documents - personal narratives, political speeches, sermons, plays, songs, poetic and fictional works, and more - published from the time of the transatlantic slave trade to the post-Civil War period.
This collection provides historical and personal stories about early contact with European settlers and the political, social, and cultural effects of contact on American Indian life. Materials include treaties, speeches, diaries, artwork, rare printed books, newspaper articles, and photographs.
American Indian Newspapers includes digital files of 49 newspapers from a range of Native American communities in the United States and Canada from 1828 to 2016 (most of the coverage is from 1970-2016).
Included in the collection are national periodicals as well as local community news and student publications. The range of subjects from an Indigenous perspective, include the civil rights era and American Indian Movement (AIM), education, environmentalism, land rights and cultural representation.
Indigenous Peoples: North America provides users with a robust, diverse, informative source that will enhance research and increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada.
ArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars, researchers, and students at the college and university level. A multi-disciplinary resource, collections cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Particular strengths include U.S. foreign policy; U.S. civil rights; global affairs and colonial studies; and modern history.
Of interest to historians and students of nineteenth-century literature and culture, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine - the professions, in short, of all aspects of nineteenth-century life that the press encompassed.
Provides access to more than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. Search for images by keyword, title, creator, geography, classification, collection, and date.
This collection provides unique documents on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi concentration camp commandants and camp personnel. Documents include: correspondence; trial records and transcripts; investigatory material, such as interrogation reports and trial exhibits; clemency petitions and reviews; photographs of atrocities; newspaper clippings; and pamphlets.
