Primary Sources - HSS 300 - United States History through a Different Lens

African American US History

Milestone Documents in African American History by Paul Finkelman (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book
Publication Date: 2017
The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America by Ronald H. Bayor (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book

Databases with Primary Sources

Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
This comprehensive collection of scholarship focuses on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. It includes reference articles, biographies, and primary sources.

Websites with Primary Sources

Black Freedom Struggle website
Historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
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Content is sectioned into six time periods:
Resistance to Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
Within this web presentation, the Massachusetts Historical Society brings together historical manuscripts and rare published works that serve as a window upon the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late seventeenth century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s.
Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains (DPLA Primary Source set)
"When Reconstruction ended in 1877, southern whites used violence, economic exploitation, discriminatory laws called Black Codes, and political disenfranchisement to subjugate African Americans and undo their gains during Reconstruction. Kansas and other destinations on the Great Plains represented a chance to start a new life. Kansas had fought to be a free state and, with the Homestead Act of 1862, the region offered lots of land at low cost. As a result, between the late 1870s and early 1880s, more than 20,000 African Americans left the South for Kansas, the Oklahoma Territory, and elsewhere on the Great Plains in a migration known as the 'Great Exodus.'"
Civil Rights Digital Library
The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. The CRDL features a collection of unedited news film from the WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany, Ga.) television archives held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries.

Asian American US History

Major Problems in Asian American History by Lon Kirashige; Alice Yang
Call Number: 973.04 AS43M
Publication Date: 2016

Databases with Primary Sources

Ethnic American Newspapers 1799-1971 This link opens in a new window
Explores the American immigrant experience. Offers extensive coverage of the most influential ethnic groups in U.S. history

Websites with Primary Sources

Digital History: Asian Voices
California Cultures: Asian Americans
"People from Asia began migrating to California during the Gold Rush era. But a number of factors — including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion act, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the "alien ineligible for citizenship" status imposed on Asian immigrants into the 1950s and 1960s — limited their numbers. In 1965, federal officials changed immigration policy to allow migration from Asia after many years of exclusion."
Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: National Archives
Chinese Historical Society of Southern California Collection, ca.1880-1933
USC Digital Archives. Online image collections, including:
Filipino American Library Collection
The Filipino American Library Collection consists of materials owned by the Filipino American Library in Historic Filipinotown that were transferred to the University of Southern California Special Collections in 2017.
Korean American Digital Archive
The Korean American Digital Archive brings more than 13,000 pages of documents, over 1,900 photographs, and about 180 sound files together in one searchable collection that documents the Korean American community during the period of resistance to Japanese rule in Korea and reveal the organizational and private experience of Koreans in America between 1903 and 1965.
Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
The Wing Luke Museum Governor Gary Locke Library and Community Heritage Center collects, preserves and provides access to archives, photographs, artifacts, and oral histories concerning the history, art and culture of local, regional, and national Asian Pacific American communities.

LatinX US History

The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America by Ronald H. Bayor (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book

Databases with Primary Sources

Ethnic American Newspapers 1799-1971 This link opens in a new window
Explores the American immigrant experience. Offers extensive coverage of the most influential ethnic groups in U.S. history

Websites with Primary Sources

National Museum of American History: Latino History
The Program in Latino History and Culture has compiled a list of collections and archives that focus on Latino history and culture to encourage scholars to utilize the Museum's Latino-related resources available to the public.
Puerto Rican Migration to the US (DPLA Primary Source Set)
Puerto Rican migration to the United States exploded in the decades following World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican men, women, and families arrived in US cities and towns, and Puerto Rican communities grew dramatically in places like Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Springfield, Massachusetts, and Newark, New Jersey.
Mexican Labor and World War II: The Bracero Program (DPLA Primary Source Set)
Beginning in World War II, the Bracero Program brought Mexican laborers to the United States to remedy wartime production shortages.

Indigenous US History

The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America by Ronald H. Bayor (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book

Databases with Primary Sources

Infobase American Indian History This link opens in a new window
This source provides reference articles on over 15,000 years of Native American culture and history, and includes biographies, legends, treaties, and more. Some primary sources are included.

Websites with Primary Source

Indian Removal Act: Primary Documents in American History
This guide contains digital materials at the Library of Congress related to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and its after-effects, as well as links to external websites and a selected print bibliography.
Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears (DPLA primary source set)
IDA Treaties Explorer
The Indigenous Digital Archive’s Treaties Explorer, DigiTreaties.org, was created by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico, in partnership with the US National Archives Office of Innovation and National Archives Foundation. Thanks to a generous anonymous donor, the US National Archives conserved and digitized the 374 Ratified Indian Treaties in its holdings.

Queer US History

Sexuality, Subjectivity, and LGBTQ Militancy in the United States by Guillaume Marche; Katharine Throssell (Translator)
Call Number: E-Book
Publication Date: 2019

Websites with Primary Sources

GLBT Historical Society Digital Collections
The Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives & Special Collections of the GLBT Historical Society are among the largest and most extensive holdings in the world of materials pertaining to LGBTQ people, occupying more than 3,500 linear feet of storage. Over 900 collections include personal papers, organizational records, periodicals, oral histories, photographs, audiovisual recordings, ephemera, artifacts and works of art.
LGBTQ Heritage : National Parks Service
"As America’s storytellers, the National Park Service (NPS) is committed to telling the history of all Americans in all of its diversity and complexity. For many years, the rich histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans have been erased through punishing laws and general prejudice—appearing sporadically in police proceedings, medical reports, military hearings, and immigration records."
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the oldest active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records and personal papers.

Black Women US History

The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America by Ronald H. Bayor (Editor)
Call Number: E-Book

Databases with Primary Sources

Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
This comprehensive collection of scholarship focuses on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. It includes reference articles, biographies, and primary sources.
ProQuest Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
An archival database with the full backfiles of leading women’s interest consumer magazines, including Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, and more. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005.

Websites with Primary Sources

African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
Within this web presentation, the Massachusetts Historical Society brings together historical manuscripts and rare published works that serve as a window upon the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late seventeenth century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s.
Black Freedom Struggle website
Historical newspaper articles, pamphlets, diaries, correspondence and more from specific time periods in U.S. history marked by the opposition African Americans have faced on the road to freedom.
more...less...
Content is sectioned into six time periods:
Resistance to Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)
Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains (DPLA Primary Source set)
"When Reconstruction ended in 1877, southern whites used violence, economic exploitation, discriminatory laws called Black Codes, and political disenfranchisement to subjugate African Americans and undo their gains during Reconstruction. Kansas and other destinations on the Great Plains represented a chance to start a new life. Kansas had fought to be a free state and, with the Homestead Act of 1862, the region offered lots of land at low cost. As a result, between the late 1870s and early 1880s, more than 20,000 African Americans left the South for Kansas, the Oklahoma Territory, and elsewhere on the Great Plains in a migration known as the 'Great Exodus.'"
Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi (DPLA Primary Source set)
"Born to sharecroppers in rural Mississippi in 1917, the youngest of twenty children, Fannie Lou Hamer knew well the realities of racism, discrimination, and poverty. She used her knowledge in grassroots activism on behalf of voters’ rights, African Americans, and civil rights."

Disability US History

Websites with Primary Sources

**Disability History primary source set from Emerging America.
***Scroll to "Primary Sources on Disability History
(In chronological order)"
The Disability History Museum
The Disability History Museum hosts a Library of virtual artifacts, Education curricula, and Museum exhibits. These programs are designed to foster research and study about the historical experiences of people with disabilities and their communities.
Louis Braille: His Legacy and Influence Online Exhibition
"For thousands of years, the ability of blind people to participate fully in social, political, and cultural life was limited by the lack of access to written or printed forms of information. Although the work of many others contributed to his accomplishment, Louis Braille's invention of a tactile six-dot reading and writing system revolutionized the way blind people perceived and contributed to the world."
National Museum of American History: EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America
"Many stories and events related to people with disabilities never make it into the history books or shared public memories. Familiar concepts and events such as citizenship, work, and wars become more complicated, challenge our assumptions about what counts as history, and transform our connection with each other when viewed from the historical perspective of people with disabilities, America’s largest minority."

HSS 300 - United States History through a Different Lens: Primary Sources

Primary Source for all topics

African American US History

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Sources

Asian American US History

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Sources

LatinX US History

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Sources

Indigenous US History

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Source

Queer US History

Websites with Primary Sources

Black Women US History

Databases with Primary Sources

Websites with Primary Sources

Disability US History

Websites with Primary Sources