Many of the subscription databases available through the library will contain primary sources, so checking other ones specific to your topic area may allow you to locate additional sources
Not every item in the database is a primary source
There are a number of ways to search a database, the tips are just a starting place and other methods may work better for you, so please feel free to try other searching or browsing options if you don't get the results using the suggested tips.
Also see the Newspapers tab in this guide for newspaper databases
Subscriber: VIVA/CNU
Full text articles, article abstracts and bibliographic citations of reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistoric times to the present. Includes links to some full-text articles in other databases such as JSTOR.
Subscriber: CNU
Cross-disciplinary source spanning the 20th century (1900-1999.) Each volume in the set includes full or excerpted primary sources representing the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from a decade. Includes oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoons, recipes, and more.
Subscriber:VIVA
Allows students and researchers to analyze historical events, and their presentation over time, through commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries.
Subscriber: VIVA
Includes the text of 40,356 poems from 1,288 works by 209 poets. Includes 6 landmark anthologies of American Poetry. Covers the Colonial Period to the Early 20th Century.
Subscriber: CNU
A digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. Other subject areas include music, religion, anthropology, literature, world history, American Studies, Asian Studies, Classical Studies, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, and more.
Subscriber: Free
A repository of digital resources, contributed by member libraries, that provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography. The creation of CDRI was made possible by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation; it is now an ongoing ATLA program.
Subscriber: CNU
offers an historical overview of these ever-changing disciplines and their various expressions in American and English law over time. Collecting Bureau of Justice statistics, memoirs of retired Scotland Yard investigators, congressional hearings on drug control policies, accounts of prison life in days long past and much more, this collection explores how criminal justice has changed in America and the effect criminology has had on those changes. It collects government documents as well as rare or hard to find pamphlets, memoirs, and books written by ordinary law enforcement officers and not-so-famous criminals. To help users navigate the content spanning these two wide-reaching disciplines, all titles in this collection have been subject coded into 16 subject areas: Attorney General, Crimes and Criminals, Criminal Statistics, Criminology, Drug Enforcement, Government Law, Investigation and Forensics, Juvenile Justice, Law and Procedure, Law Enforcement, Organized Crime, Penology, Reform and Recidivism, Reminiscences, Sex Crimes, and Victimology.
Subscriber: CNU
offers 350,000 fully searchable issues from over 710 historical American newspapers. Covering 1690-1876, this online collection provides access to the nation’s early periods through the full text of essential newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia.
The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress are used by Congress, historians, political scientists, and jurists to understand the most important and productive Congress in United States history.
Comprising 20,000 annotated pages and 260 images, the innovative online reference features a cumulative index and robust search engine.
Over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes)which includes books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue Works published in the UK during the 18th century plus thousands from elsewhere, Primarily in English - also includes other languages.
Subscriber: VIVA
English Poetry contains poems in English from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the nineteenth century by writers from the British Isles.
Subscriber: VIVA
Contains more than 2,200 works by around 500 named and over 300 anonymous authors, from the Shrewsbury Fragments of the late thirteenth century through the unparalleled output of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period to the end of the nineteenth century.
Subjects: History
Vendor: EBSCO
Subscriber: Free
EBSCO Publishing, in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, provides this index of resources about the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples. A wide range of subject areas are covered; from natural disasters to disease outbreaks and slavery.
Always on the cutting edge, Films On Demand‘s platform provides users with the content, tools, speed, and performance that today’s online experience demands. With films from top producers including A&E, PBS, BBC Learning, National Geographic, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, HBO Documentary Films, PBS NewsHour, Open University, Bill Moyers, California Newsreel, Annenberg Learner, TED, Films for the Humanities & Sciences, and more.
A rare view of what rush hour in London looked like in 1897. The dramatic and suspenseful newsreel announcing the crash of the Hindenburg zeppelin. President Ronald Reagan’s challenging speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Throughout modern history, cameras have recorded public events, wars, cultural phenomena, and government programs. This collection is a treasure trove of archival and historical films from multiple sources.
Features more than two million high resolution plant type specimen images and other foundational materials from the collections of hundreds of herbaria around the world.
Subscriber: CNU
An online image-based collection of law and law-related materials. It includes law journals, the CFR, English Reports, Federal Register, Treaties and Agreements, Legislative history, a US Presidential Library and more.
Subscriber: CNU
HeinOnline allows you to search or browse all 176 volumes of the English Reports, Full Reprint along with its "Index of Cases" and "Index Chart." This collection encompasses the decisions of the English Courts prior to the commencement of the Law Reports in 1865. It represents reprints of 275 separate series of reports, arranged by the English Courts: House of Lords, Chancery, Rolls Court, etc. The English Reports, Full Reprint contains over 100,000 cases reprinted verbatim and spans the years 1220 to 1867.
Subscriber: CNU
Includes The Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories Database and the Legislative History Title Collection (full-text legislative histories on some of the most important and historically significant legislation of our time.)
Subscriber: CNU
"This unique collection of materials provides a platform to research the progression of women’s roles and rights in society over the past 200 years."
Subscriber: CNU
This database is a "modern approach to legal history" and provides primary source documents with their publishing history - translations, revisions, updates, and annotations - available full text. The goal "is to present a complete constitutional history for every country."
Subjects: History
Vendor: EBSCO
Subscriber: VIVA/CNU
Full text articles, article abstracts and bibliographical citations of books and dissertations on the history of the world, except the United States and Canada, from 1450 to the present.
Subjects: History
Vendor: EBSCO
Subscriber: VIVA/CNU
Full text articles, article abstracts and bibliographical citations of books and dissertations on the history of the world, except the United States and Canada, from 1450 to the present.
Subscriber: CNU
Primary Source documents related to World War II including Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Map Room Files, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Records of the War Department Operations Division, U.S. Navy Action and Operational Reports, Records of the Office of War Information,Papers of the War Refugee Board, and Top Secret Studies on U.S. CommunicationsIntelligence During World War II. These records are supplemented with smallercollections documenting U.S. planning and participation in World War II.
Subscriber: CNU
An online database of full-content articles from various journals in many subject areas including, but not limited to African American studies, Ecology, Economics, History, Literature and Mathematics. Many journals start with the first volume and issue; there is usually a delay of several years for accessing current issues.
Subscriber: VIVA
Provides full-text access to over 1,500 general periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more. Additionally it features: the full-text Magill Book Reviews; full-text reference books; the full-text from over 80,000 biographies; over 105,787 full-text primary source documents; an image collection of 293,480 photos, maps and flags. PDF backfiles for some publications go as far back as 1975.
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
"This HeinOnline collection brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Our cases go into the 20th century, because long after slavery was ended, there were still court cases based on issues emanating from slavery."
Subscriber: CNU
Full-text collection of treaties, agreements and related documents. Includes unofficial treaty publications, guides and indexes, books, etc.
"This collection features the complete Congressional Record Bound version, as well as the daily version back to 1980. It also includes the three predecessor titles: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) Congressional Globe (1833-1873), and Congressional Hearings (early 1900s-present), as well as other important congressional material. Using the Daily-to-Bound Locator Tool, you can quickly find a page in the Bound volume from the Daily edition. "
Subscriber: CNU
Includes such titles as Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Public Papers of the Presidents, CFR Title 3 (Presidents), Weekly Compilation of the Presidential Documents, and other documents relating to U.S. presidents.
Subscriber: Free
A union database of finding aids to archival and manuscripts collections in thirteen Virginia repositories. The contents of the database represent only a small percentage of each institution's holdings.
"... brings together innovative scholarship, primary documents, books, images, essays, book and Web site reviews, teaching tools, and more. It combines the analytic power of a database with the new scholarly insights of a peer-reviewed journal. Published twice a year since 2004, the database/journal is edited by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin of the State University of New York at Binghamton, with an editorial board of leading scholars from around the country."
World News DigestUnder Resources select Historical Documents
Then choose a year to see available materials
Also contains other primary source materials such as editorial cartoons, obituaries, and maps.
Subscriber: CNU
Provides an archival record of domestic and international news. It covers all major political, social, and economic events since November 1940 and is is updated weekly.
Off campus access information
