Primary Sources: American Revolution: General - Online

This module consists of 26 collections from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first North American historical society and the first library to devote its primary attention to collecting Americana. The collections digitized by ProQuest from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society focus on the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War, and the Early National Period, with some collections extending into the Civil War era. Among the collections on the Colonial Era, one notable collection is the Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774. This collection consists of 276 diaries written by 112 people. Taken together, these diaries provide a rich portrait of life in America before the American Revolution. Highlights of the Revolutionary War and Early National Period are the Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Revere Family Papers, Elbridge Gerry Papers, and Artemas Ward Papers.

Sabin reaches into all aspects of American history and culture. It touches upon the political and religious life in North America and at times South America and the Caribbean. It features American and European views of the colonization of the Americas, the American Revolution, the days of the early Republic and Jacksonian period, the antebellum period, Civil War, era of Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction, the settlement of the West and the onset of the Gilded Age. Through published pamphlets, tracts, memoirs, congressional legislation, correspondence, broadsides, biographies, histories, fiction and poetry, eulogies, sermons and innumerable other genres, Sabin opens a window onto the Americas through which few get to glimpse.