Primary Sources: U.S. States: New York

Part of the Virtual New York online exhibit Produced by the New Media Lab at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. This exhibit has images labeled sources - click on the image for details.

"By the 1860s, New York was the nation's largest city and, with the coming of the Civil War, possibly its most divided. The war exacerbated the gulf between wealth and poverty in the city even as the wartime New York economy prospered. Always ambivalent in its stance on slavery. its business elites had profited on the cotton trade while New York also became a center for antislavery organizing. As the city's volunteer militia companies, many composed of Irish and German New Yorkers, marched off to battle the Confederacy, the wartime city was rent with political sympathies toward the South. These were manifested in "Copperhead" agitation and political candidacies, and opposition to a military draft born out of the inequalities of the federal conscription act, and also of racism. These tensions finally exploded in July, 1863, with the New York City draft riots. P. T. Barnum's position--once the war began--was solidly Unionist, yet remnants of his museum's long career of walking the sectional line remained."

Documents and other items published by the NY Historical Society.

to aid in suppressing the slave-holders' rebellion : statements concerning the origin, difficulties and success of the movement, including official documents, military testimonials, proceedings of the "Union League Club," etc. / collated for the "New York Association for Colored Volunteers," by Henry O'Rielly, secretary.

"The extensive collections at the Library of Congress contain historic artifacts and cultural materials from across the U.S. "

"... is the public side of a digitization project that will enable Web visitors to discover ever-larger portions of the Museum's collections. We currently offer more than 62,000 photographs of New York City, thousands of which have never been available for public viewing. And this is just a start - more photography will be added to the portal as imaging and cataloging work is completed, and we have just begun digitizing the prints and drawings collections. "

"NewYorkHeritage.org gathers freely accessible digital collections from libraries, museums & archives all over the state. "

" Explore 881,711 items digitized from The New York Public Library's collections.

This site is a living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more."

"The State of New York, the Division of Military and Naval Affairs and the New York State Military Museum are not responsible for the content, accuracy, opinions or manner of expression of the veterans whose historical interviews are presented in these videos.  The opinions expressed by those interviewed are theirs alone and not those of the State of New York."

" The Notable New Yorkers Web site offers audio recordings and transcripts of interviews with ten influential New Yorkers, drawn from the collections of the Oral History Research Office of the Columbia University Libraries. These interviews, conducted by the Office between 1955 and 2001, open an imaginative portal into twentieth-century New York City and the ways in which it has deeply affected the culture and history of the United States and the world beyond. With three background essays and a briefer methodological introduction for each oral history, this site also provides a revealing look at the art of the biographical interview—a methodology developed by the Office over its four and a half decades of existence—in which individuals who have shaped history reflect upon their lives and accomplishments."

An alphabetical listing of digital projects developed by NYU with brief descriptions. It includes: Afghanistan Digital Library, Arabic Collections Online, The Ancient World Digital Library, and Witness to the Early American Experience among others.

Includes collections such as: Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection; Marcel Breuer Architectural Drawings; Medieval Manuscripts; etc.

"The collection consists of 22 volumes of diaries dating July 7, 1849-April 7, 1863. In addition to nearly daily diary entries, the collection includes newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and other items inserted into the volumes by Gunn. Gunn wrote extensively about his experiences in the New York publishing and literary world, encounters with well-known literary and artistic personalities (such as Fanny Fern, James Parton, Walt Whitman, Fitz James O’Brien, Alfred Waud, Thomas Nast, and Frank Bellew), New York and national events, the lives of his friends and neighbors, boardinghouse living, his travels throughout the United States as far northwest as Lake Superior and southwest as Louisiana, and his experiences on campaign with the Federal army as a war correspondent during the American Civil War."