Comprehensive U.S. History Digital Resources
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Archive GridArchiveGrid includes over four million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.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.
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Gilder Lehman Institute of American History“History by Era” is the Institute’s gateway to our historical content. Each of the ten Eras is divided into thematic Sub-eras, which all follow the same template so readers can move easily from one to another:
SJSU Primary Source Databases
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California Digital Newspaper Collection This link opens in a new windowA collection of significant historical California newspapers published from 1846-1922. Includes the first California newspaper, the Californian, and the first daily California newspaper, the Daily Alta California. It also contains issues of several current California newspapers that are part of a pilot project to preserve and provide access to contemporary papers.
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Early American Historical Newspapers, Series 2, 1758-1900 This link opens in a new windowAlso known as America's Historical Newspapers. This collection focuses on 18th- and 19th-century newspapers.
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Gilded Age This link opens in a new windowThis collection brings together approximately 40,000 pages of full text, photographs, songs for listening online, and other primary materials, along with video interviews and twenty-five critical documentary essays covering issues that came to the fore in the Gilded Age such as immigration and migration, racism and civil rights, labor and industry, women and universal suffrage, A American Indians, and the environment. Each documentary essay poses an interpretive question and then illuminates it with dozens of annotated primary documents, introductions, and essays.
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New York Times via ProQuest Historical (1851- present) This link opens in a new windowProvides full-text, full image, cover-to-cover access to the New York Times.
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North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950 This link opens in a new windowThis resource contains 150,000 pages of materials drawn from the letters and diaries of 1,325 women beginning with early Colonial period through to the 1950’s.
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Oral History Online This link opens in a new windowOral History Online provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,700 collections of Oral History in English from around the world. The collection also provides keyword searching of almost 281,000 pages of full-text by close to 10,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to over 4,100 audio and video files and almost 19,000 bibliographic records.
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San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922) This link opens in a new window
Offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. (1865-1922). From Jan 1, 1865 to Aug 31, 1868, known as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle; From Sept 1, 1868 to Aug 14, 1869, known as Daily Morning Chronicle; and from Aug 15, 1869, known as San Francisco Chronicle. Access is through ProQuest platform.
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Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974 This link opens in a new windowDocuments the key events, trends, and movements in 1960s America—vividly conveying the zeitgeist of the decade and its effects into the middle of the next. Alongside 75,000 pages of letters, diaries, and oral histories, there are more than 75,000 pages of posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and rare audio and video materials—150,000 pages total upon completion. The collection is further enhanced by dozens of scholarly document projects, featuring richly annotated primary-source content that is analyzed and contextualized through interpretive essays by leading historians.
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Struggle for Women's Rights: Organizational Records, 1880–1990 This link opens in a new window
This resource is comprised of records of three important women's rights organizations: the National Woman's Party, the League of Women Voters, and the Women's Action Alliance.
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Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975 This link opens in a new window
Primary source material (from the CIA, USIA, NSC, EPA), personal papers of U.S. presidents) related to the war in South East Asia as well as a wide spectrum of other material (MAC-V) dealing with American foreign policy in this tumultuous period.
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Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000, Scholar's Edition This link opens in a new windowThis collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history and currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
Guide to History Resources and Websites
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Lynbrook High School Social Studies GuideA growing guide of American history research and writing, with a well organized digital subject guide that provides general national resources such as the NHPRC and the Library Congress, to specialty subject guides spanning American history from post-Civil War America to the present.





