Research Guides: ILPD 716: Leadership of the Schools: Selected Primary Source Databases

Selected Primary Source Databases

North American Collections This link opens in a new window
Provides full text databases of primary source material from the 18th and 19th century publications. Collections include the Civil War; African American newspapers from the 19th century; American county histories to 1900; and specific resources and newspapers such as Godey’s Lady’s Book and the Pennsylvania Gazette.
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
It is a collection of primary source material related to African American community life from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century. It focuses on communities in Atlanta, Chicago, and Brooklyn and towns and cities in North Carolina. Material types include oral histories (including audio and video files), correspondence, leaflets and pamphlets, magazines and periodicals, legal documents and official records, photographs, maps, ephemera, and images of objects.
African Diaspora, 1860-Present This link opens in a new window
Essential for understanding Black history and culture, African Diaspora, 1860-Present allows scholars to discover the migrations, communities, and ideologies of the African Diaspora through the voices of people of African descent. With a focus on communities in the Caribbean, Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and France, the collection includes never-before digitized primary source documents, including personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.
American County Histories This link opens in a new window
These large county volumes have long formed the cornerstone of local historical and genealogical research. They are encyclopedic in scope and virtually limitless in their research possibilities. These books include chapters with detailed coverage of local history, geology, geography, weather, transportation, lists of all local participants in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, government, the medical and legal professions, churches and ministers, industry and manufacturing, banking and insurance, schools and teachers, noted celebrations, fire departments and associations, cemeteries, family histories, health and vital statistics, roads and bridges, public officials and legislators, and many additional subject areas.
Black Life In America This link opens in a new window
From the early days of slavery to modern times, people of African descent have had a profound impact on American history. This primary source collection offers an expansive window into centuries of African American history, culture and daily life—as well as the ways the dominant culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent. The content in this database is sourced from more than 19,000 American and global news sources, including over 400 current and historical Black publications. It covers from the early 18th century to the early 21st –from pre-Revolution America to the modern era.
British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 90,000 pages of diaries and letters. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. The collection now includes primary materials spanning more than 300 years. Each source has been carefully chosen using leading bibliographies. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
Colonial State Papers This link opens in a new window
An invaluable resource for scholars of early American history, British colonial history, Caribbean history, maritime history, Atlantic trade, plantations, and slavery, the Colonial State Papers database offers access to over 7,000 hand-written documents and more than 40,000 bibliographic records. Dates of coverage: 1574-1757.
Food and Drink in History This link opens in a new window
This resource aims to represent a range of key food and drink history stories from the evolution of food within everyday life to haute cuisine, charting key issues around agriculture and food production, and looking into advertising histories of key food and drink brands. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics, power, gender, race, and socio-economic status.
History Vault This link opens in a new window
Primary source materials organized into the following subject modules: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; International Relations and Military Conflicts; Women's Studies; and Workers and Labor Unions.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America This link opens in a new window
It is a collection of digitized primary sources from the 17th to mid-20th century depicting American Indian history in the United States, Canada, and Mexico from American Indian and European perspectives. Material types include manuscripts (treaties, speeches, petitions, diaries, travel journals, and ledger books), artwork (illustrations, sketches, watercolors, oil paintings, and American Indian art), American Indian newspapers, rare books, photographs, and maps.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines. In selected cases, users will be able to hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants. The collection will be particularly useful to researchers, because much of the original material is difficult to find, poorly indexed, and unpublished; most bibliographies of the immigrant focus on secondary research; and few oral histories have been published.

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ILPD 716: Leadership of the Schools

Selected Primary Source Databases