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American Studies Primary Sources

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Primary source material from 18th and 19th Century publications, including The Liberator 1831-1865, Godey`s Lady`s Book 1830-1889, The Pennsylvania Gazette 1728-1800, The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective, African American Newspapers: The 19th Century, American County Histories to 1900, The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue, The Pennsylvania Newspaper Record, and The South Carolina Gazette.
** On August 30, 2024, Accessible Archives moved to the History Commons platform **

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Covers 270 newspapers from every region of the United States, including 7 from Washington DC.

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Full text access to seven 19th century African American newspapers.

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African American Periodicals, 1825-1995, features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans. Published in 26 states, the publications include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations bulletins, annual reports and other genres.

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This database is a global (non-U.S.) collection for international study of black history and culture. The contributions, struggles, and identities of the African Diaspora are presented through personal accounts, video, and primary sources with a focus on the migrations, communities, and ideologies of people of African descent. The collection includes digitized primary source documents, including books, government documents, personal papers, organizational papers, journals, newsletters, court documents, letters, and ephemera.

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Declassified FBI reports dealing with every aspect of antiwar work carried out by the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). The collection also includes surveillance on a variety of other antiwar groups and individuals, with an emphasis on student groups and communist organizations. Covers the period 1967 to 1975.

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Full text access to the historical American newspapers The American Hebrew (1879-1902 and 1922), The Jewish Messenger (1857 to 1902) and the combined The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger (1903 to 1922).

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A collection of more than 5,700 documentaries and newsreels on American history, each accompanied by a transcript. There are film clippings from as early as 1898. Includes newsreels from United News (1942 to 1946) and Universal (1929 to 1967). Transcripts of all programs provided.

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Among the topics covered are educational methods, expenses, Indian customs, treaties with the government, and the Indians' reactions to denying their heritage - often a condition of accepting new faith.

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Formed in 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) expanded from its roots in Minnesota and broadened its political agenda to include a searching analysis of the nature of social injustice in America. These FBI files provide detailed information on the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest and the development of Native American radicalism.

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Full-text access to the longest-running English language newspaper serving the community of Reform Jews in the United States, from 1854 to 2000.

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Spanning many genres and historical periods, this collection contains over 69,000 tracks from over 4,000 albums.

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Includes two collections, American Periodicals Series Online (APS Online) and American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries (APCRL), that contain digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the middle of the 20th century.

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Papers from the renowned and outspoken poet, playwright, and critic, born LeRoi Jones, who was a key member of the Beat Generation and the Black Power movement.

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Historical documents covering a broad range of topics. Strengths include U.S. foreign policy, U.S. civil rights, gender, sexuality, and women's studies, the Holocaust, and modern history of Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

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This three part collection includes News Features & internal communications from 1848-2000, Washington, D.C. Bureau records from 1938-2009, and U.S. City Bureaus from 1931-2004).
This resource was made possible through the Samuel & Lucy Keker Endowed Library Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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A digitized version of the complete Atlanta Constitution newspaper starting in 1868 and running to 1945. Every year three additional years of content will be added.

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The Atlanta Daily World offers primary source material essential to the study of American history and African-American culture, history, politics, and the arts. It examines major movements from the Harlem Renaissance to Civil Rights, and explores everyday life. 
Contains full-text and full-image articles as well as digital reproductions of every page and every article from every issue in downloadable PDF files, including news stories, editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, photos, and advertisements.

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Complete issues, from 1893 to 1988, of one of the most widely-circulated African American newspapers.

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Access to the Baltimore Sun from 1837-1994. This resource was made possible through the Class of '32 Library Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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Billboard has been the premier publication for music industry. It features an extensive array of searchable, playable charts, breaking music news, artist interviews and exclusives, news, video and more.

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A news media digital archive on the African American experience.

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Collection comprises approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders covering 250 years of history, and includes letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts in addition to familiar works.

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110 films from the California Newsreel (CN) catalog. CN produces and distributes cutting edge, social justice films that inspire, educate and engage audiences. Founded in 1968, CN is the oldest non-profit, social issue documentary film center in the country, the first to combine media production and contemporary social movements. The streaming collection contains such high use titles as Color Adjustment, Ethnic Notions, and Race: The Power of an Illusion.

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A collection of poetry, drama, and fiction produced by writers of the greater Caribbean region. It includes works in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and various Creole languages.
Also includes several creole dictionaries.
This resource was made possible through the Lee Somers Endowed Library Fund. endowment
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A digitized version of a leading African American newspaper, with more than two-thirds of its readership outside Chicago. This database contains the complete run of the Chicago Defender from 1910 to 2010.

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A digitized version of the complete Chicago Tribune newspaper starting from 1849 to 1990.

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City and Business Directories

Provides historical, personal, and professional information about the inhabitants of major cities within select states and information about civic, social, religious, and commercial organizations. Coverage ranges from the late 18th century through 1929.

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This collection of primary source materials documents the struggle for Black civil rights in the United States during the 20th century. In addition to NAACP papers, there are federal government records, organzational records, and personal papers of civil rights activists and leaders.

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Newspaper founded by Garrett Morgan, inventor of the gas mask and traffic light. Contributors included noted journalists Charles H. Loeb and John Fuster. The newspaper is well known for its support of the Scottsboro trial defendants with letters, clothing, stamps, and donations to the defense fund. Coverage from 1934 to 1991.

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Primary source materials related to the British administration of its colonies in Africa.

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Declassified documents central to US foreign and military policy since 1945. Documents include presidential directives, memos, diplomatic dispatches, meeting notes, independent reports, briefing papers, White House communications, emails, confidential letters, and other secret materials.

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At completion, Disability in the Modern World will include 150,000 pages of primary sources, supporting materials, and archives, along with 125 hours of video.
This resource was made possible through the Lee Somers Endowed Library Fund. endowment
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Streaming audio access to more than 3,700 albums' worth of recordings, spanning all genres. Includes liner notes and essays from independent record labels and sound archives.

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The collection presented here consists of Pearson's syndicated Washington Merry-Go-Round column published between 1932 and 1969. American University Library Special Collections Unit holds the typescript copies for the column that the syndicate sent to Pearson's office at the same time the typescripts were distributed to newspapers around the country.

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This resource contains digitized images of nearly every extant book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America from 1639 to 1800. Early American Imprints consists of more than 36,000 works and 2,400,000 images; it is an important resource for information about every aspect of life in seventeenth and eighteenth-century America.

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Full images of over 36,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the U.S. in the early 19th century covering all aspects of American life. Based on the "American Bibliography 1801-1819" by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
This resource was made possible through the Roger H. and Nancy Brown Endowed Library Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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Contains full-page images of nearly 500 historic colonial and U.S. newspapers, based on the collection of the American Antiquarian Society.

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Provides facsimile editions of a key 20th century publication covering African-American business, history, politics, entertainment, fashion and culture. Ebony's editorial philosophy is to “showcase the best and brightest as well as highlighting the disparities in Black life in the United States and worldwide”. Coverage: 1945-2014

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Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) features the digitized format of 150,000 printed works -- nearly every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.

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Digital archive of facsimile editions of major trade and consumer magazines related to film, theater, music, television, and general entertainment industry. 
Includes 15 trade and popular magazines covering all aspects of the music industry, theatre and broadcast radio in the US and UK covering the period 1880-2000; 10 long-running and highly influential magazines which document all aspects of cinema going, the film industry and the evolution of television and popular culture between 1905 and 2000; and 12 further major consumer and trade publications from the US and the UK on film and television, from 1907 to 2015.
Provides complete runs of magazines from their inception to 2000, including Variety, Billboard, and Broadcasting & Cable, and the Hollywood Reporter to 2015.

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A collection of current full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, scholarly journals on ethnicities and ethnic studies, and historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.

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Citations to more than 32,000 printed material about the Americas written in Europe before 1750. It covers the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of native American peoples. This database is the online version of the 6 volumes "European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750," edited by John Alden and Dennis Landis (New York: Readex Books, 1980-1988).

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FBI files on radical U.S. figures and organizations. Documents cover 1956 to 1971.

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Contains files of the FBI Counterintelligence Program (CONTELPRO) from 1956 to 1971 on prominent black Americans and their organizations.

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This collection highlights the FBI's efforts to disrupt the activities of the largest of the Puerto Rican independence parties, Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño, and compromise their effectiveness. In addition, these documents provide documentary history and analysis of why independence was the second-largest political movement in the island, (after support for commonwealth status), and a real alternative.

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Social history through a collection of more than 300 printed and manuscript recipe collections from 1669-1990 with related content such as home medical remedies, etiquette guidance, and household management.

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Searchable resource of 70+ years of public opinion data and analysis compiled by Gallup, Inc. Includes answers to more than 125,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by the Gallup Poll since 1935. Data is available from the United States as well as 160 countries dating from 2005. User can create custom tables and export data.

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Streaming video collection of over 150 famous speeches given by key contemporary and historical figures. Includes many speeches by U.S. politicians and former presidents.

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Compiles CRS reports, US Supreme Court briefs, legislative histories, and other related materials on the topic of firearm regulation in America. Accessed on the HeinOnline platform.

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An interactive database of Harper's Weekly magazine from the Civil War Era through the Gilded Age.
Coverage: 1857-1912

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Social and economic statistics of the United States from colonial times to 2000.

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Primary source documents from women's organizations in the 19th and 20th Centuries that chronicle the struggles for voting rights and reproductive rights.

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An African-American oral history collection, featuring interviews with thousands of individuals from the worlds of art, business, entertainment, politics, religion, science, and sports.

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Collection of Department of State and CIA documents concerning South and North Vietnam.
This resource was made possible through the Class of '32 Library Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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This is a collection of 25 newspapers in Japanese-American internment camps run by the War Relocation Authority from 1942 to 1945. Most of the articles are in English, but many are in Japanese. Many of the titles are complete or substantially complete. Editions have been carefully collated and omissions are noted.

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Jet Magazine Archive covers art, news, politics and other social topics with an African-American focus. It includes over 3,100 issues providing a broad view of culture, fashion and entertainment from its first issue in 1951 through 2014.

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The John R. Hickman Collection consists of more than 10,000 broadcast quality audio recordings of vintage radio news and entertainment programs, from the 1920s through the 1970s.

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An online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
This resource was made possible through the Lee Somers Endowed Library Fund. endowment
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Life was one of the most popular general interest magazines in the United States from the late 1930s to the early 1970s, particularly known for its high quality photography. The Archive covers 1936 to 2000.
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The oldest and largest black newspaper in the western United States and the largest African-American owned newspaper in the U.S. Coverage 1934-2005.

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Access to the Los Angeles times from 1881 through 2012.

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The Louisville Defender is a weekly newspaper and has been one of the main Black newspapers in the local Louisville area. It is an excellent source for coverage on issues affecting African Americans. The newspaper played an integral role in the fight for integration in the 1960s. Coverage is for 1951-2010.

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This collection reproduces correspondence, reports, speeches, minutes; included are materials relating to the farm workers, poverty programs, Public Law 78, Braceros, labor camps, the United Farm Workers Union and the Delano Grape Strike.

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Includes diaries, journals, and narratives of explorers, emigrants, military men, Native Americans, and travelers are complemented by accounts of the development of farming and mining communities, family histories, and folklore.

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Digitized archives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). This archive examines the realities of segregation and coverage spans from 1909 to 1972. Includes nearly 2 million pages of internal memos, legal briefings and direct action summaries from the association's offices throughout the United States.

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An archive of the National Review, a conservative magazine covering news, politics, current events, and culture with detailed analysis and commentary. Also includes the National Review Bulletin.
Coverage: National Review November 1955-2020, National Review Bulletin April 1959-1979.

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Neighborhood boundaries can change from one census year to the next, making it hard for researchers to compare the same area over time. The Neighborhood Change Database (NCDB) reconciles those changing boundaries in census data from 1970 to 2010. Data extracts are GIS-compatible.
**Access limited to 3 (three) concurrent users.**

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The Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley, contained influential editorials on abolition, and other major issues such as the settlement of the West. In addition to politics and reform, this newspaper also reported on the arts, New York society, sports, business and finance, and is useful for researching key events of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Access to the New York Times from 1851 to 2017.

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The only black newspaper to provide on-the-scene, day-to-day coverage of the Scottsboro trial, and was one of the best researched and well written black newspapers of its time. Coverage from 1916 to 2003.

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Coverage: 1941-1961.
Updated: None. Includes the most significant letters, memoranda, cables, and directives written or dictated by Eisenhower from prior to World War II through his presidency. The documents, many previously classified, were selected from private collections and public archives in the U.S. and U.K., as well as papers from the Eisenhower Presidential Library. This is the online version of the 21-volume The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower.

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The Peace Corps Community Archive consists of materials created and acquired by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers during their service such as correspondence, diaries, films, photographs, reports, scrapbooks, and sound recordings.

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Transcribed text of the Pennsylvania Gazette, a prominent early American newspaper.

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The oldest continuously published black newspaper, is dedicated to the needs and concerns of the fourth largest black community in the U.S. During the 1930s the paper supported the growth of the United Way, rallied against the riots in Chester, PA, and continuously fought against segregation. Coverage from 1912-2001.

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Robert Nickelsberg worked as a TIME magazine contract photographer for nearly thirty years, specializing in political and cultural change in developing countries. Currently, the digital collection covers the first four years of Nickelsberg's photographic career (1980-1984), where he covered the U.S.-backed armed conflicts, genocides, and civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala for Time magazine. Warning - the collection contains violent and graphic imagery. The collection will grow as we receive more images.

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This collection contains the documents of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first U.S. lesbian rights organization, and its founders, Phillis Lyon and Del Martin. Covering the 1950s to 1980s, it also includes materials related to homophile and gay liberation organizations, lesbian mothers, and violence against women. The magazines The Ladder and Sisters are also included.

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An archive of far-right and far-left movements in the United States, Europe and Australia.

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The complete archive of Rolling Stone from 1967 to present; a groundbreaking magazine with a unique perspective on politics, art, culture, rock and popular music, and entertainment.

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Sage Data Core provides U.S. and international statistical information. Includes the American Statistics Index, Statistical Abstract of the United States and a selection of full-text documents. As of June 2021, includes SAGE State Stats and SAGE Local Stats featuring statistical data series created from government and non-government datasets, covering topics of research interest for U.S. states, counties, cities, and metropolitan areas. See a comprehensive list of datasets included in AU Library's Sage Data Core subscription.

Data Axle Historical US Business provides establishment-level information on businesses in the United States, at national, state, county, and ZIP code levels. Data on businesses in US territories are also included. Data are collected from multiple sources, including direct calls to businesses. The resource is a comprehensive source of information on small- and medium-sized businesses. This premium dataset is integrated in search on the Sage Data platform.
 

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An easy-to-use web-based mapping, analytics, and data visualization application with 50,000+ data variables, including demographic data from the US Census and the American Community Survey (ACS), consumer spending data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX), and over 20 million business points from Dun and Bradstreet with detailed profiles on each business, in addition to the CDC PLACES health data delivered by SimplyAnalytics providing 27 diverse health measures, including Health Outcomes, Prevention, Health Risk Behaviors, and Health Status including estimates. Users also have access to the Claritas PRIZM Premier marketing segmentation system enabling users to understand lifestyle characteristics of places or identify target market segments. Data is available down to the Census Block Group level.
Users may create accounts to save their searches or proceed as guests.**Access is limited to 5 concurrent users.**

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Beginning in 1788 with Lord Dunmore's offer of emancipation and ending in 1896 with Plessy v. Ferguson, Part IV: Age of Emancipation includes a range of rare documents related to the emancipation of slaves in the United States, as well as Latin America, the Caribbean, and other areas of the world. Emancipation was a long-sought dream that eventually became a political and moral expectation.

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This comprehensive streaming audio collection of world music includes the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, which is considered an encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions.

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Plantation Records are both business records and personal papers because the plantation was both the business and the home for plantation owners. Business records include ledger books, payroll books, cotton ginning books, work rules, account books, and receipts. Personal papers include family correspondence, diaries, and wills. As business owners, the commodities produced by plantation owners--rice, cotton, sugar, tobacco, hemp, and others--accounted for more than half of the nation's exports.

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This site on the intersection between the performing arts and politics in The Americas includes the journal e-misferica, scholarly essays, and a digital video library.

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A free Internet Archive service,TV News Search searches the closed captions of news programs collected since 2009 from national U.S. networks and stations, and then allows viewing of the associated news clips. Special collections on popular topics, visualizations of top news searches, fact checks, and trending stories are also included.

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The DDRS contains about 700,000 declassified documents from 1900 to 2008. These documents are from the U.S. presidential libraries and the National Archives, and deal with nearly every major foreign and domestic event.
This resource was purchased in part through the generous support of Ronald Hamowy and Clement Ho.endowment smart growth graphic

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U.S. Newsstream enables users to search the most recent premium U.S. news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring top newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format.

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An index of U.S. television news broadcasts beginning in 1968. NBC broadcasts from 1968 and CNN broadcasts from 1995 are available for viewing online. ABC and CBS broadcasts from 1968 and Fox News broadcasts from 2004 are available through video loan, for which Vanderbilt University charges a fee to recover costs. There are no transcripts or captioning provided.

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Complete run of Vogue from 1892 to the present, with high resolution page images.

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The digitized version of the complete Wall Street Journal, with global coverage of business and financial news, starting from 1889. Coverage through 2011. For more recent and current coverage, please find the Wall Street Journal in our list of databases.

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Consists of letters to and from the War Department. Includes speeches to Native Americans, proceedings of conferences in Washington, licenses of traders, passports for Indian Country, and instructions to officials.

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Searchable database of The Washington Evening Star from 1852 - 1981.
This resource was made possible through the Brown Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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Access to the Washington Post from 1877 through 2007.

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Declassified FBI files on the group of civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated South in 1961 to test the United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia.

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The earliest texts in this comprehensive collection on witchcraft date from the 15th century and the latest are from the early 20th century.
This resource was made possible through Donald D. Dennis American History Fund. endowment smart growth graphic

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Documents of Patricia Lindh's and Jeanne Holm's liaison activities with women's groups and their advocacy within the White House during the Ford Administration on issues of special interest to women. Includes material accumulated by presidential counselor Anne Armstrong and Office of Women's Programs Director Karen Keesling.

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American Studies Primary Sources Experts

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Gwendolyn Reece
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