NEW! Early Visions of Florida is a student-driven project that explores the rich literary history of early Florida.
A Colony in Crisis: The Saint-Domingue Grain Shortage of 1789 is designed to provide online access to both the French originals and the English and Haitian Creole translations of key primary sources dealing with the grain shortage faced by the colony of Saint-Domingue in 1789.
The Early Caribbean Digital Archive (ECDA) is a publicly available archive platform for accessing, researching, and contributing pre-twentieth-century Caribbean archival materials.
The Kitchen in the Cabinet is a virtual exhibition assembled by scholar Whitney Barlow Robles and undergraduates at Dartmouth College. The project tells the stories of centuries-old food artifacts—many of them early American in origin—that have survived to the present despite their perishable nature by being preserved in scientific collections.
The Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African American History
Some 260 pieces of the thousands held in the museum’s collection posted in a digital exhibit arranged by subject and timeline.
Resources from the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati
The Institute’s library collections consist of more than fifty thousand rare books, manuscripts, prints, broadsides and maps focused on the American Revolution. The collections relate to the military history of the eighteenth century, with a concentration on the people and events of the American Revolution.
Colonial Virginia Portraits
A digital project by scholar Janine Yorimoto Boldt produced by the Omohundro Institute, CVP is an interactive database of oil portraits with a documented history in Virginia or featuring colonial Virginia subjects painted before ca. 1776. This includes portraits painted in both the colonies and abroad.
The Magazine of Early American Datasets (MEAD)
This is an online, free repository for datasets concerning early America. Historians are encouraged to add datasets, which are then preserved, and anyone may download them.
Slave Societies Digital Archive
The Slave Societies Digital Archive holds the oldest records for Africans and Indians in what became the US from Spanish Florida (from the 1590s).
Slave Voyages
A database that tracks the voyages of people stolen from Africa and then sold into slavery in America after they reach American shores, compiled by the Emory University Center for Digital Scholarship.
Native Northeast Portal
The Native Northeast Portal, a database of the Yale Indian Papers Project, digitized resources from New England collections in cooperation with scholars & researchers, including tribal members.
Founders Online
Founders Online from the US National Archives and partners is a trove of over 182,000 searchable documents, absolutely vital for early histories of the United States.
Massachusetts Historical Society
The online collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society include parts of the Adams papers, materials related to the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, an exhibit on the Boston Massacre and much, much more.
New England’s Hidden Histories
Colonial-Era Congregational Church records from New England.
Salem Witch Trials
Some of the most accurate transcriptions regarding the Salem witch trials.
Colonial North America
The Colonial North America at Harvard Library online repository is an ongoing, multi-year project that intends to make available to the world approximately 650,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th- century North America. Almost half of the targeted number are already online.
Georgian Papers Programme
The GPP is a ten-year interdisciplinary project to digitize, conserve, catalog, transcribe, interpret and disseminate 425,000 pages or 65,000 items in the Royal Archives and Royal Library relating to the Georgian period, 1714-1837. The Omohundro Institute and William & Mary are primary US partners in this venture. King’s College London is a primary UK partner.
Leventhal Map Center
For mapping #VastEarlyAmerica digital collections of the Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library are a good place to start. The online repository includes links to significant partner collections.
Early California Population Project
The early California Population Project is a database of birth, marriage, and death records from all of the California missions, 1769-1850.
John Carter Brown Library
The John Carter Brown Library has multiple online archives, including over 7,000 items in this database of Early American images, and more than 3,000 in the online map collection.
Winterthur Museum Collections
The Winterthur online collections include images of ceramics, glass, furniture, textiles, and dozens if not hundreds of other things from early Vast American life.
Thingstor
Images of eighteenth-century objects from the University of Delaware’s ThingStor.
Farber Gravestone Collection
While the American Antiquarian Society has photographs of more than 9,000 pre-1800 New England gravestones.
Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications
All 91 volumes are available online for free.
Electronic New France
A collection of websites pertaining to French colonial America.
Connecticut Archives, 1629-1820
Connecticut Colonial & Early State Records Links
Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive Project
A Multi-Institutional Collaborative Research Initiative into Early America and the British Atlantic World
The Washington Library Digital Collections
Digital collections selected from among the resources of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, and from other staff resources at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
Mount Vernon’s Museum Collections
The Museum collection includes paintings, prints, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metals, glass, textiles, tools, clothing, and personal accessories owned by or related to George and Martha Washington and their family, as well as period pieces similar to original Mount Vernon objects.
The Mount Vernon Midden Project
A searchable database of objects complete with photographs, detailed summaries, and catalogue information connected to a rich body of documentary and thematic material.
Multiple resources from the Folger Shakespeare Library
Resources made available to registered Folger researchers.
Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA)
Archaeological and historical data sets developed over the past century from numerous sources, especially state and federal government agencies.
and the DINAA, Linking Sites and Literature
Finds Smithsonian trinomials and other site identifiers from published literature to link to sites in DINAA.
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts
View, search, print, or download more than 150 rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives from the library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
American Philosophical Society
The APS Digital Library provides access to a wide variety of digitized items from the holdings of the American Philosophical Society.
Art Institute of Chicago
African Diaspora Exhibit
Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami
The Cuban Heritage Collection includes thousands of titles of journals, newspapers, magazines, and newsletters published both in and outside Cuba, from colonial times to the present.
David Rumsey Map Collection
The historical map collection has over 98,000 maps and related images online. The collection includes rare 16th through 21st century maps of America, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Pacific, Arctic, Antarctic, and the World.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) includes sixteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture.
Digital Public Library of America
All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format.
Digital Library of Latin American Heritage
Free access to the Ibero-American digital cultural heritage
Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian
This site presents the complete contents of The North American Indian originally published by Edward S. Curtis between 1907-1930.
George III Collection of Military Maps
The King’s Military Collection comprises some 3,000 maps, views and prints ranging from the armies of Charles V at Vienna in 1532 to the Battle of Waterloo (1815).
Historic Mexican American Press, University Libraries, U. of Arizona
The Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press collection documents and showcases historic Mexican and Mexican American publications
John Carter Brown Library, Image Collections
Library of Congress, Maps by location
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections.
Library of Congress, Digital Collections
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Timeline of Art History
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History presents a thematic, chronological, and geographical exploration of global art history through The Met collection.
National Park Service, Heritage Documentation Programs
This is the largest archive of historic architectural, engineering, and landscape documentation in the United States and much of it is online.
Newberry Library, Digital Collection
A collection of scholarly publication, research tools, interactive resources, educational tools, and online exhibitions based on the extraordinary resources of the Newberry Library—original sources collected since the mid-1890s for the study of European and Western Hemisphere history, literature, and culture since the late medieval period. Collection areas of particular strength include American Indian and Indigenous Studies, American history and culture, Chicago and the Midwest, genealogy and local history, history of the book, maps and exploration, music, and religion.
New York Public Library, Digital Gallery
Over 890,329 items digitized from the The NYPL’s collections. New materials are added every day.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
The Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division collects, preserves, and makes available for research purposes rare, unique, and primary materials that document the history and culture of people of African descent throughout the world, with a concentration on the Americas and the Caribbean.
Smithsonian
The site includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
Southern Methodist University, Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints
This is an extensive database of items from and/or about Mexico, including materials from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
University of California, Calisphere Digital Resources
This is an enormous collection of online objects from California’s great libraries, archives, and museums, including some materials from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
World Digital Library
This database from the Library of Congress, with support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), includes multiple sites and topics of use to early Americanists. Collections range from 16th century maps of cities in Mexico to the diary of Marcus Rainsford recounting the Haitian revolution and his meetings with Toussaint L’Ouverture and beyond.
African American History
An online resource of unique and authentic items of African American History. This is a nationally renowned archive of impressive scope, with over 260 pieces of the thousands they hold arranged by subject and timeline, along with succinct and fascinating descriptions.
Jefferson’s 3 Volumes
A digital reconstruction of the “3 Volumes bound in marbled paper” that Jefferson compiled (and that were later disassembled by the Library of Congress) to document his tenure as Secretary of State and counter the Federalist narrative of John Marshall.
American Antiquarian Society
The AAS library today houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, and digital resources and reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.
Archives of Ontario
The Archives of Ontario is the largest provincial archives in Canada, and the premier source of information about the history of the land we now call Ontario and its people.
Archives Society of Alberta
Alberta on Record gives access to collections preserved in many archives throughout the province. You can search thousands of descriptions of archival records, photographs, and textual records held in Alberta’s archives.
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Boston Public Library
Digitized photographs, manuscripts, books and other material of local and historical interest from the Boston Public Library and other libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies in Massachusetts.
British Library Website
The national library of the United Kingdom.
Canadian Letters & Images Project
The Canadian Letters and Images Project is an online archive of the Canadian war experience, from any war, as told through the letters and images of Canadians themselves.
Empire and Encounter at Detroit
Empire and Encounter at Detroitis a three-part series written by Jonathan Quint (University of Michigan) in partnership with the William L. Clements Library. The series uses the letterbook of British merchant James Sterling to examine social conditions, Indigenous power and enslavement, and more in the Great Lakes region during the 18th century.
Part 1: Empire and Encounter at Detroit
Part 2: Empire and Encounter at Detroit: Habitants, Hired Labor, and the Enslaved
Part 3: Empire and Encounter at Detroit: Native Nations, Native Labor
