American Studies

African Activist Archive Project
The African Activist Archive is preserving and making available online the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s.

Primary resources from 1400 to present including early Native American maps through current administration documents.

Historical collections from the Library of Congress including writings, maps, sound recordings, moving images, prints, and sheet music documenting the American experience.

This site is divided into five sections related to the role of the automobile in the United States. Each section has an overview, a case study and reference. Photographs and documents are used throughout the site.

As this amazing Archive explains in its description, "From the 1820s to the Civil War, African Americans assumed prominent roles in the transatlantic struggle to abolish slavery. In contrast to the popular belief that the abolitionist crusade was driven by wealthy whites, some 300 black abolitionists were regularly involved in the antislavery movement, heightening its credibility and broadening its agenda. The Black Abolitionist Digital Archive is a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum...[African Americans] and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files." Audio files of some speeches (emphatically read by volunteers) are also available and require Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader.

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.

A phenomenal resource from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library providing freely accessible and digitized "primary resources [including "texts, images, and audio files"] for the study of Southern history, literature, and culture". "Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs." Click on the "Collections" option from the top tool bar to begin browsing. One of the best places to start is with the "Oral Histories of the American South" collection which includes "over 500 oral history interviews with a southern focus on a variety of topics, including civil rights, politics, and women's issues."

"The legendary writer’s reporting from the Toronto Star archives, featuring historical annotations by William McGeary, a former editor who researched Hemingway’s columns extensively for the newspaper, along with new insight and analysis from the Star’s team of Hemingway experts."

The King Resources page provides access to primary source materials, educational resources, the King Encyclopedia of civil rights figures, movements, and organizations, a chronology of major King events, King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and recommended readings. It is a section of the larger Institute's page which gives users access to the King Papers collection, Liberation Curriculum resources, and other information.

More than just a resource providing data on the teams that made up the Negro Leagues and their players, this treasury is a reclamation of a lost aspect of our nation's history. Although the data is not complete as "unfortunately, there are no official statistical sources for Negro Leagues Baseball...", fortunately, "...during the past several decades there have been several attempts to collect and rebuild these statistics, mainly using data supplied by boxscores and game accounts published in the many African-American newspapers which existed during the past century." And fortunately for all, thanks to "The Negro Leagues Researchers and Authors Group [put together by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum]" collecting data for "the years 1920-1948" "and Gary Ashwill and his collaborators" researching the years "1904-1919", this long overdue data is finally being brought to light and will continue to evolve and be revised as the research progresses.

Links to web sites relating to the New Deal era.

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

The Nixon Library [in Yorba Linda, California] "is working toward making more of...[their] massive [physical] collection available to the researcher via the Internet. You may read online digitized documents, view online photographs, search the Library's many finding aids, and listen to the President's voice" via the Virtual Library. To learn more about Nixon, see additional tabs from the top tool bar such as "For Researchers" for information regarding more in-depth research. The Nixon Presidential Library & Museum is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

An important resource in African American music history and blues and gospel music, this treasure from the Library of Congress' "American Memory" collection, provides more than a hundred recordings from the Fort Valley Music Festival in Central Georgia, the first known folk festival purposefully directed by and towards showcasing the talent of African American singers and musicians.

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers. ONE Archives has been a part of the University of Southern California Libraries since 2010. (Description credited to https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/osqa/lgbtq-archives)

"The Papers of Abraham Lincoln [from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency] is a long-term project dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his entire lifetime (1809-1865)." To begin, click on the "Documents" tab and choose from three series related to Lincoln's life: "Series I--Legal Papers", from the time period when Lincoln was a lawyer, "Series II--Illinois Papers", which "incorporates all non-legal Lincoln documents from Abraham Lincoln's birth on February 12, 1809 through March 3, 1861, the day before his inauguration as President" and "Series III--Presidential Papers", encompassing all documents signed or written when Lincoln was President.

This site hosts an extensive list of accessible archives and collections related to American music history. The list includes things such as the DC Punk Archive, Special Collections in the Performing Arts by University of Maryland, and Women Who Rock (University of Washington). The archives on the list are representative of women in music, African-American musical history and culture, music of the south, folk music, performing arts, punk, jazz, and so much more.

Thanks to Sid Lapidus (a rare book collector who donated his collection to Princeton University) and the Princeton University Digital Library, American history enthusiasts can view "The Sid Lapidus '59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution" online which "features more than 150...important books, pamphlets and prints [mostly primary sources] representing the [following] major themes...: the intellectual origins of the American Revolution; the Revolution itself; the early years of the republic; the resulting spread of democratic ideas in the Atlantic world; and the effort to abolish the slave trade in both Great Britain and the United States." The categories listed to the left, ("Creator/Contributor", "Type", "Topic", "Genre", "Language") can be used to browse the collection which includes famous works in their entirety such as Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason". Once you find and click on a record of interest, choose "View Item" to open it up in an easy-to-read format.

"Independent, not-for-profit organization that engages youth and adults from all walks of life in writing, sharing, and discussing brief essays about the core values that guide their daily lives...This I Believe is based on a 1950s radio program of the same name, hosted by acclaimed journalist Edward R. Murrow. Each day, Americans gathered by their radios to hear compelling essays from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller, and Harry Truman as well as corporate leaders, cab drivers, scientists, and secretaries—anyone able to distill into a few minutes the guiding principles by which they lived." "In reviving This I Believe, executive producer Dan Gediman said, 'The goal is not to persuade Americans to agree on the same beliefs. Rather, the hope is to encourage people to begin the much more difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.'" Click the "Explore" button to begin searching through this treasure trove of American culture.

OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and equitable treatment of all practitioners of history.

The Association on American Indian Affairs is the oldest non-profit serving Indian Country protecting sovereignty, preserving culture, educating youth and building capacity.