Even if you're an experienced researcher, searching for primary sources online can be quite different than other types of information. If you get stuck, please don't hesitate to ask for help!
General Tips
If you can't find what you're looking in the resources linked on this page, don't worry! Try searching for your topic on Google with the words digital collection.
Digitizing collections is an expensive and time-consuming process for archivists. This may limit the amount of sources available on your specific topic. Try brainstorming more general areas and searching for those. For example, if you're searching for digitized photographs of one specific town, try broadening your search to the entire state.
Try searching for special collections / archives at a university or college local to the topic you're searching for.
The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and the public responses to them.
The Library of Congress is seeking to digitize many of it's unique American history holdings, and making them available through this website. Included are printed materials, manuscripts, sheet music, maps, photos and prints, motion pictures, and sound recordings.
Digital collections from Harvard Libraries, including Latin American Pamphlets, the Islamic Heritage Project, a collection documenting Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930, and others.
Digital collections from the New York Public Library with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
Gale Primary Sources cross-searches three digital archives: The Times Digital Archives, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, and 19th U.S. Century Newspapers. Use this source as a powerful search engine for finding historical newspapers and documents.
HathiTrust is a collaborative of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of over 17 million titles digitized from libraries around the world.
In addition to prominent and respected titles like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Financial Times, and others, News & Newspapers also offers curated regional, specialty and international news titles and collections for a wide spectrum of viewpoints and counterviewpoints over time.
A collection of women's writings from the Colonial period to 1950, in 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. The collection also contains biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database. Includes writings by Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Dorothea L. Dix, Julia Ward Howe, and more.
A searchable database of the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the collections of the Library of Congress. The Sanborn maps are arranged by state, then city and release data. Currently there are over 25,000 sheets from over 3000 city sets online.
Consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries. The content covers a wide spectrum of issues related to the issue of slavery.
The High Point University Digital Archives are an evolving collection of digitized photographs, videos, student publications, campus histories and other artifacts highlighting the history of the university.
Gateway is a collaborative platform that showcases digitized historical materials contrbuted by institutions, community groups, and individuals in the North Carolina Piedmont Triad Region.
Digital collections of the UNC University Library, primarily focused on North Carolina, the American South, the experience of African Americans, the Civil War, and others.