Primary Sources for Twentieth Century America

Don't know where to start? Try one of the following database portals. They allow researchers to search  across multipe databases produced by the same publisher.

• Archive Explorer (Publisher: Adam Matthew)
• Artemis (Publisher: Gale)
• Archive of Americana (Publisher: Readex)

Image attribution: Flickr, Cutty Sark "question mark"

• Proquest Historical Newspapers Database of early twentieth century US newspapers including the Atlanta Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, New York Tribune, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
• Proquest Newspapers Dgitial Archive of major US newspapers from the early/late 1980s to the present.
• African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 Digital collection of African American newspapers from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society and the Library of Congress.
• Hispanic American Newspapers Digital Archive of Spanish-language newspapers – some published in both Spanish and English - printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Proquest Black Newspaper Collection, c.1890-c.2000 Comprehensive digital collection of major twentieth century African American newspapers.
• America's Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922 Large digital collection of early American newspapers.
• Ethnic NewsWatch, 1960-present Digital collection of U. S. newspapers, magazines, and journals of ethnic, minority, and native presses, searchable in English and Spanish. The database includes both current (1990-present) and historical (1960-1989) indexes.
• Chronicling Americ, 1798-1924 Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages.
• Federal Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), 1975-1996 Electronic Index Digital index to the daily reports issues by the US government from 1975-1996.
• Lexis Nexis Academic News Digital archive of major world publications, newspapers, magazines, wire services, broadcast transcripts, and blogs from 1980 to the present.
• Newsbank Access World News Local newspaper coverage from the late 1980s/early 1990s to the present.
• Google News Archive Digitized newspapers crawled from miscellaneous web sources. Content is not comprehensive, but is nonetheless impressive for its breadth.
• Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 Compilation of Spanish-language newspapers – some published in both Spanish and English - printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries.

• History Vault Large collection of documents related to Civil Rights in the 20th century. Includes organizational (ie. NAACP papers, SNCC) and personal (Ida B. Wells) papers.
• African American Communities Documents detailing 20h century African American life in urban centers across the United States.
• American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories, 1840-present Digital Archive of personal narratives of immigrants to the United States and Canada, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral history interviews.
• Ancestry Library Edition Major source of census and other records of interest to historical, social and genealogical researchers.
• Emergence of Advertising in America; Ad Access; Ad Views Series of digital collections from Duke University Libraries that chart the emergance of advertising in America.
• Everyday Life & Women in America, 1800-1920 Full text of momographs, periodicals, pamphlets and broadsides from Duke university's Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, and the New York Public Library.
• Internet Archive Crowdsourced historical documents; uploaded by users.
• Jewish Life in America Original manuscript collections from the unique holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York.
• Making of the Modern World Digitized library of economic and business literature on topics like the Industrial Revolution, the development of modern capitalism, and the emergence of modern economics.
• Vanderbilt Television News Archive, 1968-present
• Women and Social Movements in the United States Online primary source and secondary source materials related to women in social movement in the U.S.
• Women and Social Movements, International

• American Periodicals Series Online
  A major primary source collection for historical research. Includes digitized images of American periodicals from the colonial period through the beginning of the 20th century. More than 1,000 periodicals from all fields will be covered in the completed product.
• Opinion Archives
  Digital collection of current issues and backfiles of a number of leading U.S. opinion publications including the New Yorker (1925-present), the Nation (1865-present), Commentary (1945-present), the American Spectator (1967-present), the National Review (1955-present), New Republic (1914-present), Commonweal (1924-present), the New York Review of Books (1965-present), and Harper's (1850-present).

• Hein Online Database of legal journals and various government documents, such as the Foreign Relations of the United States, Federal Register, and League of Nations Official Journal.
• Public Papers of the Presidents The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States are published by the Federal Register. It contains materials that were compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. It includes volumes covering the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.
• US Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 Reports, Documents and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that have been bound in sequential volumes since 1817.
• Making of Modern Law, 1832-1978 Collection of 22,000 treatises on American and British Commwealth law.
• Proquest Congressional, 1789-present Large database of congressional hearings and publications.
• Federal Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), 1975-1996 Electronic Index Digital index to the daily reports issues by the US government from 1975-1996.
• Digital National Security Archive Database of searchable, full-text collections of declassified documents in areas of U.S. foreign policy and intelligence.
• Making of Modern Law, 1832-1978 Collection of 22,000 treatises on American and British Commwealth law.