Colonial America Digital Library - Online Historical Documents, Exhibits, Publications, & Archives

History > U.S. > Early America> Digital Library

Digital Library > History > U.S. > Early America

See also American Revolution ; State & Local History

Alexander Hamilton on the Web
"...a comprehensive guide and web directory to Alexander Hamilton, founding father, first Secretary of the Treasury, major author of the Federalist Papers and advocate of a strong central government...On this site you will find biographies, both long and short, a large number of Hamilton's writing, including the complete Federalist Papers, images of Hamilton, reviews and excerpts from some of the recent books about Hamilton, essays on the Hamilton/Burr duel and on dueling generally, and so forth."

American Political Prints, 1766-1876
Catalog of the Collection in the Library of Congress by Bernard F. Reilly, Jr.
From HarpWeek

Archiving Early America
"Our main focus is primary source material from 18th Century America-- all displayed digitally. A unique array of original newspapers, maps and writings."

The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands (English or Nederlands)
"...explores the history of the Dutch presence in America and the interactions between the United States and the Netherlands from Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage to the post-World-War-II period. The project is the product of ongoing cooperation between the Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands, which has enlisted the cooperation of other leading Dutch libraries, museums, and archives."
- Library of Congress Global Gateway

American Journeys
Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement: A Digital Library and Learning Center
"American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later."

Cases & Materials on American Federalism - (dead link)
"...used in American Government Courses at Purdue University Calumet. The site contains historical documents [American, British, and English], a timeline, a glossary, edited court cases, review questions, other materials, and links to other free resources."
Online textbook by Douglas G. Amber, Dept. of History & Political Science, Purdue University

A Century of Law making for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1873
"Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America's national legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress make up a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation and the development of the federal government and its role in the national life. These documents record American history in the words of those who built our government...In order to make these records more easily accessible to students, scholars, and interested citizens, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation brings together online the records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention through the 43rd Congress, including the first three volumes of the Congressional Record, 1873-75."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

  • The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States
    United States Serial Set Numbers 2484 to 2589
    U.S. Congressional Documents
    "The six-volume set entitled The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, from House Miscellaneous Document No. 603 of the U.S. Serial Set, was compiled by Dr. Francis Wharton and promulgated on August 13, 1888, by both houses of Congress."

Classics of American Colonial History
"We have selected scholarly books and articles on American colonial history that appear to be of continuing interest. Our goal is to add four documents (articles or book chapters) per week. Readers are invited to suggest further public-domain documents for digitization."
From Dinsmore Documentation

Common Sense
Thomas Paine, 1776.

Common-Place
The Interactive Journal of Early American Life

Core Documents of U.S. Democracy - (dead link)
Government Printing Office

The Declaration ofIndependence
"This site provides a wealth of information about the signers of the Declaration, the history of the Declaration, and an online version of the Declaration for you to read...The site also provides links to other Declaration-related biographies and histories and a guestbook where you are invited to add comments and ideas. This site is a good resource for anyone curious about the Declaration and its history, or for the student who needs resources for his or her research paper."
- ushistory.org

Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents
Sections include: Chronology of Events (June 7, 1776 to January 18, 1777) ; Drafting the Documents ; Objects in the Exhibition.
An online exhibit from the Library of Congress

Democracy Papers
"In these papers, we have tried to explicate what some of those principles are, indicating a little of their historical development and explaining why they are important to the workings of government in the United States in particular as well as democracy in general."
A U.S. Dept. of State publication.
By Melvin I. Urofsky, Professor of History and Public Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University

The Diary, Correspondence, and Papers of Robert "King" Carter of Virginia, 1701-1732
Transcribed and Edited by Edmund Berkeley, Jr.
"This site includes transcriptions of the diary, correspondence, and papers of the richest and most important man of his day in Virginia, who owned at his death at least 300,000 acres containing many farms and plantations that produced tobacco and other crops for sale, some 1,000 slaves to work those plantations, and large sums of money invested in Virginia and in England. Robert Carter was a member of the Council of Virginia, was acting governor, and a political power in the colony. He had received a classical education in England, and corresponded widely both within the colony and with merchants in England."
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia

Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture
E-Facsimiles
"...collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, with a particular focus on Early America. Included are electronic texts and facsimiles, image databases, and Web resources...The project will provide access to digitized primary materials significant to the decorative arts and material culture of Early America. Materials for this project will range from Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, to a database of early American Furniture from the Chipstone Foundation."
Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 - (dead link)
"The Continental Congress Broadside Collection (253 titles) and the Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection (21 titles) contain 274 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Most are one page in length, others range from 1 to 28 pages."
American Memory, Library of Congress

Early Virginia Religious Petitions
"...presents images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature between 1774 and 1802 from more than eighty counties and cities. Drawn from the Library of Virginia's Legislative Petitions collection, the petitions concern such topics as the historic debate over the separation of church and state championed by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the rights of dissenters such as Quakers and Baptists, the sale and division of property in the established church, and the dissolution of unpopular vestries."
American Memory, Library of Congress

[Federalist Papers] FoundingFathers.info
Sections include: The American Flag ; Virtual Postcards ; Don't Tread on Me! ; The Federalist Papers Online ; History of the USA ; Founding Fathers Quotes ; History Clippings.

Fire and Ice: Puritan and Reformed Writings
A large collection of sermons, extracts, poems, quotes and more.
By Bill Carson
[see also American Religions]

The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
"...consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Among the sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, ledgers and other financial records, maps, physical artifacts, and pictorial images."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

From Revolution to Reconstruction
"This collection of thoughts, opinions, and arguments of the Founders is meant to be useful to different kinds of readers, and hence useful in a variety of ways. How one uses this book will depend on the energy, time, and needs of the particular individual. Those desiring a general view of the state of the question that ultimately took the form of a specific phrase or clause in the Constitution will find materials assembled under the article, section, and clause numbers of that provision. Readers wishing to pursue their inquiries further are directed--within and at the end of each unit or chapter--to the location of other primary materials that they might find germane. Some of those materials are reprinted here under the headings of thematic chapters in volume 1 or under other, closely related, constitutional clauses, and their location will be so indicated. Many other documents will be of a kind that we could not accommodate within the already stretched confines of this collection; references to their published locations are clearly noted. "

The Founders' Constitution
"In this unique anthology, Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner draw on the writings of a wide array of people engaged in the problem of making popular government safe, steady, and accountable. The documents included range from the early seventeenth century to the 1830s, from the reflections of philosophers to popular pamphlets, from public debates in ratifying conventions to the private correspondence of the leading political actors of the day."
Web edition, University of Chicago Press and Liberty Fund

GALILEO - Online Databases
 University System of Georgia
To access the database below click on Digital Library of Georgia then Databases.

  • Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842

    "This database contains over 1,000 documents and images relating to the Native American population of the Southeastern United States from the collections of the University of Georgia Libraries, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville Library, the Frank H. McClung Museum, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. The documents are comprised of letters, legal proceedings, military orders, financial papers, and archaeological images relating to Native Americans in the Southeast."

George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
"The complete George Washington Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 65,000 items (176,000 pages). This first release includes forty-one letterbooks (about 8,000 pages). Document types include correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes, accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799."

George Washington Resources
- Electric Text Center, University of Virginia

Historical Maps of the United Sates
The Perry-CastaÒeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin

The Library of Virginia Digital Library Program (DLP)
"...the Program has digitized more than 2.2 million original documents, photographs, and maps, and produced more than 80 fully-searchable databases, indexes, and electronic finding aids."
The Library of Virginia

Library of Congress - American Memory

Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories
"...provides the opportunity to listen to former slaves describe their lives. These interviews, conducted between 1932 and 1975, capture the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s and known to have been former slaves."

Massachusetts Historical Society

  • Adams Papers - (dead link)
    "The papers comprise over a quarter million manuscript pages of the letters and diaries of generations of Adams husbands, wives, and children including John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Adams (1744-1818), John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) and Louisa Catherine Adams (1775-1852), and Charles Francis Adams (1807-1874) and Abigail Brooks Adams (1808-1889)...The papers cover every major political development from the 1750s to the 1880s."

National Library of Canada

  • A Treasure Trove of North American Exploration
    "The books on this site are accounts of North American voyages and explorations from the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Christopher Columbus in 1492 to the famous trip through the Northwest Passage by Roald Amundsen in 1905."

National Park Service Museum Collections: An American Revolution
"This multi-park exhibit showcases museum and archival collections at selected National Park Service sites. Featured sites and collections commemorate significant events and individuals of the American Revolutionary War [1775-1783]."

New Jersey State Library - CyberDesk

National Park Service - ParkNet

New York Public Library

  • American Shores: Maps of the Middle Atlantic Region to 1850
    "The Mid-Atlantic region of North America ñ stretching from New York south to Virginia ñ was a pivotal area in the early development of the American colonies and the United States. This website looks at this region and its history through maps created up to 1850...The digitized maps and atlases included in American Shores are drawn from the extensive holdings of the Map Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library."

Old Deerfield, Massachusetts Memorial Hall Museum
Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.

  • Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704
    "Was this dramatic pre-dawn assault in contested lands an unprovoked, brutal attack on an innocent village of English settlers? Was it a justified military action against a stockaded settlement in a Native homeland? Or was it something else?...Explore this website and hear all sides of the storyóthen you decide."
    Sections include: 1704 Home ; Meet the 5 Cultures ; People ; Artifacts ; Maps ; Timeline ; Voices & Songs ; Explanations ; Glossary.

Plimoth-on-Web - (dead link)
Plimoth Plantation : The Living History Museum of 17th-Century Plymouth.

  • The Library - (dead link)
    On-Line Documents include: Plymouth Colony History ; The Wampanoag ; The Pilgrims in American Culture ; Plimoth Plantation: Behind the Sciences ; Links ; Genealogical Websites.

Rare Map Collection at the Hargrett Library
"...a collection of about 800 historical maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century...All of our maps are available in this Library in digital format, but only a subset of them are on this site."
- University of Georgia

Salem Witch Trials
Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
"...consists of an electronic collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692 and a new transcription of the court records."
Sections include: Archives ; Books & Letters ; Documents ; Maps ; People.
Project Director: Benjamin C. Ray, Dept. of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

Slave Movement During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
"This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on the following slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: records of slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas, slave ships of eighteenth century France, slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, Virginia slave trade in the eighteenth century, English slave trade (House of Lords Survey), Angola slave trade in the eighteenth century, internal slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, slave trade to Havana, Cuba, Nantes slave trade in the eighteenth century, and slave trade to Jamaica."
Data and Program Library Service (DPLS), University of Wisconsin

Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1740
"...contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance."
- American Memory, Library of Congress

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
Sections include: Digital Texts ; Scholarship ; Quotations ; Bibliographies ; Organizations ; The UVA Jefferson Collection ; UVA Special Collections Online Exhibitions with Jefferson Content
University of Virginia - electronic text center

Thomas Jefferson Exhibit at the Library of Congress
 "This exhibition focuses on the extraordinary written legacy of Thomas Jefferson--founding father, farmer, architect, inventor, slaveholder, book collector, scholar, diplomat, and the third president of the United States. It traces Jefferson's intellectual development from his earliest days in the Piedmont to an ever-expanding realm of influence in republican Virginia, the American Revolutionary government, the creation of the American nation, and the revolution in individual rights in America and the world."

Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
 "The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes.... In its online presentation, the Thomas Jefferson Papers comprises approximately 83,000 images."
American Memory Project, Library of Congress

U.S. Founding Documents
Emory Law Library

University of Georgia Hargrett Library Rare Map Collection
"...maintains a collection of more than 800 historic maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century."
Site contents include: New World ; Colonial America ; Revolutionary America ; Revolutionary Georgia ; Union & Expansion ; American Civil War ; Frontier to New South ; Savannah & the Coast ; Transportation.

University of Michigan Clements Library
"...houses original resources for the study of American history and culture from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century."

  • Web Resource in Early American History
  • Spy Letters of the American Revolution
    From the Collections of the Clements Library
    "The preservation and availability of the Sir Henry Clinton collection at the Clements Library provides an amazingly complete look at the everyday intelligence operations of both the British and American armies. Many of the letters highlighted in this digital exhibit were pivotal to the success and failures of sieges, battles, and surprise attacks."
    Sections include: Letters ; Stories ; Methods ; People ; Routes ; Timeline ; Teacher's Lounge.

Valley Forge Muster Roll Database - (dead link)
"This page is dedicated to the 30,000 plus men who served at the Valley Forge Encampment under General George Washington during the period of Dec 1777 to Jun 1778. This site provides the only known, free to the public, automated database of all of the soldiers who served at the Valley Forge Encampment

Virginia Runaways Project
 "The Virginia Runaways Project is a digital database of runaway and captured slave advertisements from 18th-century Virginia newspapers. When a slave ran away, slaveowners often placed remarkably detailed advertisements for their return. Sheriffs and other county officials also often advertised the capture of runaways or suspected runaways. This project offers full transcripts and images of all runaway and captured ads placed in Virginia newspapers from 1736 to 1790."
By Thomas Costa, History Department, University of Virginia's College at Wise

Words & Deeds in American History
"...approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent American..."
Library of Congress' American Memory Project

See also American Revolution ; State & Local History




Maintained by Mike Madin.
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