European History: Primary Sources
Major Collections
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ArtstorImage library of nearly one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences.
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Empire OnlineFull text database covering the rise and fall of empires and colonialism around the world. Includes primary source materials.
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EuropeanaOver 500 institutions have contributed to Europeana, creating an enormous collection of images, texts, sounds, and videos.
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European History Primary SourcesAn index of scholarly websites that offer online access to digitized primary sources on the history of Europe.
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Global CommoditiesFull text database exploring the history and development of fifteen major commodities through manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials.
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Making of the History of 1989A substantial collection of high quality primary sources about the events surrounding the fall of Communism in Europe and the end of the Cold War.
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National Security Archive: Sources on EuropeA collection of declassified U.S. government documents relating to activities in Eastern Europe.
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Parallel History ProjectA collection of thousands of pages of material on security-related issues of the Cold War.
United Kingdom
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17th-18th Century Burney Collection NewspapersLargest collection of digitized early English news media.
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Early English Books Online (EEBO)Facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
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Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineOver 136,000 books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more works published in English during the eighteenth century.
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British PeriodicalsFull-text collection of 18th, 19th and some early 20th century British magazines
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British History OnlineContains some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles.
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British Library Images OnlineThousands of high quality images from the British Library's extensive collections.
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British Library Online GalleryA collection of tens of thousands of digital images from the British Library.
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Colonial State PapersBritish documents covering North America & the West Indies from 1574-1739.
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Guardian, 1821-2003 & The Observer, 1791-2003British newspapers: The Guardian and its Sunday partner The Observer
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Hansard 1803 - 2005Parliamentary debates
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Images of EmpireImages of Empire from the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum is the largest dedicated online resource of still and moving images on the British colonial period.
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Imperial War Museum Online CollectionA searchable collection of wide range of artifacts and documents from the Imperial War Museum. Almost 90,000 of them have digitized images, sound or video.
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More UK Primary SourcesCheck out this guide to primary sources related to British and Irish history, created by UW Libraries History Librarian Teresa Mudrock.
France
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ARTFL ProjectProvides access to North America's largest collection of digitized French resources.
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Electronic EnlightenmentTens of thousands of letters and documents, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
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French Political PamphletsTens of thousands of letters and documents, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
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French Revolutionary PamphletsOver 2,100 French pamphlets published between 1547 and 1626.
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GallicaA massive collection of images, texts, videos, and other resources from French history and culture.
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Napoleonic SatiresScanned images of political cartoons from the Napoleanic era.
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Napoleonica: Napoleonic Primary SourcesGathers together Napoleonic primary sources from all over the web.
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Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French RevolutionDigitized pamphlets and periodicals from the French Revolution of 1848 held by CRL libraries.
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Paris: Capital of the 19th centuryImages and texts providing a window into the cultural, political, and social context of 19th century Parisian culture.
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Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871Thousands of digitized photographs and images recorded during the Siege and Commune of Paris ca. 1871
Germany
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The Berlin Crisis, 1958-1962A record through declassified documents of U.S. policy during the most prolonged U.S.-Soviet crisis of the Cold War era.
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The Digital Picture Archives of the Federal ArchivesApproximately 11 million still pictures, aerial photographs and posters from modern German history.
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German History in Documents & ImagesA comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present.
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German Propaganda ArchiveA collection of English translations of propaganda material from Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic.
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Germany Under ReconstructionA varied selection of publications in both English and German from the period immediately following World War II.
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Sources on German Colonial HistoryDigitized resources originally collected by the German Colonial Society from Frankfurt University
Spain
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HispanaBrings together the digital collections of archives, libraries of Spanish digital repositories.
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Portal de Archivos EspañolesAccess to archival descriptions and digitized collections throughout Spain.
Russia
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Americans in the Land of Lenin: Documentary Photographs of Early Soviet Russia, 1919-1930Photographs of daily life in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, drawn from the personal papers of Robert L. Eichelberger and Frank Whitson Fetter.
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Analytic Reports Produced by the Directorate of Intelligence on the Former Soviet UnionA collection of declassified analytic documents on the former Soviet Union, produced by CIA's Directorate of Intelligence during 1951-1991.
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Canada’s Siberian ExpeditionContains 2,200 images from public archives, family collections and rare secondary sources from the Canadian Expeditionary Force trip to Siberia.
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The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social SystemProvides access to digitized materials selected from the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System.
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Images of Russia and Caucasus Region 1929-1933Over 700 images of Russia and the Caucasus region, particularly of rural areas in Georgia and Dagestan.
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Polar Bear Expedition Digital CollectionsA guide to archival materials relating to the Polar Bear Expedition in Northern Russian in 1918 and 1919.
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Posters of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1922Posters created during the early years of the Soviet Union.
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The Empire That Was Russia: Prokudin-Gorskii CollectionFeatures the work of a pioneering Russian photographer who photographically surveyed the Russian Empire.
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The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947-1991Pulls together more than 600 U.S. intelligence estimates and assessments concerning the Soviet Union during the entire period of the Cold War.
Netherlands
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Image Bank WW2Brings together an extensive collection of images of the Second World War from Dutch collections.
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Memory of the NetherlandsAn enormous collection of digital images about the Dutch past.
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Van Gogh LettersAll 902 letters to and from Vincent van Gogh, available in facsimile and translated.