United States History: Primary Sources by Century: Primary Sources: 17th & 18th c.

All Centuries

American Memory
Major database: Historic photographs, film and other materials from the Library of Congress
American Social History Project
Ancestry
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Genealogical records such as census, immigration & military records
Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
Diverse collection of documents dealing with US, international and diplomatic history
Digital Public Library of America
DPLA is a major portal to digitized collections ranging "from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science" that illustrate America’s history & culture
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Includes a database of digitized material as well as exhibits
North American women's letters and diaries
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Full-text database of letters and diaries of women who lived in North America before 1950. Browsing and searching of both the bibliographic and full-text elements provided by PhiloLogic software
Women and Social Movements in the United States
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Primary sources dealing with women's history from 1600 to 2000

Archive of Early America Images
Collection of images that dates from 1492 to 1820
Archives of Maryland Online
Digitized version of the multi-volume set of colonial records and papers
Colonial Connecticut Records
Digitized version of the printed colonial records covering 1636-1776
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Transcriptions of thousands of documents illustrating North Carolina history; especially strong for the period of the 1750s to 1780s
Early American Imprints
Major database: Digitized books published in colonial and early America between 1600 and 1800
Early Americas Digital Project
Collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820

Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
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Digital reproductions of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.

Papers of the Lee Family
More than 300 years of letters from the Virginia family
Plymouth Colony Archive Project
Primary documents from the Plymouth Colony including court and probate records and laws
Salem Witch Trials
Digitized collection of primary source materials relating to the Salem witch trials of 1692

American Journeys
17,000 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

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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American magazines of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries,

Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.
805 selected issues of the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Boston Weekly News-Letter primarily published between 1765 and 1776
Archive of Early American Images
Collection of images that date from1492 to the 1820s
DoHistory
Late 18th, early 19th c diary of a midwife Martha Ballard
Early American Imprints
Major database: Digitized books published in colonial and early America between 1600 and 1800
Early Virginia Religious Petitions
Digitized versions of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature between 1774 and 1802

Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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18th century English-language publications in the humanities, arts, and sciences

First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
Collection of primary sources including newspapers, letters, legal documents and more
Founder's Online
Correspondence and more from six major figures:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison
Friendly Association Papers
Papers dating from the 1750s and 1760s of the Pennsylvania-based “Friendly Association for Regaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures”
Geography of Slavery in Virginia
Digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers
Martha Washingon: A Life
Narrative, teaching materials and an archive of correspondence and other material
New Nation Votes
Searchable collection of election returns from the earliest years of American democracy, 1787-1825
Pennsylvania Gazette
Major colonial newspaper, 1728-1800
Probing the Past: Virginia & Maryland Probate Inventories 1740-1810
More than 300 probate inventories from the Chesapeake region of Maryland and Virginia
Virginia Gazette
Digitized version of the newspaper from 1736 to 1780

Collections of primary sources related to the American Revolution and the creation of the constitution.

Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789
Printed broadsides plus extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations and treaties, from the Library of Congress American Memory site
Founders Online
Correspondence and other writings George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison
George Washington Papers
Correspondence and other papers
James Madison Papers
Correspondence and other papers
Letters of Delegates to Congress 1774-1789
Digitized version of the multi-volume collection of letters
Massachusetts Historical Society
Collections include Adams Family papers, diary of John Quincy Adams and more
Papers of John Jay
Thousands of letters, manuscripts and documents from the first Chief Justice of the United States, from the Columbia University Libraries
Thomas Jefferson Papers
Correspondence and other papers