United States History: Primary Sources by Century: Primary Sources: 20th 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

20th Century

Ad*Access
Collection of 20th century advertisements
Alcohol, Temperance & Prohibition
Collection of more than 1,000 digitized pamphlets and other writings
Amelia Earhart Papers
More than 3400 digitized maps, photos and other documents of the aviator
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
2,900 life histories describe the informant's family education, income, occupation, political views and more
American Presidency Project
Collection of Public Papers of the Presidents (Hoover through G.H.W. Bush), State of the Union Addresses, Inaugural Addresses, party platforms, FDR's Fireside Chats and other material
American Radicalism Collection
Microfilm collection; 236 reels; Tac-459; reels can be requested; few examples online
Black freedom struggle in the 20th century (ProQuest History Vault)
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Collections related to the civil rights movement including records of federal agencies (US Commission on Civil Rights), organizations (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and individuals (Bayard Rustin).
Black Studies in Video
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Chicago Defender 1905-1975
Major African American newspaper from 1905 to 1975
Children in Urban America Project
Hundreds of documents and images about children in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin from the late 19th century to the late 20th
FBI FOIA Documents
Heavily requested FBI documents complete with blacked-out sections from the Freedom of Information Act Reading Room dealing with organizations and personalities such as John Lennon, Thurgood Marshall and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
FDR Cartoons
Cartoons dealing with Franklin Roosevelt and his administration
Ford Presidential Library - Documents
Collections of documents such as Cabinet meeting minutes, National Security memoranda and selected Vietnam War documents
Franklin D. Roosevelt Collections
Digitized documents dealing with diplomacy and other mattters
Frontline Diplomacy
Transcriptions of 1,500 interviews with some of the most prominent American diplomats of the 20th century
Historical Exploration of Father Charles E. Coughlin's Influence
Primary sources of the controversial priest include radio broadcasts, the newspaper, Social Justice, pamphlets and books
Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement
Collection of more than 1,200 photographs, documents and news clippings dating from 1910 to 1940
Immigration Records of the INS 1880-1930 (Proquest History Vault)
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Immigration & Naturalization Service records covering Asian, Mexican & European immigration
Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
Collection of 341 motion pictures and 81 disc sound recordings from the Edison company mostly dating from the early 20th century
Los Angeles Times 1881-1987
Digitized version from 1881-1987
Mckinley Assassination Ink
Transcriptions of articles, essays, editorials dealing with the McKinley assassination in 1901
New Deal Network
Over 900 articles, speeches, letters and other texts plus 5,000 photographs dealing with the New Deal
New York Times 1851-2009
Major database: Digitized version from 1851-2009
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
Materials from the 1920s that document the widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years; includes books, images, articles and more
Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Series A, Subject correspondence files
Microfilm collection; 72 reels; A8555
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974
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Stars & Stripes
Complete run of the WWI edition of the newspaper from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919
Truman Library Online Documents
Truman administration documents cover the end of WWII and the postwar period
Voices from the Dust Bowl
Audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera documenting the everyday life of residents in migrant work camps in 1941-1942
War Posters
5,000 posters from the world wars and interwar period
Wilson eLibrary
More than 5,000 documents dealing with Woodrow Wilson and his administration
Wilson Center Digital Archive
Collection of documents dealing with the Cold War; some translated, others in the vernacular

Using Google to Find Magazines

Google has begun an effort to digitize backfiles of magazines. They have not publicized a list of digitized magazines but it includes Life, Billboard, The Crisis, Ebony, Jet, New York Magazine, Popular Mechanics and the gossip tabloid, Weekly World News plus others. New magazines appear to be added periodically. To search for these magazine articles, use the Advanced search option in Google Books and follow this search example.

Event: World War II

See World War II Resources and WWW-VL Military History sites for additional websites dealing with the war.

A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans & the US Constitution
Smithsonian exhibit detailing the history of the incarceration, includes more than 800 artifacts and documents
After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor
12 hours of opinions gathered in the days and months following Pearl Harbor
Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II
Collection of more than 60 documents dealing with the decision to drop the bomb and the immediate aftermath
Dear Miss Breed: Letters from Camp
More than 200 letters written by Japanese American children incarcerated in camps
Decision to Drop the Atom Bomb
Collection of Truman presidency documents dealing with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; not connecting 5/5/14
Densho
Collection of oral histories, photographs and documents dealing with Japanese American history with special focus of World War II
Dr. Seuss Went to War
Collection of more than 400 political cartoons created by Theodore Geisel between 1941 and 1943
Federal Newsmaps
Collection of newsmaps, Army publications that depict key events in the war with maps and photographs
Historic Publications from World War II
More than 300 US government documents dealing with the war effort at home
Japanese American evacuation and resettlement records
Microfilm collection; 150 reels; A10096
Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives
Digitized photographs, documents, diaries, and and more illustrating the Japanese American experience especially during World War II
Online Archive of the Japanese American Relocation during World War II
Collection of Occidental College documents dealing with the event
Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1942-1946
Microfilm collection; 115 reels; A9912
Veteran's History Project
Oral history interviews of WWII as well as veterans of other wars
War Relocation Authority & the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II
Collection of more than 60 WRA documents from the Truman Library
Wartime Columns of Ernie Pyle
Collection of 40 columns by the noted WWII journalist
World War II Posters
More than 300 posters issued by U.S. Federal agencies

Topic: Civil Rights

Civil Rights Digital Library
Major collection: documents, video, oral histories and more documenting the civil rights movement

Black freedom struggle in the 20th century (ProQuest History Vault)
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Collections related to the civil rights movement including records of federal agencies (US Commission on Civil Rights), organizations (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and individuals (Bayard Rustin).
Black Studies in Video
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Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive
Documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present
Chicago Defender 1905-1975
Major African American newspaper from 1905 to 1975
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
Collection of oral histories, photographs, letters and more
Crossroads to Freedom
Digital archive of materials that documents the Civil Rights era in Memphis, Tennessee
Desegregation of the Armed Forces
Truman administration documents dealing with the desegregation of the military in the late 1940s
Duluth Lynchings Online Resources
Collection of more than 2,000 pages of primary sources dealing with the lynching of three Black men on June 15, 1920
Freedom Summer Collection
Digital collection includes newspaper clippings, oral histories, correspondence and more from the summer of 1964
Gay Peoples Union Collection
Collection of gay and lesbian rights organization in Milwaukee during the 1970s includes newsletter, audio clips and organizational records
Gay Rights Movement: Gay Activists Alliance
Microfilm collection; 21 reels; A9675
Gay Rights Movement: Mattachine Society of New York, Inc.
Microfilm collection; 24 reels; A9664
Historical Publications of the United States Civil Rights Commission
Digitized collection of documents from the Commission dating from 1957 to 2006
Immigration Records of the INS 1880-1930 (Proquest History Vault)
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Immigration & Naturalization Service records covering Asian, Mexican & European immigration
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
Museum at Ferris State University provides images of racist objects, images and cartoons along with essays
Land of (Unequal) Opportunity
Collection of images, broadsides, pamphlets, and publications documenting civil rights in Arkansas
Oral Histories of the American South - Civil Rights
Collection of more than 200 oral histories from a number of Southern oral history programs
Papers of the NAACP
Microfilm collection; hundreds of reels; A8473

Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century This link opens in a new window
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Collections related to the civil rights movement including records of federal agencies, organizations, and individuals. (ProQuest History Vault)

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
Collection on oral histories, photographs, documents, movement histories, and personal biographies documenting Civil Rights in Seattle
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974
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Sovereignty Commission Online
Over 130,000 pages from the records of the defunct Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which functioned as the state's official counter civil rights agency from 1956-1973
Television News of the Civil Rights Era 1950-1970
Digitized news segments from two Roanoke, Virginia tv stations (WDBJ and WSLS) plus documents and oral histories
Voices of Civil Rights
Thousands of personal stories, oral histories, and personal artifacts of the Civil Rights Movement
W.E.B. Du Bois Papers
Collection of articles, books and photographs of W.E.B. Du Bois
Who Speaks for the Negro
Collection of interviews from the mid-1960s with civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and others

Event: Vietnam War

Peers Inquiry
Documents of the official Army investigation into the My Lai massacre
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974
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Veteran's History Project
Oral history interviews of Vietnam vets as well as veterans of other wars
Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection
Collection documents dealing with the anti-war, women's rights and gay rights movements at the UW and in Seattle
Virtual Vietnam Archive
Major collection: 2.7 million pages of material dealing with the war from the US perspective