National Historical Publications & Records Commission

Digital Resources

State Archives and Collaboratives

Online resources to records collections held by repositories in the states.

The Digital Public Library of America (https://dp.la/) features some 37 million records drawn from collections across the country, including NHPRC-supported projects. Many are drawn from state archives and historical societies.

Alabama Department of Archives and History Digital Collections: http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/ and Alabama Mosaic: http://www.alabamamosaic.org/about.php

Alaska’s Digital Archives: https://vilda.alaska.edu/ and the Alaska State Archives: https://archives.alaska.gov/

Arkansas State Library Digital Collections: https://cdm16039.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/ and Arkansas State Archives: http://archives.arkansas.gov/research/search-records.aspx

Arizona Memory Project: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/

CALISPHERE: https://calisphere.org/ is part of the Online Archive of California. See also the California State Archives at https://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/

Colorado State Archives: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/archives/PublicRecords and the Plains to Peaks Collective: https://ppc.cvlsites.org/. See also History Colorado: https://www.historycolorado.org/archives

Connecticut Digital Archive: https://www.ctdigitalarchive.org/ and the Connecticut State Library and Archives: http://cslib.cdmhost.com/digital/

Delaware Public Archives: https://archives.delaware.gov/digital-archives/

Historical Society of Washington, DC: https://dchistory.pastperfectonline.com/

La Florida: the Interactive Archive of the Americas: http://laflorida.org/ and Florida Memory: floridamemory.com

Digital Library of Georgia: https://dlg.usg.edu/ and Georgia Archives Virtual Vault: https://vault.georgiaarchives.org/digital/

Hawaii State Archives Digital Collections: https://digitalcollections.hawaii.gov/greenstone3/library

Idaho State Archives: https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/

Iowa Heritage Digital Collections: https://www.iowaheritage.org/ and Iowa Culture Digital Resources: https://iowaculture.gov/history/research/collections/digital-resources

Illinois Digital Archives: http://www.idaillinois.org/

Indiana Memory: https://digital.library.in.gov/

Kansas Memory: https://www.kansasmemory.org/

Kentucky Digital Library: https://kdl.kyvl.org/

Louisiana Digital Library: https://louisianadigitallibrary.org/

Maine Memory Network: https://www.mainememory.net/

Maryland State Archives: https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/homepage/html/digital.html and Digital Maryland: https://collections.digitalmaryland.org/digital/

Digital Commonwealth: Massachusetts Collections Online: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/ and Massachusetts Historical Society: https://www.masshist.org/collections/online

Michiganology: https://michiganology.org/

Minnesota Historical Society: http://search.mnhs.org/index.php?brand=cms and Minnesota Reflections: https://www.mndigital.org/projects/minnesota-reflections

Missouri Digital Heritage: https://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/

Mississippi Digital Archives: http://www.mdah.ms.gov/arrec/digital_archives/

Montana Memory: https://mtmemory.org/digital/custom/collections and the Big Sky Digital Network: http://bscdn.org/

History Nebraska: https://nebraskahistory.pastperfectonline.com/

Nevada State Library, Archives, and Public Records Digital Collections: http://www.nsladigitalcollections.org/

New Hampshire State Archives: http://sos.nh.gov/Arch_Rec_Mgmt.aspx and New Hampshire State Library: https://www.nh.gov/nhsl/technical/stategovdocs.html

New Jersey State Archives: https://www.nj.gov/state/archives/search.html

New Mexico Digital Collections: https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/ and New Mexico History: http://newmexicohistory.org/

New York State Archives: http://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/, New York State Library: http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/scandocs/ and New York Public Library Digital Collections: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections

North Carolina Digital Collections: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/ and Digital North Carolina: https://www.digitalnc.org/

North Dakota Digital Horizons: http://digitalhorizonsonline.org/ (also some material from South Dakota)

Ohio Memory: https://www.ohiomemory.org/

Oklahoma Digital Prairie: https://digitalprairieok.net/ and Oklahoma State Archives: https://libraries.ok.gov/state-government/archives-and-records/historical-records/

Oregon State Archives: https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/Pages/default.aspx and Oregon Multicultural Archives: https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/oma

Pennsylvania State Archives Research Online: https://www.phmc.pa.gov/Archives/Research-Online/Pages/default.aspx, Historical Society of Pennsylvania Digital Library: https://digitallibrary.hsp.org/, and Power Library: http://powerlibrary.org/collections/#.Xnz9FZNKhgc

Rhode Island State Digital Archives: https://sosri.access.preservica.com/home/

South Carolina Digital Library: https://scmemory.org/ and University of South Carolina Digital Library: https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/university_libraries/browse/digital_collections/index.php

South Dakota Digital Archives: https://sddigitalarchives.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/ and Digital Horizons: http://digitalhorizonsonline.org/

Tennessee Virtual Archives: https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/customizations/global/pages/index.html and the Digital Library of Tennessee: https://tn.dp.la/

Texas Digital Archives: https://tsl.access.preservica.com/ and Portal to Texas History: https://texashistory.unt.edu/

Digital Utah: https://onlinelibrary.utah.gov/digital/utah.html

Vermont History: https://vermonthistory.org/digital-resources/ and Green Mountain Digital Archive: https://libraries.vermont.gov/GMDA

Virginia Memory: http://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/

Washington State Digital Archives: https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/

West Virginia Archives: http://www.wvculture.org/history/archivesindex.aspx

The State of Wisconsin Digital Collections: https://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/, Wisconsin Historical Society: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/, and Recollection Wisconsin: https://recollectionwisconsin.org/

Wyoming Archives Digital Collections: https://wyoarchives.wyo.gov/index.php/find-it-in-the-archives/digital-collections and Plains to Peaks Collective: https://ppc.cvlsites.org/

Territorial Collections

Puerto Rico Archives: https://www.archivespuertorico.com/, Archivo Digital de Puerto Rico: http://adnpr.net/, and the Digital Archives of the Caribbean: https://dloc.com/iupr

Northern Marianas Humanities Council: http://www.nmhcouncil.org/digital-archive/

University of Guam Digital Repository: http://hasso.uog.edu:8080/jspui/handle/20.500.11751/2

Virtual Collections

Historical records collections drawn from multiple repositories

Founders Online: founders.archives.gov – the papers to and from George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. 183,000 searchable documents

Bexar Archives: https://www.cah.utexas.edu/projects/bexar/index.php are the official Spanish documents that preserve the political, military, economic, and social life of the Spanish province of Texas and the Mexican state of Coahulia y Texas.

Black Abolitionist Papers: http://bap.chadwyck.com/marketing/ access to 15,000 items by subscription

Densho Archives: https://densho.org/archives/ contain primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration in the early 1900s through redress in the 1980s, with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration.

Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks Petitions Project: http://library.uncg.edu/slavery/petitions/index.aspx?s=1 a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color.

Documentary Editions and Digitized Collections

Online collections of notable figures and eras in American history. Digital editions provide transcribed and annotated documents.

Jane Addams Papers: http://janeaddams.ramapo.edu/

Papers of W.E. B. Dubois: https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/collection/mums312

Thomas A Edison Papers: http://edison.rutgers.edu/digital/

Dwight Eisenhower Papers: https://eisenhower.press.jhu.edu/ -- limited documents

Freedmen and Southern Society Project: http://www.freedmen.umd.edu -- select documents

Civil War Governors of Kentucky: https://civilwargovernors.org/

Civil War and Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi: https://cwrgm.org/

John Dickinson Writing Project http://dickinsonproject.rch.uky.edu/index.php

Samuel Gompers Papers: http://www.gompers.umd.edu/

Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas: http://archives.nd.edu/mano/

Papers of Benjamin Franklin: https://franklinpapers.org/

Monticello: Jefferson in Retirement: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/for-scholars/papers-of-thomas-jefferson/about-the-retirement-series/project-description/ -- selected documents

Correspondence of Mother Jones: https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735057897435-- facsimile edition of the print volume

Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-resources/documents -- selected documents

Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/

Papers of Abraham Lincoln Digital Library: https://papersofabrahamlincoln.org/

Corcoran Journals of William MacLeod: https://archive.org/details/gwulibraries?and%5B%5D=Corcoran+Curator%27s+Journal&sort=titleSorter

George C. Marshall Papers: https://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/results/?fwp_format=2 -- selected documents

Papers of James Monroe: https://academics.umw.edu/jamesmonroepapers/search-the-letters/

Native Northeast Portal: https://nativenortheastportal.com/

Correspondence of James K. Polk: https://polkproject.utk.edu/ -- facsimile edition

Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project: https://erpapers.columbian.gwu.edu/ -- selected documents

Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt: http://www.17thc.us/primarysources/records.php

Speeches and Articles by Margaret Sanger: https://sangerpapers.org/documents/aboutedition.php

William Tecumseh Sherman Family Papers: http://archives.nd.edu/Sherman/

Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens: https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735060482134 -- facsimile edition

Mark Twain Project Online: https://www.marktwainproject.org/

Papers of Martin Van Buren: http://vanburenpapers.org/

Henry A. Wallace Collection: http://wallace.lib.uiowa.edu/

Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800: https://wardepartmentpapers.org/s/home/page/home

Walt Whitman Archive: https://whitmanarchive.org/

Digital Editions available from UVa Press /Rotunda

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Virginia Press announced that it had joined with many other university presses to make their ebooks open access to the world through at least the end of academic spring semesters (for UVa Press, until 30 June 2020). Many of their history titles are available. See the Project Muse page on Free Resources for a full list of participating publishers.

In addition, due to COVID-19 campus closures UVA Press has expanded the free-trial period for resources published by its digital imprint, Rotunda. The standard free trial, available to the general public, will be increased to seven days, and the month-long extended trial (intended for library and university professionals) will be increased to 90 days. These provisions are subject to revision as conditions warrant: https://www.upress.virginia.edu/rotunda.

The following collections, all of which were funded through the NHPRC, are available via Rotunda.

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Digital Resources

State Archives and Collaboratives

Virtual Collections

Documentary Editions and Digitized Collections

Digital Editions available from UVa Press /Rotunda

American Founding Era

Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction

American Century