Primary Sources

Search millions of items in many formats and languages. Explore a growing treasury of digitized materials. Consult with staff online or in one of the research centers to find what you're looking for.

Access thousands of primary sources  — letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos, and other document types — spanning the course of American history.

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

​Designed for secondary schools, public libraries, junior/community colleges and undergraduate research, this database features full text for thousands of primary source documents and informational texts.

​JSTOR is a growing digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.