Research Guides: HIST 341: Call Me Ishmael (HC): Primary Sources

Newspapers and Magazine

Accessible Archives
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Contains full-text primary resource materials in American history including newspapers, magazines, and genealogical records originally only offered on microfilm. Covers 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
America's Historical Newspapers
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Search through 2,000+ historical newspapers published in the United States between 1690-1922. Includes publications from all 50 states, large cities and small towns, and a mix of major newspapers and titles with smaller circulations.
American Periodicals Series Online
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Search through 1,800 magazines and journals published in the United States between 1740-1940. Includes early scientific publications, trade journals, popular magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, and journals such as Puck, The Dial, and McClure's.
African American Newspapers: the 19th century
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Contains full-text articles about the cultural life and history during the 1800s, including presidential and congressional addresses, Congressional abstracts, business and commodity markets, the humanities, world travel and religion. Also contains large numbers of early biographies, vital statistics, essays and editorials, poetry and prose, and advertisements all of which embody the African-American experience. Covers 1827-1902 (with gaps).
Times Digital Archive, 1785-2006
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Provides full-text and full-image articles from the Times of London for the years 1785-2006.

Online Primary Sources

Adam Matthew Explorer
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Contains collections of primary sources from 63 databases spanning the 15th-21st centuries, on a global geographic scale. Though based in Britain, the collections contain much information pertinent to the United States and its international influence. Relevant collections include :
Colonial America
Empire Online
Virginia Company Archives
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961 ("These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad."

African Muslims in Early America: Religion, Literacy and Liberty
This webpage features books and artifacts from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
American Broadsides and Epemera
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Offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides (1820-1900) and 15,000 pieces of ephemera (1760 -1900) from the American Antiquarian Society collection. Subjects range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports
The American Captive, Or Siege Of Tripoli.
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Play by James Ellison, first performed in the Boston Theatre in December 1811. See the article, "White Captives, African Slaves: A Drama of Abolition", for more information.
American State Papers, 1789-1838
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Over 6300 digitized official political documents, including every extant legislative and executive document of the first 14 U.S. Congresses (1789-1838). Also includes the speeches and messages of Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.
Barbary Treaties 1786-1836
Also includes U. S. statutes and Congressional resolutions along with interpretive notes.
Barbary Wars
Online exhibit with primary documents and visual sources. From the Clements Library at the University of Michigan.
Digital Collections at the Library of Congress
Search 450 digital collections by keyword or search in collections clustered by subject area.
Documenting the American South
A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

Early American Imprints: Series I, Evans (1639-1800)
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Covers American history and literature from the colonial period to the eighteenth century. Provides full-text digitization of the Early American Imprints microform set, Series I (1639-1800).
Early American Imprints: Series II, Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)
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Covers American history and literature from the colonial period to the eighteenth century. Provides full-text digitization of the Early American Imprints microform set, Series II (1801-1819). Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
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Offers full-text access to English-language titles and editions published in Britain between 1701 and 1800 including books, pamphlets, almanacs, Bibles and treatises. Subjects covered include history, geography, fine arts, medicine, science, literature, language, religion, philosophy and law. Significant collections of women writers, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare are also included.

Electronic Enlightenment
An online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
Enslaved and Freed African Muslims: Spiritual Wayfarers in the South and Lowcountry
West African Muslims brought to America carried their Islamic faith and cultural practices with them. This exhibit examines their background before being forced to the Americas, and it explores the lives of individual Muslims who lived in the American South and the Lowcountry.
Foundations of US History: American Revolution and Early Republic (George Mason University)
A collection of digital resources related to the American Revolution and Early Republic periods from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
Founders Online (National Archives)
Selected digital versions of the papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. Over 120,000 searchable documents.

Making of America (Cornell University) This link opens in a new window
Provides access to approximately 10,000 books and over 50,000 journal articles in the University of Michigan and Cornell University Libraries from the antebellum through reconstruction periods. Covers American social history focusing especially on education, psychology, religion, science, and technology.

Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes, 1517-1798
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Collection of anecdotes, recollections, reports, miracles, letters, fatawa, exempla and short accounts of Arabs held captive.
Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers: Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background
The six volumes present documents arranged by time from 1785 through 1807. Prepared by the Prepared by the Office of Naval Records and Library, 1939-1944.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online
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Full text versions of books, magazines, and other materials published in the 19th century. This is a collection in development. Sections now in the database that are of particular relevance include:
Europe and Africa; Colonialism and Culture
Maps and Travel Literature
Oxford African American Studies Center
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Comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with precise search and browse capabilities. Features articles by top scholars in the field, images, primary sources with specially written commentaries, maps, charts and tables, and biographies.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (University of Virginia)
A fully searchable digital collection of the papers of Thomas Jefferson. For more documentary resources, see the Thomas Jefferson page on the American Presidency project website.
Papers of the War Department
Digitized and searchable documents from the War Department between 1784 and 1800. The documents include material related to the history of the Early Republic, the handling of Indian affairs, pensions and procurement, and the nature of the first American citizens’ relationship with their new Federal government.
"The Business, Personality, and Discretionary Power of American Consuls in North Africa, 1797–1805"
This journal article by Brett Goodin published in the Huntington Library Quarterly in 2017 provides much guidance for locating primary sources concerning American consuls.
"Legal Representations of Muslim Slaves by American Courts and Legislative Bodies, 1650-1861"
This journal article by Mustafa Amin Farooq appears in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Volume 37, Issue 1 (2017): 14-29. See the journal abstract. Please get a copy of the text through the Article Request service.

Collections of Primary Sources

Searching for Collections in Tripod and Worldcat

Primary source that are in the Tricollege libraries will often be listed in Tripod under subject words combined with such terms as "sources" "early works to 1800" "correspondence" "interviews" or "personal narratives"

Example: (barbary OR algeria) [Keyword] AND (sources OR correspondence OR diaries OR narratives)[Subject] NOT "20th century" [Keyword]

Results include:

A Narration of the Captivity of John Fillmore and His Escape from the Pirates. By Increase Moseley, 1802.

Horrors of Slavery: Or, The American Tars in Tripoli. By William Ray. First published in 1808. Rutgers University Press, 2008.

White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives. Edited by Paul Baepler. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Archival sources

TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections This link opens in a new window
Find digital images and manuscripts from the TriCollege Libraries.

Access the digital collections of Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, Haverford College Special Collections, Swarthmore College Friends Historical Library and Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

Includes primary source material in the areas of advertising, botany, peace studies, Quakerism, theater, women's studies and more.

Looking for materials that are physically available at the libraries? Search Archives & Manuscripts (TriCollege Libraries).
WorldCat
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A catalog of the holdings of books, journals, and other materials held by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) member libraries. Includes manuscripts, maps, films and sound recordings. Covers works published before 1,000 BC-present.