Digitized primary sources from academic libraries in Illinois. Hosted by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois, of which Augustana is a member.
The Illinois Digital Archive is "a repository for the digital collections of the Illinois State Library as well as other libraries and cultural institutions in the State of Illinois." Find "photographs, slides, and glass negatives; oral histories; manuscripts and letters; federal government documents; postcards; posters; videos; newspapers; maps; and much more."
"The [Illinois] State Archives serves as the depository of public records of Illinois state and local governmental agencies which possess permanent administrative, legal, or historical research values."
"The Iowa Digital Library features more than a million digital objects created from the holdings of the University of Iowa Libraries and its campus partners. Included are illuminated manuscripts, historic maps, fine art, historic newspapers, scholarly works, and more."
From the University Libraries of the University of Washington. This page links digitized collections of primary sources from throughout the Midwest. (Many of the linked collections are free on the web, but you may find a few that are not.)
The National Archives at Chicago "hold[s] permanent records created by federal agencies and courts" in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
"At the heart of the Newberry is a set of collection strengths that have continued to grow over many decades, attracting scholars and other readers, and serving as the focus for our research activities. This core involves original sources in a variety of formats, such as books, manuscripts, maps, images, and music. In most cases it is supported by secondary materials, including monographs and periodical literature."
From the Library of Congress. "Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910 portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century through first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, colonial archival documents, and other works drawn from the Library of Congress's General Collections and Rare Books and Special Collections Division."
"Numerous indexes, records and publications in the collections are available online" from the State Historical Society of Iowa. "Through partnerships with various organizations you can enjoy digitized maps, publications, newspapers and vital records."
"The Digital Collections at the UWM Libraries include over 180,000 photographic images, maps, and books drawn from the collections of the American Geographical Society Library, the Archives, Special Collections, and the Curriculum Collection."
"Explore the region as seen through the eyes of the late 19th and early 20th century people who lived here. Our archive currently features photographs from the collections of Davenport Public Library, Augustana College, Buffalo Historical Society, Galesburg Public Library, Putnam Museum, Rock Island County Historical Society, Rock Island Public Library, and Musser Public Library in Muscatine."
The Wisconsin Historical Society's "world-class collections contain an extraordinary range of artifacts and information about American history, from the remote archaeological past to current events. North American genealogy and Wisconsin history are particular collection strengths."
This collection focuses on American Indians in the first half of the 20th century, a period that has not been studied in as much detail as the calamitous 19th century. The two major collections on the 20th century in this module are Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes. In addition to these 20th century records, American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971 features a number of excellent collections on American Indians in the 19th century, with a focus on the interaction among white settlers, the U.S. federal government, and Indian tribes.
Focuses on U.S. Hispanic history, literature, and culture from colonial times until 1960. This resource is indexed and searchable in Spanish and English.
"The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964. Millions of Mexican agricultural workers crossed the border under the program to work in more than half of the states in America."
"The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world."
The Freedom Archives primarily "contains over 12,000 hours of audio and video recordings" as well as "pamphlets, journals and other materials" from the 1960s to 1990s. The collections are organized by movement, including Black Liberation, Chican@/Xican@, Gender and Sexuality, and Indigenous/Native American Struggles, among many others.
"The FOIA Electronic Reading Room is provided as a public service by the Directorate of Digital Innovation's Information Management Services" in order to "view documents released through the FOIA and other CIA release programs."
HathiTrust is a fully digital library of more than 17 million items, mostly books, from academic and research libraries. All books in the public domain are 100% viewable.
"Documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression." From Harvard University.
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
"The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge."
This online resource hosts books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
"The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office."
"The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is comprised of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction."
From the Library of Congress, this resource searches photographs from American newspapers 1900-1963. All photos in Newspaper Navigator are in the public domain.
This collection includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines.
Brings together more than 100,000 pages, many of which are previously unpublished, rare, or hard to find. The project integrates autobiographies, biographies, Indian publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files for the first time.
This module charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues: lynching; school desegregation; and discrimination in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, and housing, among others. It provides a comprehensive view of the NAACP’s evolution, policies, and achievements from 1909–1970.
Chronicles the local heroes of the civil rights revolution via NAACP branches throughout the United States, from 1913-1972.
The contributions of scores of local leaders—attorneys, community organizers, financial benefactors, students, mothers, school teachers, and other participants—are revealed in these records.
Papers of the NAACP Legal Department from 1956-1972.
For the period from 1956-1965, this includes the working case files of the NAACP’s general counsel, Robert Carter. Among the topics covered in these cases are school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, freedom of speech, desegregation of public facilities, voting rights, housing discrimination, and employment discrimination.
Papers of the NAACP Legal Department from 1956-1972.
For the period from 1956-1965, this includes the working case files of the NAACP’s general counsel, Robert Carter. Among the topics covered in these cases are school desegregation, abuses of police procedure, freedom of speech, desegregation of public facilities, voting rights, housing discrimination, and employment discrimination.
Focuses on the NAACP’s efforts regarding anti-lynching, peonage, and discrimination in employment and the criminal justice system.
A rich set of records in this module is the NAACP file on one of the most celebrated criminal trials of the 20th century: the case of the Scottsboro boys. In this case, nine young black men were accused of raping two white women on a train in northern Alabama. Sixteen days after their arrest, eight of the nine teenagers were sentenced to death in the electric chair. All eight escaped execution when the Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama, ruled that the defendants had been inadequately represented by counsel.
The NAACP was involved in several subjects that did not rise to the level of major campaigns but were still vital to the organization. This module contains records on those subjects, and in so doing, reveals the wide scope of NAACP activism and interest.
The focus of the Federal Government Records module is on the political side of the freedom movement, the role of civil rights organizations in pushing for civil rights legislation, and the interaction between African Americans and the federal government in the 20th century.
Major collections in this module include the FBI Files on Martin Luther King Jr.; Centers of the Southern Struggle, an exceptional collection of FBI Files covering five of the most pivotal arenas of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s: Montgomery, Albany, St. Augustine, Selma, and Memphis; and records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and organizations and the highest levels of the federal government.
The Organizational Records and Personal Papers module brings a new perspective to the Black Freedom Struggle via the records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle.
The three major civil rights organizations are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Papers of civil rights leaders included in this module are those of the civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph; the long-time civil rights activist and organizer of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin; and the papers of the pioneering educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Through records of Claude A. Barnett’s Associated Negro Press, this module also branches out to cover other aspects of African American life in the 20th century, like religion, sports, education, fraternal organizations, and even the field of entertainment.
This newest Black Freedom module is highlighted by the records of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Africa-related papers of Claude Barnett, and the Robert F. Williams Papers.
SNCC, formed by student activists in 1960 after the explosion of the sit-in movement, was one of the three most important civil rights organizations of the 1960s, alongside SCLC and the NAACP. Rounding out this module are the papers of Chicago Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the Chicago chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, and records pertaining to the Mississippi Freedom Summer.
