Skip to Main Content

Primary Sources for United States History

Welcome! This is a guide to Tredway Library's collection of primary sources for the study of United States history. If you have questions about your research, please don't hesitate to get in touch with humanities librarian Kaitlyn Goss-Peirce; her contact information is in the box on the left. You can also visit the research help station on the second (main) floor of the library, email our research help services, or chat with the Augustana librarian or student on call.


Here's what you will find in this research guide. The various pages are linked in the menu to the left.

The bulk of our digital collections, as well as many web repositories of digitized primary sources, are organized by time period on this guide:

The Newspapers & Magazines page includes a variety of historical newspaper, magazine, and journal collections, as well as lists of the many regional, Black, Jewish, and other magazines and newspapers we own in full-text. Our two most extensively-used historical newspapers--the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune--are linked at the top of the "Newspapers & Magazines" page.

The Government Documents page links full-text databases of historical documents from the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government.

The Film & Images page links resources that provide historical photographs and film footage.

The Primary Sources in Books page suggests search techniques for identifying the many print and e-books at Tredway and in I-Share that contain primary sources.

The Chat with a Librarian page allows you to chat with the Augustana student or librarian on call with our research help services.


To locate primary sources relevant to the history of Illinois, Iowa, and the Upper Mississippi River Valley, consult the local history page of Tredway Library's research guide for history.