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Primary Source Databases for Historical Research

Major Collections

[Photo credit: Maguis & David]

See the History Research guide for other types of Historical primary source, and Subject A - Z for other subject areas.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)

By Theme

Chatham House Online Archive

Digital National Security Archive
"... world events, countries, and U.S. policy decisions from post World War II through the 21st century."
Empire Online
First World War: Personal Experiences

Food Studies Online

Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange

Oral History Online

Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History

Visual History Archive (VHA), USC Shoah Foundation
Nearly 52,000 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide, and the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre.
world history sources
World's Fairs: A global history of expositions
Link not available yet.
Socialism on Film: the Cold War and International Propaganda

Transatlantic Slavery

Slavery and Anti-Slavery, Part I: A Transnational Archive
Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Part II: The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World

Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu

Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007

Sources in U.S. History Online: Slavery in America
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
CD-ROM Reference and Research Services, 4th floor Robarts Library.
Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection

Gender

Archives of sexuality & gender. LGBTQ history and culture since 1940.

Everyday Life & Women in America, 1800-1920

Feminism in Cuba: Nineteenth through Twentieth Century Archival Documents

LGBT Studies in Video

LGBT Thought and Culture

Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
[currently does not work off campus]
North American Women's Letters and Diaries

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin: Beyond the Daughters of Bilitis
Gerritsen Collection
Documents on women and gender from 1543-1945, largely Western European and English.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Scholar's Edition
Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present
While this database is called "International," it is primarily about the experience of Western women.

Women in the National Archives
This is an index to documents relating to women in the British National Archives.

Women's Human Rights Resources Database
Women, War & Society 1914-1918
Currently experiencing and access problem.
Women: Transnational Networks
Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions.

Action Sociale De La Femme Et Le Livre Francaise
Britannia: Official Organ of the Women's Party
British Birth Control Material at the British Library of Political and Economic Sciences: 1800-1947
The Diaries of Elizabeth Fry, 1797-1845
History of Women
The Journal of the American National Women’s Trade Union League
Mary Braddon Archive
Myrtilla Miner Papers
Our Corner
Papers of Carrie Chapman Catt
Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Quaker Women’s Diaries: 18th-19th Centuries
The Reply
Suffragist
Votes for Women
The Woman Worker 1908-1910
Woodull & Claflin's Weekly
Women's Studies Archive: Women’s Issues and Identities

Law

HeinOnline World Trials

The Holocaust

Correspondence from German Concentration Camps and Prisons
German Anti-Semitic Propaganda, 1909-1941
Holocaust and the Concentration Camp Trials: Prosecution of Nazi War Crimes
Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees: The West’s Response to Jewish Emigration
The Jewish Question: Records from the Berlin Document Center
Jewish Underground Resistance: The David Diamant Collection
Nazi Bank and Financial Institutions: U.S. Military Government Investigation Reports and Interrogations of Nazi Financiers, 1945-1949
Nazism in Poland: The Diary of Governor-General Hans Frank
Nuremburg Laws and Nazi Annulment of German Jewish Nationality
SAFEHAVEN Reports on Nazi Looting of Occupied Countries and Assets in Neutral Countries
U.S. Relations with the Vatican and the Holocaust, 1940-1950
Visual history archive
The Visual History Archive (VHA) is an online portal from USC Shoah Foundation that allows users to search through and view nearly 52,000 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide, and the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre.
See more

Last Updated: May 22, 2018 3:38 PM
URL: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/primary
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Subjects: History

Tags: history