American Nation 2: Primary Sources, etc.

The following is a list of 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings. The documents chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.

breaks down documents by century or so

books and other sources that colonists would have read

The 47 treaties, speeches, historical accounts and governmental documents in this collection trace the United States from the settling of the continent to the founding of the country to the Civil War and early twentieth-century international relations.

American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later.

"American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity."

From LOC: American Memory. American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920.

From LOC: American Memory.

The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands explores the history of the Dutch presence in America and the interactions between the United States and the Netherlands from Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage to the post-World-War-II period. The project is the product of ongoing cooperation between the Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands, which has enlisted the cooperation of other leading Dutch libraries, museums, and archives.

From University of Oklahoma College of Law

"Browse more than 600 annotated documents written by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and many others dealing with American politics, diplomacy and social history."

"Collection of 3000+ documents, images and audio/video clips from the National Archives. Material is grouped into eight broad eras of U.S. history."

from LOC: thomas.gov

(all digitized) The Sid Lapidus '59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution features more than 150 recently gifted important books, pamphlets and prints representing the major themes of Lapidus' collecting: the intellectual origins of the American Revolution; the Revolution itself; the early years of the republic; the resulting spread of democratic ideas in the Atlantic world; and the effort to abolish the slave trade in both Great Britain and the United States.

covers years of 1784-1800

digitized collections from multiple institutions; date range 1500-1927

Images and other digitized items from the New York Public Library

from the National Archives

"Accounts of the 1540-1542 exploration of North America, written by members of the expedition."

From Fordham University

From Harvard University Library

From National Archives: Correspondence and other writings of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Includes more than 119,000 searchable and annotated documents.

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

some information repeats from Google and LOC

from ThoughtCo., updated March 3, 2017