Primary Sources
Ad* Access
Presents a database of images for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955, concentrated on the themes of radio, television, transportation, beauty and hygiene, and World War II. Funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund.
African American Odyssey
Materials from the African American collections held by the Library of Congress. Part of the National Digital Library project.
Alice Fletcher Fieldwork Diary
Digitized fieldnotes and photographs by ethnographer Alice Fletcher's study of the Sioux from the late 19th. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institute.
American Society of Eugenics Collection
Visual material from the American Society of Eugenics Collection at the American Philosophical Society. The "scrapbooks" of the American Eugenics Society, maintained between 1925 and about 1930, represent one of the most important visual archives for the documentation of the eugenic movement in America during its hey day.
Barnum Museum Archive
A virtual tour of Barnum's American Museum that includes visual reproductions of racialized exhibits. Produced by the American Social History Project.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Oral History Collection
Interviews and biographical materials pertaining to the history of molecular biology and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology
A digital archive detailing the annual symposia of what would become the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Collected Papers of R.A. Fisher at the University of Adelaide
Fisher was important in taking galton's statistical grounding of eugenics further, founding some of the central correlations and methods of contemporary statistics used today.
Dillingham Commission Reports
Early twentieth century Immigration Commission reports created for the United States Senate, including statistical reviews, emigration and immigration conditions in Europe and other parts of the world, occupations of immigrants, living conditions, social and cultural organizations and societies of immigrants, and immigration legislation at the state and federal levels.
Exhibit of American Negroes
Historical and archival reconstruction of the Exhibit of American Negroes at the World's Fair in Paris in 1900. Created by Eugene F. Provenzo Jr. Ph.D., University of Miami.
Francis Galton Online Papers
Online collection of Galton's published works.
Frederick Douglass Papers
This Library of Congress collection presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist containing approximately 7,400 items relating to Douglass' life as an escaped slave, abolitionist, editor, orator, and public servant.
Historical Anatomies on the Web
A digital project providing access to high quality images from anatomical atlases in the National Library of Medicine's collection. Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM's possession.
History of Phrenology on the Web
Overview of phrenology with digitized primary sources. Also information on the history of naturalism and evolutionary thought.
Image Archive of the American Eugenics Movement
Donal DNA Learning Centre's informative site about the American Eugenics Movement. Includes primary source material from the Cold Spring Harbour Record Office.
Images from the History of Medicine
Access to the nearly 60,000 images in the prints and photograph collection of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). The collection includes portraits, pictures of institutions, caricatures, genre scenes, and graphic art in a variety of media, illustrating the social and historical aspects of medicine.
Index-Catalogue of the National Library of the Surgeon-General's Office
A multi-part printed bibliography or list of items in the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, U.S. Army. It contains material dated from the 1400s through 1950 and is an important resource for researchers in the history of medicine, history of science, and for clinical research.
Making of America
A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
Margaret Sanger Papers
The Margaret Sanger Papers Project is a historical editing project sponsored by the Department of History at New York University. The Project was formed by Dr. Esther Katz in 1985 to locate, arrange, edit, research, and publish the papers of the noted birth control pioneer.
Medicine and Madison Avenue
National Humanities Center, Duke University. This site presents a searchable database of approximately 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines.
Medicine in the Americas, 1610-1914: A Digital Library
A digital library project providing scanned historical American medical books in pdf and as searchable text files. The project is aimed at the general public, with special emphasis on historians, students, clinicians, and librarians. The project draws on the collections of the History of Medicine Division of The National Library of Medicine and includes works not only from the United States, but from all over the New World.
MEDLINE
The U.S. National Library of Medicine's bibliographic database containing journal articles in life sciences, with a concentration on biomedicine, since the mid-1960s.
National Library of Medicine Digital Collections
NLM historical collections include selected digitized material relating to the history of medicine. Chosen from the manuscripts and books collections, the prints and photographs collection, historical films and videos, current and past exhibitions, and the Digital Manuscripts Program, these digitized materials cover a spectrum of centuries and cultures from medieval Islam to contemporary biomedical research.
The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis
One of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced. Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930, the publication continues to exert a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture.
Pamphlets from the Daniel Murray Collection, 1818-1907
Presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love.
Progress of a People
A Special presentation of the Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphley Collection. A Library of Congress Website.
RLG Cultural Materials
Expanding Online archive of bringing together thousands of primary source materials, both images and texts. Includes the papers of anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson and photographs of the panama pacific international exposition, 1915.
Profiles in Science
A National Library of Medicine resource containing archival collections of prominent scientists, physicians and biomedical researchers.
Science, Technology and Engineering Special Collections at UCL
A digital archive with strengths in medice and science, including Pearson and Galton materials.
Science in the Nineteenth Century Periodical
A searchable electronic index to the science content of sixteen nineteenth-century general periodicals.The SciPer Index currently contains entries for around 7,500 articles and references to more than 5,500 individuals and 2,000 publications.
Survey on Race Relations
A collaboration between the Stanford University Libraries and the Hoover Institution Archives, the collection contains materials from a 1920s investigation of economic, religious, educational, civic, biological, and social conditions among Chinese, Japanese, and other non-European residents of the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada.
Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History
Primary sources related to the history of eugenics in the state of Vermont.
World's Fairs & Expositions: Defining America and the World, 1876-1916
Edited by Jim Zwick, this site provides a directory of hundreds of online resources about the world's fairs and expositions held from 1876 to 1916. It draws heavily upon resources available in the Making of America project at Cornell University and the University of Michigan, the Library of Congress, and includes more than 300 local texts, primarily on the later fairs that are less fully documented in the major archives.