Highlighted below are essential primary source databases available through Tulane University Libraries, as well as key open access resources. For specialized resources according to specific world regions, topics, chronologies, and material types, consult the Library Guides listed in the box at the bottom of the page.
Major Platforms & Vendors
The following are major primary source platforms where you can access dozens of digital collections in one place.
Tulane University Libraries provides access to more than 60 Alexander Street Press collections. These collections include wide-ranging video and music content, as well as digitized primary source documents for Black Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Native American Studies, Migration Studies, and more.
Tulane has access to:
Academic Video Online
African Diaspora, 1860-Present
Alexander Street Press Video
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
American History in Video
Art and Architecture in Video
Asian American Drama
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection
Black Drama: Third Edition
Black Short Fiction and Folklore
Black Thought and Culture
Black Women Writers
Border and Migration Studies Online
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Broadway HD Collection
Caribbean Literature
Contemporary World Drama
Dance Online: Dance in Video
Dance Online: Dance Studies Collection
Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts
Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation
Early Encounters in North America
Ethnographic Video Online
Film Scripts Online
Illustrated Civil War: Newspapers and Magazines
Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera
Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period
Latin American Women Writers
Latino Literature
LGBT Thought and Culture
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries
Mass Incarceration and Prison Studies
Music Online (Alexander Street Press)
Music Online: African American Music Reference
Music Online: American Music
Music Online: American Song
Music Online: Classical Music Library
Music Online: Classical Music Reference Library
Music Online: Classical Scores Library
Music Online: Contemporary World Music
Music Online: Jazz Music Library
Music Online: Opera in Video
Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries
Music Online: The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music
National Theatre Collection
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories
North American Indian Drama
North American Indian Thought and Culture
North American Women's Drama
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
Performance Design Archive Online
Revolution and Protest Online
Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period
Social Theory
South and Southeast Asian Literature
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974
Theatre in Context Collection
Theatre in Video
Twentieth Century Advice Literature
Twentieth Century North American Drama
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Archives Unbound is a platform for dozens of digitized primary source collections of manuscripts, printed books and periodicals, and government documents. Material comes from the U.S. National Archives, U.K. National Archives and a range of specialized libraries, archives, and historical societies. Tulane has access to more than 65 collections with a particular focus on: U.S. and U.K. foreign relations; European colonialism in Africa; civil rights, Black liberation and social movements; women's history; World War II and Holocaust history; and southern history.
The Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides a collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other topical areas. The collection includes modules on International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture, LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940 Parts I & II, and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.
Adam Matthew Digital (AM) is an academic publisher based in the U.K. and U.S. that specializes in online primary source databases. There is no single landing page for the 55+ AM collections that Tulane University Libraries (TUL) has access to. Use this link to access AM collections on TUL's A-Z Database List.
TUL has access to:
African American Communities
American History, 1493-1945
American West
Apartheid South Africa
China, America and the Pacific
China: Culture and Society
China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
Colonial America
Colonial Caribbean
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
Eighteenth Century Drama
Eighteenth Century Journals
Empire Online
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
Everyday Life and Women in America, c. 1800-1920
First World War
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Global Commodities
Grand Tour
India, Raj and Empire
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
Jewish Life in America, c.1654-1954
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture
Literary Manuscripts, 17th-18th Century Poetry
Literary Manuscripts: Berg
Literary Manuscripts, 17th-18th Century Poetry
London Low Life
Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963
Market Research and American Business Reports, 1935-1965
Mass Observation Online Archive, 1937-1967
Medieval Family Life
Medieval Travel Writing
Meiji Japan
Migration to New Worlds
Nixon Years, 1969-1974
Perdita Manuscripts (Women Writers, 1500-1700)
Popular Culture in Britain and America
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
Race Relations in America
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
Sex & Sexuality
Shakespeare in Performance
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
Victorian Popular Culture
Virginia Company Archives
Women in The National Archives (U.K.)
World’s Fairs
ProQuest History Vault is a continuously growing digitized collection of unique manuscript and archival materials, including letters, personal and organizational papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and more. Tulane has access to 20 modules from 3 series: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; and Workers, Labor Unions, Progressives, and Radicals.
The Library of Congress has vast digital collections of audio recordings: books/printed materials: film and video; legislation: manuscript/mixed materials; maps; notated music; newspapers and periodicals; personal narratives; photos, prints and drawings; software and e-resources; web archives and web pages; and 3D objects.
Digitizations of primary sources from Tulane University's archives and special collections, along with other distinctive content from the Tulane University community:
Historical Newspapers
Tulane University Libraries provides access to thousands of historical newspaper titles from the U.S. and around the globe. In addition, some sites, like the Library of Congress and Google News, make historic press available for free. Below are the most important aggregators and and multi-source platforms to discover historical newspapers. For a more extensive list of individual databases, see the News & Newspapers Library Guide.
Advanced search page to access all ProQuest News & Newspaper databases available through Tulane University Libraries. Includes historical newspapers: The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger (1857-1922); The American Israelite (1854-2000); The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945); Atlanta Daily World (1931 - 2010); The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-2010); The Baltimore Sun (1837-1998); The Boston Globe (1872-1993); Chicago Defender (1909-2010); Chicago Tribune (1849-1998); The Christian Science Monitor (1908-2011); Cleveland Call & Post (1934-2010); Detroit Free Press (1831-1999); The Guardian & The Observer (1791-2003); The Irish Times & The Weekly Irish Times (1859-2022); The Jerusalem Post (1932-2008); The Jewish Advocate (1905-1990); The Jewish Exponent (1887-1990); Le Monde (1944-2000); Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2010); Los Angeles Times (1881-2000); New York Amsterdam News (1922-2010); The New York Times (1851-2020); New York Tribune (1841-1922); Norfolk Journal & Guide (1916-2010); Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2010); Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2010); The Scotsman (1817-1950); The Times of India (1838-2011); The Wall Street Journal (1889-2012) and The Washington Post (1877-2008). Recent Newspapers (2008-current): Chicago Tribune; Los Angeles Times; New York Times; Washington Post. Newsstreams: Latin American Newsstream, U.S. Hispanic Newsstream.
Proquest's Newspapers.com Library Edition is an extensive online database of 4,000+ and growing historical newspapers from the early 1700's into the 2000's published in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Panama, Australia, Papau New Guinea, and the Philippines. Includes Louisiana Weekly (1956-1963) and 36 other Louisiana newspapers.
To clip, save, and share articles, sign in and create a free Newspapers.com or Ancestry.com account.
Portal page to access all the Newsbank/Readex collections that Tulane subscribes to: Access World News (which includes the Times-Picayune Collection and Louisiana Newspapers), Archive of Americana (African American Periodicals, America's Historical Imprints), World Newspaper Archive (African Newspapers, Latin American Newspapers, South Asian Newspapers), Defining a Nation: The Literature of Early America, Hispanic Life in America, and Black Life in America.
The East View Global Press Archive® (GPA), in collaboration with the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), is working to creating one of the most comprehensive collections of digital news sources from around the world. Currently, this expanding collection contains the following subsections/archives: East African Newspapers; El Caribe Digital Archive; El Mundo Digital Archive; Imperial Russian Newspapers; Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers; Izvestiia Digital ArchiveIzvestiia Digital Archive; Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers; Literaturnaia Gazeta Digital Archive; Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers; Prensa Libre; Post-Perestroika Newspapers; Pravda Digital Archive; South Asian Newspapers; and Southeast Asian Newspapers collections.
History Commons (formerly Accessible Archives) is a historical newspaper and primary source database with strengths in early U.S. History and the history of slavery and abolition. Tulane has access to the following modules: African American Newspapers parts I-XIIS; Civil War Collection Part 1, A Newspaper Perspective; The Liberator, 1831-1865; The South Carolina Gazette, 1732-1780; The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1800; The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue; Pennsylvania Newspaper Record; Reconstruction of Southern States: Pamphlets; Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman; Twelve Years a Slave; and The Virginia Gazette, 1736-1780.
Search America's historic newspapers from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
The Google News Archive Search allows you to access to more than 100 North American, Latin American, and European historical newspapers in English, French, Spanish, German, and select other languages.
Books
The databases listed below are particularly helpful for discovering books printed from the inception of the European moveable-type press (late 15th century) to the early 20th century. For old books published in countries outside the U.S., check that country's national library website.
EEBO has digitized virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
A partnership of academic & research institutions offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Note: not all titles are available as full-text.
NOTE: Tulane University has switched to using a new method for logging in to HathiTrust. Researchers that have previously built a personal collection in HathiTrust will need to take action to recover access to that collection before December 1, 2024. Instructions for collection recovery can be found at https://www.hathitrust.org/tulane-university-login-changes-september-2024/
Provides access to family history via documents that record the lineage of individuals from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and more.
ProQuest, in partnership with The National Security Archive, produce the Digital National Security Archive, the most comprehensive collection available of significant primary documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. Collections cover the most critical world events, countries, and U.S. policy decisions from post-World War II through the 21st century, with access to more than 150,000 indexed, declassified government documents. The DNSA is comprised of many database collections which can be searched individually or together.
The resource comprises the following databases; Afghanistan: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1973–1990; The Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017; Argentina, 1975-1980: The Making of U.S. Human Rights Policy; The Berlin Crisis, 1958–1962; Chile and the United States: U.S. Policy toward Democracy, Dictatorship, and Human Rights, 1970–1990; China and the United States: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960–1998; CIA Covert Operations: From Carter to Obama, 1977-2010; CIA Family Jewels Indexed; Colombia and the United States: Political Violence, Narcotics, and Human Rights, 1948-2010; The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962; The Cuban Missile Crisis: 50th Anniversary Update; The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited: An International Collection, From Bay of Pigs to Nuclear Brink; Death Squads, Guerrilla War, Covert Ops, and Genocide: Guatemala and the United States, 1954-1999; Electronic Surveillance and the National Security Agency: From Shamrock to Snowden; El Salvador: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1977–1984; El Salvador: War, Peace, and Human Rights, 1980–1994; Iran: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1977–1980; The Iran-Contra Affair: The Making of a Scandal, 1983–1988; Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980–1994; Japan and the United States: Diplomatic, Security, and Economic Relations, 1960–1976, 1877-1992, and Part III, 1961-2000; The Kissinger Telephone Conversations: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977; The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977; Mexico-United States Counternarcotics Policy, 1969-2013; The National Security Agency: Organization and Operations, 1945-2009; Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1978–1990; Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000; The Philippines: U.S. Policy During the Marcos Years, 1965–1986; Presidential Directives on National Security, Part I: From Truman to Clinton; Presidential Directives on National Security, Part II: From Truman to George W. Bush; South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962–1989; The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947–1991; Targeting Iraq, Part 1: Planning, Invasion, and Occupation, 1997-2004; Terrorism and U.S. Policy, 1968–2002; U.S. Climate Change Diplomacy: From the Montreal Protocol to the Paris Agreement, 1981-2015; U.S. Espionage and Intelligence, 1947–1996; U.S. Intelligence and China: Collection, Analysis and Covert Action; The U.S. Intelligence Community: Organization, Operations and Management, 1947–1989; The U.S. Intelligence Community After 9/11; U.S. Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: From World War II to Iraq; U.S. Military Uses of Space, 1945–1991; U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Arms and Politics in the Missile Age, 1955–1968; U.S. Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1945–1991; U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part I (1954-1968) and Part II: (1969-1975); U.S. Policy toward Iran: From the Revolution to the Nuclear Accord, 1978-2015; and The United States and the Two Koreas, Part 1 (1969-2000) and Part II (1969-2010).
Fold3, a product of Ancestry.com, is an extensive database of historical military records. These digitized documents are primarily sourced from the U.S. and U.K. National Archives, U.S. public libraries, and the Center for Research Libraries. Tulane has access to the following collections: Black History; Census; Korean War; Indian and Mexican American Wars; Native American; Non Military; US Revolutionary War (United States); War of 1812 (United States); US Civil War; US Civil War (Confederacy); US Civil War (Union); World War I (United States); World War II (United States); and Vietnam War.
A comprehensive resource of historic and current congressional information, including bills & laws, hearings, CRS reports, committee prints, reports, member biographies, committee assignments, voting records and financial data, the text of the Congressional Record, and the full text of key regulatory and statutory resources. Tulane has access to content through 2024.
More Library Guides with Primary Source Databases
The primary source databases listed above are the most important and wide-reaching platforms available through Tulane University Libraries. For listings of primary source databases relating to specific regions, themes, and material types, explore these library guides: