Resources by Time Period

1700s

Accessible Archives at HISTORY COMMONS

History Commons holds the content formerly hosted by Accessible Archives and that provides a comprehensive database of diverse primary resources related to 18th, 19th, and early-20th century American history and culture.

African History and Culture 1540-1921

African History and Culture, 1540-1921, features over 1,300 fully cataloged and searchable books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides, and ephemera that exploration the history, peoples, and socio-economic development of the African continent from the 16th century to the early 20th century.

America’s Historical Imprints

America’s Historical Imprints contains 3 collections and 2 supplements of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material.

American Political Prints 1766-1876

Harper's Weekly provides online access to digital images and descriptive text from Bernard Reilly’s annotated catalogue of political cartoons from 1766-1876.

Ancestry Library Edition

Ancestry Library Edition provides access to documents recording the lineage of individuals from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and more.

Benjamin Franklin Papers

In a life spanning from 1706 to 1790, Benjamin Franklin's collected papers and correspondence present a panoramic view of the eighteenth century.

Black Authors 1556-1922

Black Authors, 1556-1922, encompasses over 550 works written by black authors from various regions, including the Americas, Europe, and Africa. The collection covers an extensive range of genres, including personal narratives, autobiographies, histories, novels, essays, poems, and musical compositions.

Caribbean History and Culture

Caribbean History and Culture, 1535-1920, is an extensive collection of over 1,200 cataloged and searchable items such as books, pamphlets, almanacs, broadsides, and ephemera related to the Caribbean region.

Early Canadiana Online

ECO is a digital library containing collections of monographs, serials, and goverment publications related to Canadian history and evolution.

Early Caribbean Digital Archive

The Early Caribbean Digital Archive (ECDA) is a publicly available archive platform for accessing, researching, and contributing pre-twentieth-century Caribbean archival materials.

Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection

Collected by Lester S. Levy and donated to Johns Hopkins University beginning in 1976, the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection comprises American sheet music from the 18th through 20th centuries.

Philadelphia Architects and Buildings

Historical data, digital images, and links to resources documenting buildings and structures within the city of Philadelphia or designed by Philadelphia architects.

Samuel J. May Antislavery Collection

Cornell Library’s May Anti-Slavery Collection includes over 10,000 pamphlets and ephemera that document the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels.

The Annuity Museum

The Annuity museum allows visitors to learn online about the history of annuities, from their earliest origins in ancient Rome through the middle of the 20th century.