Resources by Topic
Revolutionary War
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.
Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922: From the Library Company of Philadelphia
Encompassing nearly 400 years, the Afro-American Imprints Collection offers over 12,000 searchable books, pamphlets, and broadsides related to the history of Black life in the Americas from 1535-1922.
America’s Historical Imprints
America’s Historical Imprints contains 3 collections and 2 supplements of books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material.
American Engravings to 1820, Catalog of American Engravings
The Catalogue of American Engravings describes engravings from the early eighteenth century through the year 1820.
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.
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.
Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library
The Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library supports research regarding the political and economic life of the thirteen colonies and the new republic.
Digital Paxton
Digital Paxton is a digital collection, critical edition, teaching platform devoted to the 1764 pamphlet war.
Early American Newspapers, Pennsylvania
The Early American Newspapers database provides wide-ranging coverage of historical newspapers from Pennsylvania.
Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA)
Early Americas Digital Archive (EADA), a collection of electronic texts written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
Global Commodities includes a wide range of manuscript, printed and visual primary-source materials exploring the history of key commodities that changed the world.
Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER)
The HABS/HAER surveys document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories.
JSTOR
JSTOR provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
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.
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.
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
This educational resource is a digital archive for hundreds of historical images, paintings, lithographs, and photographs illustrating enslaved Africans and their descendants before c. 1900.
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia centers Philadelphia as a city and community in historical and future contexts.
The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War.
Watson’s Annals
This digital source, from the US GenWeb Archives on Philadelphia County, provides the full text of collection of memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of early 18th and early 19th century Pennsylvanian life.