U.S. History

Over a thousand U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, including titles from all 50 states.

Periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.

Search across all ProQuest Historical Newspapers databases.

Parts I–XIV. Original source material—written by African-Americans for African-Americans,containing information about cultural life and history during the 1800s. The collection also provides a great number of early biographies, vital statistics, essays and editorials, poetry and prose, and advertisements all of which embody the African American experience. Formerly on the Accessible Archives platform.

Link to Series 1. For additional series, click on Choose Databases to select Series 2-5. 

Group of databases containing periodicals charting the history of the United States from 1691 to the latter half of the 19th century. Includes content on American society, industrialisation, science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women's fashion and family life, religion, Civil War, abolitionism, and recently-freed African Americans.

Searchable archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar. The issues are reproduced as high-resolution colour page images and supported by fully searchable text and article-level indexing.

The Rolling Stone magazine, from its launch in 1967 to the present, initially sought to reflect the cultural, social, and political outlook of a generation of students and young adults.
Coverage : 1967 - current

Resource howcases unique periodicals from 1940-present, highlighting topics and trends of youth culture such as fashion, rock and roll, sports, sexuality, dating, as well as youth portrayal in the media. Periodicals provide insight to what has and continues to influence youth culture, especially during times of rapid social and cultural change in the U.S. and the UK.

This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

A collection of unique manuscript and archival materials Including multiple sub-collections in broad subject areas like Civil Rights; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; International Relations and Military Conflicts; Women's Studies; and Workers and Labor Unions. Now available on the ProQuest platform.
Coverage: 1636-1998.
Library can facilitate negotiating text-mining rights for this database for McGill faculty and students wishing to acquire the rights with their own research funds. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub- dshub.library@mcgill.ca, Subject: ProQuest text or data mining question.

The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research. This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.

Original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material, and rare printed sources from the Graff Collection about the American West.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Explore a stunning collection of rare books, games, ephemera, and artwork from the 1810s to 1920s that reveals the socio-cultural history of these times. Showcasing innovative new publishing methods characteristic of the golden age of children’s literature, from mass-produced chapbooks to richly illustrated ‘book-beautifuls’, this resource examines the way in which new concepts were introduced to young readers, encouraging an engagement with the imagination which went on to fundamentally shape established notions of childhood.

Explores the history of Jewish communities in America from the 17th through to the 20th century, and the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole. The resource provides access to six major organisational collections and twenty-four collections of personal papers containing letters, scrapbooks, autobiographies, notebooks and other materials.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

A range of sources from Britain and America, covering key subjects within this historical field, including Keynesian economic policy in post-war Britain; international labour movements; the London Stock Exchange; and the papers of important economists.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Explore an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

This unique collection showcases the development of 'popular' medicine in America during the nineteenth century, through an extensive range of material that was aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals. Explore an array of printed sources, including rare books, pamphlets, trade cards, and visually-rich advertising ephemera.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Contains manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of the global commodities in world history that helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average American traveller between 1850 and the 1980s. Guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs and personal travel journals provide unique insight into the expansion, accessibility and affordability of tourism for the masses and the evolution of some of the most successful travel agencies in the world. Includes travel destinations such as Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, Yosemite, Miami Beach, New Orleans, "health spas" such as Saratoga Springs, and more.

This database includes more than 100,000 pages of poetry, short fiction, novels, and more than 450 plays. The collection also supports the study of American history, ethnic diversity, immigration issues, and political history.

The AFI Catalog covers the history of American cinema comprehensively from 1893 to the present.

This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Based on the original Bibliotheca Americana bibliography of works by Joseph Sabin, this online collection contains books, pamphlets, serials and other works about all aspects of American history and culture. It touches upon the political and religious life in North America and at times South America and the Caribbean. It features American and European views of the colonization of the Americas, the American Revolution, and more.

Colonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. This unique collection of largely manuscript material from the archives of the British government is an invaluable one for students and researchers of all aspects of 17th- and 18th-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.

Virginia Company Archives provides a comprehensive record of the history of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624. Centred upon the archives of the Ferrar family who played a significant role in the Company's administration, this resource documents the founding and economic development of the Virginia colony, relations between colonists and Indigenous peoples, and early trade between Britain and America. It is also a crucial source for London's economic history and the religious and social history of early modern England, with further content documenting the Ferrars' continued interest in the European colonisation of North America in the years after 1624.

Includes books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in America during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Part of the Archive of Americana collections, this database is a comprehensive set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century.

This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Contains diaries, letters and memoirs of previously unpublished manuscripts such as the letters of Amos Wood and his wife and the diary of Maryland Planter William Claytor. The collection also includes biographies, an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database, and material licensed from The Civil War Day-by-Day by E.B. Long.

Explore multiple perspectives on the history of injury, treatment and disease on the front line. Chart scientific advances through hospital records, medical reports and first-hand accounts, and discover the evidence of how war shaped medical practice across the centuries. Includes documents from the American Civil War and other conflicts.

Resource of periodicals from just before the American Civil War to the beginnings of Reconstruction. Contains a number of long-running periodicals that chronicle the war from various perspectives, such as Harper's Weekly and the Atlantic Monthly, as well as a number of abolitionist and secessionist titles.

Four modules of primary sources for the study of the Great War. Containing personal collections and rare printed material to military files, artwork and audio-visual files, content highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of the conflict.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Collection of newspapers published for and by American military camps during World War I. They include both news and entertainment for soldiers in military camps.
Parts I-III, 1916-1923.

Archival research resource containing rare magazines by and for servicemen and women of all nations during the First World War.
Coverage: 1914 - 1919

Explore multiple perspectives on the history of injury, treatment and disease on the front line. Chart scientific advances through hospital records, medical reports and first-hand accounts, and discover the evidence of how war shaped medical practice across the centuries. Includes documents relating to WWI and WWII.

Uncover the stories of American military personnel and civilians during the Second World War through their oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and military records. This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in the conflict, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

This digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 300 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Primary sources, offering insight into many aspects of the conflict, including government policy, the war in the Pacific, and the war in Europe. Sources include the records of the Special Operations Executive; and private papers of American General Robert L Eichelberger, from the Pacific war.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Explore secret intelligence files from key 20th-century conflicts, including World War II, with digitized materials from The National Archives (UK).

Interwar Culture showcases popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period, 1919-1939. Articles cover culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues.

Religions of America traces the history and unique character of religious movements that originated in or were re-shaped by the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection pays especially close attention to America's unique role as a birthplace for new religious movements, especially after World War II. This collection includes materials from a variety of sources in an effort to capture the varieties of the American religious experience.

The papers of early pioneer, David Sarnoff, and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), chart the rise of mass media and the impact of broadcasting innovations such as television, advertising and consumer culture, from the dawn of a new era of mass broadcasting, and beyond.

America’s transformative age of industrialisation, expanding wealth, inequality and social change. Personal collections, business records and rich visual content offer fresh perspectives on this influential period.

Contains collections of original manuscript, typescript and ephemera archival material about civil rights, protest movements and popular culture from key libraries in Britain and America. Includes pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, fanzines and video content.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Resource howcases unique periodicals from 1940-present, highlighting topics and trends of youth culture such as fashion, rock and roll, sports, sexuality, dating, as well as youth portrayal in the media. Periodicals provide insight to what has and continues to influence youth culture, especially during times of rapid social and cultural change in the U.S. and the UK.

The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960–1974 brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.

This collection provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files for the entire period of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Top-level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate these papers. There is also a wealth of material on social conditions, domestic reforms, trade, culture and the environment. In addition, there is strong coverage of US policy decisions by the FCO and the British embassy in Washington; White House staff appointments and UN discussions; views on Europe; the deployment of F-111 aircraft on US airbases in the UK and Nixon’s battles over funding from Congress; visits to the US by Harold Wilson and Edward Heath; and the internal situation in the US and domestic reform. There are also detailed assessments of all the changes brought about by the presidential election of 1972, in which Nixon beat George McGovern by a record-breaking margin and in every state but one, only to resign two years later in the face of almost certain impeachment.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Contains market research reports, notes, correspondence and ad images from the marketers who managed brands 1920's-1960's, including notes from Ernest Dichter, who specialized in Motivational Research. Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

The papers of early pioneer, David Sarnoff, and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), chart the rise of mass media and the impact of broadcasting innovations such as television, advertising and consumer culture, from the dawn of a new era of mass broadcasting, and beyond. Focus on the 1920s-70s.

Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

LGBTQ history and culture since 1940. Archive containing historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, personal correspondence, interviews, publications, gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries. 
New modules: L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.
The content of this database is available for text-mining through Gale Digital Scholar Lab

This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

A resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally and at the same time make those insights accessible to teachers and students at universities, colleges, and high schools. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. Includes access to the online version of Notable American Women and the database on Commissions on the Status of Women.

Contains primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

This collection contains 150,000 indexed and searchable pages of diaries and letters from 1,325 women documenting their experiences. Includes biographical sketches of those represented, as well as over 7,000 pages of previously unpublished material.

An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines.
Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005.
Library can facilitate negotiating text-mining rights for this database for McGill faculty and students wishing to acquire the rights with their own research funds. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub- dshub.library@mcgill.ca, Subject: ProQuest text or data mining question.

A collection of primary source exhibits for students and scholars of queer history and culture.

Contains published and unpublished items by 1,482 authors including letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters with North American indigenous peoples.

Contains primary source documents around life on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920, covering European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia. Documents reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.

Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Digital collection of primary sources containing manuscripts, monographs, newspapers, photographs, motion pictures, and artwork exploring the impact of invasion and colonization on Indigenous Peoples in North America, as well as the intersection of Indigenous and European histories and systems of knowledge.

Contains historic pressings and contemporary periodicals, this collection explores nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada, with newspapers representing various publishers, audiences and eras. Highlights how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.
This resource has been developed with, and has only been made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.

Based on the original Bibliotheca Americana bibliography of works by Joseph Sabin, this online collection contains books, pamphlets, serials and other works about all aspects of American history and culture. It features American and European views of the colonization of the Americas.

The subcollection "American Indians and the American West" contains several collections focusing on the interaction between American Indians and the U.S. government from 1809-1971. Notable collections in this module from the 19th Century focus on Indian Removal from 1832-1840, the U.S. Army and American Indians in the years from the 1850s-1890s, including detailed coverage of Indian Wars. The featured collections on the 20th Century are Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and records from the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.

Parts I–XIV. Original source material—written by African-Americans for African-Americans,containing information about cultural life and history during the 1800s. The collection also provides a great number of early biographies, vital statistics, essays and editorials, poetry and prose, and advertisements all of which embody the African American experience. Formerly on the Accessible Archives platform.

Documents the African American press in the South from Reconstruction through the Jim Crow period, providing a unique journalistic record of the African American experience in segregated southern America. Formerly on Accessible Archives platform. 

The subcollection Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War consists of several modules:
-Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Law and Order in the 19th Century (1636-1880)
-Slavery and the Law (1775-1867)
Slavery and the Law features petitions on race, slavery, and free blacks that were submitted to state legislatures and county courthouses between 1775 and 1867.
-Slavery in Antebellum Southern Industries (1700-1896)
-Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records (4 parts)
Southern Plantation Records document the far-reaching impact of plantations on both the American South and the nation. Plantation records are both business records and personal papers because the plantation was both the business and the home for plantation owners.
-Confederate Military Manuscripts and Records of Union Generals and the Union Army (1854-1870)
The Confederate Military Manuscripts module brings together unique collections that are being digitized for the first time.
-Reconstruction and Military Government after the Civil War (1865-1877)
Reconstruction and Military Government after the Civil War features correspondence of the U.S. Army's Office of Civil Affairs.

Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.

View a collection of primary source documents about the Black experience organized chronologically from slavery and the early Abolitionist movement to the contemporary era.

Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Text mining is permitted, but certain conditions apply. Please contact Digital Scholarship Hub

Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

Contains primary source documents around life on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920, covering European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia. Documents reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.

This collection includes letters, diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives of over 2,000 authors providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.

A collection of letters and diaries written by over 1,300 women who lived in North America from the 17th to the 20th century.

From the century of immigration, through to the modern era, Migration to New Worlds charts the emigration experience of millions across 200 years of turbulent history. Includes oral histories of European immigrants living in New York City, Finnish Americans living in Minnesota, and Italian-Americans in the New York area. There is additional material on emigration to Texas, German and Eastern European migration to the US on the Red Star Line, and papers on Chinese and Japanese immigration to the United States.

Annual collection of all laws passed during a given session, from 1789 to the present. Contains treaties prior to 1945.

Reports, documents, journals and maps published by the United States Congress. Covering public policy, infrastructure, the land, the people, military and defense, and more.

From the National Security Archive, this resource consists of expertly curated, and indexed, declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events – including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions – from 1945 to the present.

The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history.

Allows for the creation of individualized maps of the U.S. based on a variety of data such as population, age, income, demography, presidential elections, and more.