Archive of Americana

Discover America through

Primary Source Historical

Documents

Why Archive of Americana

• Makes history come alive

• Provides access to primary source documents

• Turns students into historians

• Fosters critical thinking skills

• Helps students understand and interpret life from 1639 forward

Archive of Americana

• Thousands of digitized and searchable images

• Readily accessible primary source documents save time

• Newly available to schools for use in U.S. history classes

• Provides college preparatory experience

Contents of Collection

Broadside:

Announcing the creation of the Salisbury mfg. company

Document example

Advertisement:

Ebenezer Larkin’s bookstore in Boston

Document example

Archive of Americana

• Includes– Early American Imprints

• Series I: Evans (1639-1800)• Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)

– Early American Newspapers (1619-1820)– American State Papers (1789-1838)– U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1899)– American Broadsides & Ephemera (1760-1876)

Early American Imprints

• Contain nearly every still existing book, pamphlet and broadside published in America over 180 years.

• Essential resource for studying early American history, literature and culture.

• Includes– Series I: Evans (1639-1800), based on Charles

Evans’ historic “American Bibliography.”

– Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) continues the “American Bibliography.”

Early American Newspapers

• Includes fully searchable, cover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of newspapers and millions of issues.

• Captures the civic, political, social and cultural events of American life over the 18th and 19th centuries.

• Based on Brigham’s “History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820.”

The American State Papers U.S. Congressional Serial Set

• Reports, documents and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

• Illustrations and maps – some in full color

• American State Papers – Legislative and executive documents of Congress

1789 to 1838 including documents covering the critical historical gap from 1789 to the printing of the Serial Set in 1817

– Accounts of Lewis & Clark’s expedition are found here

American Broadsides and Ephemera• Single-sheet documents printed before 1877

• Issued locally in response to specific popular or newsworthy events

• Designed for short-lived purposes

• Many destroyed or put to other uses

• Provide unique perspectives on nearly every aspect of American history and culture

• Examples of Ephemera – Clipper Ship Announcements – Early trade cards – Menus– Invoices and Notices– Theater and music programs– Stock certificates– Civil War envelopes

Searching for Documents

Opening Search Screen

Or, click on one of the products

For Example, Evansor Shaw-Shoemaker

Type in a search term

Select tab to browse topics

Browse in Subjects

Select Category –For Example: History

Click on Paris, Treaty of 1763

View Results List

Select document to view

Go directly to citationor document image

View Full Citation

View Document Image

Search the same way in these products*Select product *Select tab *Select category *View results

To Search in Early American Newspapers

Select product from Opening Search Screen

You can search by newspaper or years

Or, type in a search term and limit it to a particular type of article

Image retrieved by searching on corn in search box and limiting results to advertisements

“An invaluable research aid that helps students understand history through a broad array of contemporaneous perspectives, ranging from regional to international. These perspectives allow students to develop and use the critical thinking skills necessary for understanding historical interpretation and context, as well as the conditions that create historical events. …Access to these sources allows students to become quite creative and imaginative in their research. In hip-hop parlance, the Archive of Americana provides ‘samples’ to create new and exciting historical mixes.”

-Dean Eastman

Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year (2004): Beverly High School

Primary Source

Historical Documents

--Make your

history classes

come alive

Archive of

Americana