Primary Sources Online - AMST 30143 – Fashioning Identities in Colonial America - Library Guides at University of Notre Dame

Manuscript and Printed Materials Online

America's historical imprints This link opens in a new window
Includes: American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1; American pamphlets, Series 1: 1820-1922: from the New-York Historical Society; Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Early American Imprints, Series I: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1800; Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Early American Imprints, Series II: Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1801-1819.
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I This link opens in a new window
Based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, it offers searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900.
American Indian histories and cultures This link opens in a new window
Presents insights into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact through late twentieth century. Includes a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
American periodicals series online, 1740-1900 This link opens in a new window
Consists of more than 1,500 18th and 19th century American periodicals.
Arte Público Hispanic historical collection, Series 1 This link opens in a new window
Series 1 is a collection of historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic history, literature and culture.
Colonial America This link opens in a new window
Covering the period 1606 to 1822, this collection draws from the British government's Colonial Office files held at the National Archives in London.
Eighteenth Century collections online: ECCO This link opens in a new window
A collection that aims to include every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with important works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800.
Empire online This link opens in a new window
Brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by secondary resources including scholarly essays, maps, and an interactive chronology.

Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
This collection of historical materials is from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums documents voluntary immigration to the United States.

Making of the modern world This link opens in a new window
Full-text and full-page-image access to books from the 1460-1850 period, and pre-1906 serials, focusing on economics interpreted in the widest sense.
Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750-1950 This link opens in a new window
More than 100,000 pages of the personal writings of women from the eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth.
North American women's letters and diaries This link opens in a new window
Provides access to some 150,000 pages of letters and diaries of more than 1,300 women writing from Colonial times to 1950. Writers reflect all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, and many geographical regions.

Probing the Past: Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories, 1740-1810
Probate records are inventories of personal possessions, so they illuminate people's daily lives and social relations. This site includes 325 documents from Virginia and Maryland created between 1740 and 1810.

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Based on Joseph Sabin's bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's.
Virginia Company Archives This link opens in a new window
Documents the founding and economic development of Virginia as seen through the papers of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624.

Historical Newspapers

America's historical newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search more than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1998.

Chronicling America
The Library of Congress' newspaper site. Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Periodical Literature

American periodicals series online, 1740-1900 This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 1,500 18th and 19th century American periodicals. Derived from the American periodicals series microform collection I, II, and III.
British periodicals online, parts 1-4 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new window
Brings together rare journals printed between c1685 and 1835, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life.
Periodicals index online This link opens in a new window
Index to articles in over 4,500 periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences published beginning 1770. Its scope is worldwide, covering major Western languages.

Runaway Advertisements

America's historical newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search the Virginia Gazette and other colonial and early republic-era newspapers here.

Freedom on the Move
A database of fugitives from slavery, from Cornell University.
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia
A collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers.
Marronnage in Saint-Domingue (Haiti): History, Memory, Technology
Supported by the French Atlantic History Group, this database focuses on a part of the history of slavery in Haiti--slaves who ran away or lived in hiding.
North Carolina Slave Advertisements, 1750-1865
Access to all known runaway slave advertisements (more than 2300) published in North Carolina newspapers from 1751 to 1840.
Pennsylvania Gazette
Published in Philadelphia from 1728 until 1800.
Slave Voyages
Offers documentation about the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Visual Sources

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Search the Fashion, Costume and Jewelry collection.

The Costume Institute Online
Search more than 31,000 costumes and accessories in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection.
Fashion Museum Bath
Explore their Video Gallery for past clothing exhibitions.
Fashioning a Nation
A brief survey of American fashions from 1740 through 1895 from the Index of American Design collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Historic Threads: Three Centuries of Clothing
An online exhibition from Colonial Williamsburg's Museum Collection.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Clothing and Textile Collection
Search the Clothing and Textile Collection.
Smithsonian Collections Search Center (online catalog)
Search over 14 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than three million online images, audio and video files, and blog posts.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Search the textile collections.

Finding Images in Print Sources

Find illustrations in print sources by searching the ND Catalog. Often older books on costume or fashion (pre-1940) will have photographs of earlier clothing. Many of these pre-1940s book have been digitized and can be found on Hathi Trust through the ND Catalog.

For example, searching "costume United States history" retrieves the illustrated History of American Costume, 1607 - 1870, by Elisabeth McClellan, published in 1937 and available online on Hathi Trust.