Historic and Primary Sources - Stonecoast MFA - Library Resources - Subject Guides at University of Southern Maine

Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online provides full-text digital access to nearly every book, directory, bible, sheet music, sermon, pamphlet or broadside published in the United Kingdom during the 18th century.
American Periodicals Series Online This link opens in a new window
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American Periodicals Series Online includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the 1950s. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Chronicling America allows you to search American newspapers published between 1690-present. Availability of full text PDF images varies.
Making of America (Cornell) This link opens in a new window
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Making of America (Cornell) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography This link opens in a new window
American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography is a searchable archive of the WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, which hired field workers to collect the life histories of former slaves. Transcripts for 2,000 interviews, from seventeen states are accessible.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This link opens in a new window
Select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Slavery & Abolition in the US: publications of the 1800s This link opens in a new window
Slavery and Abolition in the US provides access to select publications of the 1800s as a digital collection of books and pamphlets that demonstrate the varying ideas and beliefs about slavery in the United States as expressed by Americans throughout the nineteenth century.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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19th Century Collections Online focuses on primary source collections including a variety of content types--monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more from the UK.
Sanborn Maps 1880-1940's (Library of Congress) This link opens in a new window
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps provides a searchable database of the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the Library of Congress' collections of the Geography and Map Division. The collection includes data from over 30 states, and selected parts of Canada, & Mexico.

Library of Congress Digital Collections
Digitized collections from the Library of congress which includes, documents, maps, photographs, and more.
Smithsonian Digital Collections
Collection includes over 35,000 digitized books and manuscripts as well as digitized photo collections, ephemera, and seed catalogs.
Digital Public Library of America
These primary source collections exploring topics in history, literature, and culture.
National Museum of American History
Collections by subjects
Maine Historical Society
Collections catalog primarily contains records for museum objects and photographs, but also includes select, autograph letters, architectural drawings, and newspapers.
British Museum Collection
Access to almost four and a half million objects in more than two million records.
Google Arts & Culture
Walk though major world museums and around world heritage sites all from the comfort of home. There are also online exhibits.

Archives at USM

Special Collections
The Department is made up of three collections: General Rare Books and Manuscripts, the University Archives, and the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine (African American Collection, LGBTQ+ Collection, & Judaica Collection).
Franco-American Collection
Preserves and promotes the culture and heritage of Maine’s Franco-American population.
Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education
Committed to preserving the cartographic heritage of the state, region, and nation for future generations, and to making that heritage accessible.

Digital Collections at the University of Maine System Libraries This link opens in a new window
The Gateway to Digital Collections provides online access to thousands of selected, digitized materials in all formats. These special collections are made available by the UMS Libraries, in collaboration with other campus units, and in partnership with other cultural institutions in Maine.

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Guide to Special Collections
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Franco-American Collection
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Stonecoast MFA - Library Resources: Historic and Primary Sources

Researching the Past

Archives at USM

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