Primary Source Collections @ The Carl B.
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HeinONLINE: Slavery in America & the WorldA digital archive focusing on the history of slavery. This collection brings together a vast array of primary and secondary sources related to slavery, the slave trade, and its aftermath. It includes legal materials, books, pamphlets, essays, and other documents spanning several centuries, providing researchers with in-depth access to historical perspectives on slavery in the United States and globally. The collection is particularly valuable for scholars, students, and anyone studying the complex legal, social, and economic aspects of slavery and its lasting impact on society.
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Umbra: African American HistoryUmbra Search is a digital library that aggregates materials documenting African American history and cultural life from archives, libraries, museums, and other US repositories. Umbra Search features thumbnail images and descriptive information about photographs, manuscripts, documents, books, sound files, video files, and other freely available resources.
Library of American Civilization
The Library of American Civilization (LAC) is a collection of primary sources relating to American life up to World War I. This ultrafiche series contains roughly 6.5 million pages of material, including books, pamphlets, periodicals, biographies and autobiographies, fiction, poetry and selected federal, state, and local documents. Please ask a librarian to help you use this collection.
To search for LAC documents:
1. Go to the main page of Concordia's library.
2. Click on the “Advanced Search” link, just below the main search box.
3. In the second search box line, where it says "Title", click on the drop-down menu arrow and choose "Series."
4. In the Search box to the side of "Series" type, “library of American civilization.”
4. In the top search box, add a search term of your choice and click “search.”
Tip: Try using the LAC collection as an index--take the results that look promising and search the internet to see if the book has been digitized by Project Gutenberg, Google Books, or other the HathiTrust Digital Library. The digitized copy will probably be easier to use.
Open-access Primary Sources
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Library of Congress Digital Collections"Today's Library of Congress is an unparalleled world resource. The collection of more than 167 million items includes more than 39 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 72 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings."