LibGuides: History 200A: History of Travel and Mobility in America: III. Digital Collections

Digital Collections

The Library provides access for UIUC faculty, staff, and students to several major digitized texts collections. These are available from the Online Research Resources page off the Library Gateway. Because these are subscription databases, authentication is required with a UIUC net id.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
North American Women’s Letters and Diaries contains writings by hundreds of female authors from the colonial period to the mid-20th century. The 515 texts included in the database are transcribed, rather than reproduced as digital facsimiles, and they are extensively indexed, as well as searchable by keyword. Biographical information is provided for each author, as well as synopses of many of the source documents, reprinted from Joyce Goodfriend’s 1987 bibliography, The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women.
Gerritsen Collection Women's History Online This link opens in a new window
The Gerritsen Collection on Women’s History, 1543-1945 contains roughly 4,500 monographs and pamphlets and more than 400 periodicals, fully digitized. Somewhat more than half of the material in the collection is in English, and the remainder is in German, French, and other European languages. The material is searchable by keyword and/or subject headings, and the page images can be downloaded in PDF.
Archive of Americana This link opens in a new window
The Archive of Americana includes the full text of all titles listed in Early American Imprints, series I (1639-1800) and Early American Imprints, series II (1801-1819), the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980), American State Papers (1789-1838), and, as described above, Early American Newspapers (1690-1876). There are options for searching both by keyword and subject term.
This link directs you to Readex AllSearch. You can search within the Archives of Americana databases by selecting those in the drop-down on the left side of the search bar. Archives of Americana databases include: African American Newspapers; American Business: Agricultural Newspapers; Caribbean Newspapers; Ethnic American Newspapers from Balch Collection; and Hispanic American Newspapers.
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises This link opens in a new window
Making of Modern Law offers keyword access to 22,000 British and American legal treatises (very broadly defined) published between 1800 and 1926.

Making of Modern Law
Making of Modern Law offers keyword access to 22,000 British and American legal treatises (very broadly defined) published between 1800 and 1926.

In addition to these subscription databases available only to UIUC students, faculty and staff, there are many digital collections available without restriction or cost to the user. Illinois Harvest is a project of the UIUC Library, offering access to digital content about Illinois drawn from dozens of collections. The Illinois Digital Archives, sponsored by the Illinois State Library, also provides access to digitized collections of material about Illinois.

Some other free digital resources to explore are the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, Women's Travel Writing 1830-1930 and Harvard’s Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930. These are a few of hundreds of digital conversion projects underway at academic institutions, museums, and research libraries.