LibGuides: World War I: Digital Collections

Narratives, Diaries, Letters, and Biographies

Europeana, 1914-1918: Untold Stories and Official Histories of World War I

First World War This link opens in a new window
Diaries, letters, postcards, personal narratives, trench literature, maps, scrapbooks, albums, photographs, sketches, paintings, sheet music, cartoons, propaganda, and other ephemera. Together with its companion collection ("Propaganda and Recruitment" and "Visual Perspectives and "Narratives"), it documents the war from a global perspective, covering multiple war fronts (Western Front, Ireland, Italian Front, Eastern Front, Balkans, Gallipoli, Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, neutral countries), and including documents in over 30 different languages (Afrikaans, Arabic, Belgian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Maori, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slavic, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh, and Yiddish).

World War I Collection (Gettysburg College Library)
Letters, postcards, and memorabilia from the Musselman Library at Gettysburg College.

Photographs, Posters, Pamphlets, Maps, and Visual Resources

Allied Posters of World War I
Over 1,500 propaganda posters from the Special Collections of the Temple University Library.
Answering the Call
55 World War I era posters, issued by U.S. federal government agencies, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations like the Salvation Army and the YMCA. Browse by poster artist, issuing agency, poster subject, and poster publisher. From the Milner Library at Illinois State University.

First World War This link opens in a new window
Posters, postcards, diaries, cartoons, photographs, leaflets, pamphlets, instructions for the distribution of propaganda, instructions to military units, extracts from local newspapers, printed reports, minute books, papers of the Ministry of Information, papers of the Kriegspresseamt, newsletters, and tribunal case files. Together with its companion collections ("Personal Experiences" and "Visual Perspectives and Narratives"), it documents the war from a global perspective, covering multiple war fronts (Western Front, Ireland, Italian Front, Eastern Front, Balkans, Gallipoli, Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, neutral countries), and including documents in over 30 different languages (Afrikaans, Arabic, Belgian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Maori, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slavic, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh, and Yiddish).

French World War I Posters Collection
105 posters published in France during the First World War digitized by the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library at the University of Illinois.
Lethbridge Cenotaph Collection
Biographies of 262 Canadian soldiers who are commemorated by a cenotaph in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures
Photographs from the rotogravure sections of the New York Times and the New York Tribune. This collection presents higher-quality reproductions than you'll find in the digitized versions of these two newspapers.
Posters from the First World War, 1914-1918
Over 100 posters, printed in the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, and more. From the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Propaganda Postcards of the Great War
Propaganda Posters
Over 500 posters from World War I and World War II, from Washington State University Library.
War Poster Collection
Selection of World War I and World War II propaganda posters from the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
World War I & II Poster Collection
Over 500 posters, mostly American, but also some British and French. From the University of North Texas Digital Library.
World War I & II Posters and Postcards
From the University of Minnesota Libraries.
World War I Postcards from the Bowman Gray Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Over 6,000 war-themed cards printed in Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and the U.S. during the war.
World War I Poster Collection
American propaganda posters from the Indianapolis Public Library.
World War I Posters
Almost 2,000 posters, mostly from the United States, but from other countries as well. From the Library of Congress.

Other Sources

1914-1918 Online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
English-language virtual reference work on the First World War. The result of global collaboration with editors and authors from more than 50 countries.
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election
Audio recordings of speeches by Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John J. Pershing.
First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Over 7,000 artifacts--including text, images, audio, and video--drawn from the personal collections of ten British poets of the War. Though the poets and their poetry are the central, organizing principle of the collection, the collection is far more than an archive of literary artifacts. From Oxford University.
First World War Poetry Digital Archive
Over 7,000 artifacts--including text, images, audio, and video--drawn from the personal collections of ten British poets of the War. Though the poets and their poetry are the central, organizing principle of the collection, the collection is far more than an archive of literary artifacts. From Oxford University.
A Guide to World War I Materials (Library of Congress)
Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Collection
Comprises 7 subcollections. Browse by country or date. Collections include correspondence (including postcards), manuscripts, artwork, poetry, and posters.
The Medical Front in World War I
Covers: Diabetes in the pre-insulin era, influenza, lice, military surgery, psychiatry including chronic alcoholism, sanitation and hygiene, typhoid fever, and venereology.
New York State Archives Military Collections: World War I, 1917-1938
No longer available. Abstracts of National Guard service, National Guard muster rolls, veterans' service data and photographs, Proclamations by the governor, posters, instructional lantern slides, and more.
North Carolina State Library World War I Collection
Regimental histories, personal narratives, letters, posters, and photographs.
Pennsylvania State Library World War I Collection
Regimental histories, posters, government reports, and more, from the State Library of Pennsylvania.
World War I Collection (University of Colorado Library)
War-related pamphlets, from the University of Colorado Library.
World War I Collection (University of Wisconsin Library)
Documents from the Special Collections of the Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Emphasis on rescue and relief efforts, but includes propaganda and other aspects of the war as well.
World War I Pamphlets
Over 400 war-related pamphlets, from the Special Collections of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
World War I Sheet Music
Almost 2,000 pieces of war-related sheet music from the Brown University Library.
World War I Trench Maps and Aerial Photographs
McMaster University's famous collection of trench maps. Emphasis on France and Belgium, but includes maps and photographs from other theaters of war as well (Eastern front, Middle East, and Africa).