Primary Sources on the Web: Regional Collections

Archives of Appalachia collects, preserves, and shares the written words, sounds, and images of the people of Appalachia. They house nearly 18 million manuscripts, 85,000 sound recordings, and 250,000 still and moving images. The Archives celebrates the culture of Appalachia.

The Digital Library of Appalachia provides online access to archival and historical materials related to the culture of the southern and central Appalachian region. The contents of the DLA are drawn from special collections of Appalachian College Association member libraries.

Digital Horizons is an online treasure house of thousands of images, documents, video, and oral histories depicting life on the Northern Plains from the late 1800s to today. Here you'll find a fascinating snapshot of the lives, culture, and history of the people who shaped life on the prairies.

Welcome to the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive, an online visual collection of historic images showcasing the Mississippi River region along the Iowa/Illinois border

This site, recently known as Northwest Digital Archives, offers descriptions of archival and manuscript materials held by institutions in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Utah.

The Pacific Northwest Historical Documents database is a collection of original, diaries, letters, reminiscences and political documents drawn from various sources within the Special Collections Division. These documents recount the early settlement of Washington and the establishment of homesteads and towns and describe the hardships faced by many of the early pioneers.

This site currently links to more than 10,000 items from 30 libraries. The shared collection continues to grow, providing ready access to a world-class collection of primary source materials from the American Civil War era.

The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) encourages the study and appreciation of the history and culture of the American South by collecting, preserving and promoting the use of unique documentary materials of enduring historical value. The SHC does this to enable users to derive meanings from the southern past and to support the University’s mission of teaching, research and service

The mission of the Southern Media Archive is to identify, collect, preserve, and make accessible the cultural expression of the South through a variety of forms of documentary media. Established by the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture to collect photographs, film footage, and audio recordings of Southerners for use in creative documentary projects.

The core archives is a series of 57 oral history interviews that developed from the CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY Project's Oral History Program funded in 1980 by the NEH. Interviews focus on residents who migrated to the San Joaquin Valley from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas between 1924 and 1939.

Collection consists of over 450 print advertisements published in local magazines, city directories, and theater pamphlets from 1867 to 1918. These advertisements were selected and digitized in order to help researchers and students examine social, cultural and economic trends during this period.

Provides free access to over 958,000 resources from universities, colleges, public libraries, museums, historical societies, and government agencies, counties, and municipalities in Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Hawaii, and other parts of the U.S. West.

The Rocky Mountain Online Archive is your source of information about archival collections in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Specialized guides, called finding aids, give detailed descriptions of primary source materials located at twenty-seven different repositories.

Provides a sample of the photographs, images, albums, and more, relating to the U.S. West held by SMU's DeGolyer Library. In general, collecting at the DeGolyer Library emphasizes the American West, the borderlands, exploration, business history and transportation, particularly the railroads.

Documenting the American South (DocSouth) includes sixteen thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture. T