Documents
Primary Sources | Secondary Sources

Primary Sources: Original Documents in Electronic Format

American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement, produced by the Wisconsin Historical Society, provides full text for over 150 books, manuscripts and travel narratives dating from 1000 to 1844.

American Memory compiled by the Library of Congress National Digital Library, is a gateway to primary source materials regarding the history of the United States. Over nine million items are available through this project, and the ability to keyword search across all collections is available. Examples of specific collections follow. For broadsides and printed ephemera, see An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and other Printed Ephemera. For 19th century periodicals, see The Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals. For over 100 pamphlets and books concerning the experiences of slaves in the American Colonies and the United States, see Slaves and the Courts: 1740-1860. The Library of Congress also has a number of online exhibitions.

Colonial Connecticut Records (1636-1776) provides access by date and volume to the public records of the Colony of Connecticut. Full text and keyword searching is not currently available. Use the Colonial Pathways link for access to some selected materials by type.

Curtis Botanical Magazine (1787-1807) is an online version of the first 26 volumes of this journal, presented by the National Agricultural Library, ARS, USDA. This searchable site provides 1,048 plates and 1,456 pages of text.

Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture Electronic Facsimiles is a collection of digitized texts from the University of Wisconsin Libraries and the Chipstone Foundation. [BROWSE] [SEARCH] [ABOUT] [SUBJECT GUIDES]

Documenting the American South from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a collection of digitized primary source materials focusing on Southern history and culture. Although not specifically concerned with the decorative arts, this site is useful for the history and literature of the area.

Eighteenth-Century E-Texts is a listing of publicly available electronic texts, maintained by Prof. Jack Lynch of Rutgers University.

Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers of Diderot and d'Alembert (1751-1772), the massive reference work of French Enlightenment knowledge in 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of plates, is available in a searchable online version under the auspices of the ARTFL Project. Twenty illustrations related to furniture, for example, can be retrieved by setting the "type of entry" field to plate_legend and searching for the "head word" MEUBLES. A companion project in process hosts a collaborative translation website.

Le Garde-meuble, ancien et moderne (Furniture Repository, Ancient and Modern) was a 19th-early 20th century French periodical consisting entirely of illustrations of designs for furniture, window treatments and room settings. This online document presents the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' nearly complete set of the early (1841-1851) issues.

Godey's Lady's Book Online provides access to five issues of this journal from 1850; a University of Vermont site for Godey's Lady's Book provides access to complete and partial issues from later years. UW-Madison researchers have access to a licensed version (Godey's Lady's Book 1830-55).

A Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, London, 1856. This web page by James Rowan, Boston College, provides excerpts from the 1856 text and images of selected colorplates. See the online full text version we've created at http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.GramOrnJones. A second text by Owen Jones, "Examples of Chinese Ornament," is at http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.JonesChinOrn.

Historical Maps of Pennsylvania presents maps of Pennsylvania from the 16th through the 20th centuries. The quality of the digital images varies.

Internet Library of Early Journals provides full text for large runs of 18th and 19th century British journals including the Annual Register, The Builder, Gentleman's Magazine and others.

Internet Modern History Sourcebook, edited by Paul Halsall of Fordham University, is a metasite for history documents. The site provides links to publicly available historical texts. The texts are not specifically concerned with decorative arts but are useful for historical perspective and context. The site is large and may be slow to load. Information on the Internet History Sourcebook Project is available at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/.

Library of Virginia has digitized more than 2 million original documents, photographs and maps. The documents are accessible through a variety of databases. One useful chronological summary is their "Best Sources for Virginia Research by Time Period."

Making of America is a collaborative effort of the University of Michigan and Cornell University. Included are over 50,000 articles from 19th century journals and over 10,000 books.

Plymouth Colony Archive Project provides access to court records, colony laws, 17th century journals and memoirs, probate inventories, wills, town plans, maps, and more.

Probate Inventory Database, Gunston Hall Plantation provides transcriptions of over 300 Virginia and Maryland probate inventories between 1740-1810.

return to top

Secondary Sources: Journals and More

African-American Archaeology Newsletter provides full text online articles for 1994-2000 issues.

American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum includes full text or abstracts of the current issue, as well as indexes to past issues.

American Antiquity is the principal journal for the Society of American Archaeology. Tables of contents from 1995, with abstracts from 1999 to present, are available.

American Furniture, published by the Chipstone Foundation, provides full text of articles for the years 1993-2000, and one article from each of the 2002-04 issues. Additional online access is planned.

American Historical Review is the journal of the American Historical Association. Tables of contents and most recent issue are publicly available. Full text of back issues are available in JSTOR and/or to members of the History Cooperative.

Antiques and the Arts Online is a newsletter for the arts and antiques market, primarily concerned with American art and decorative art. Articles, book reviews, a calendar of events and an on-line discussion forum are available through the site.

Journal of American History provides tables of contents and some articles abstracts for issues from 1999, with full text available to History Cooperative members.

Journal of Material Culture contains the tables of contents and abstracts from 1996 to current issue.

Maine Antique Digest is a print publication for the art and antiques market with an online supplement. Access to some information may require registration and/or a print subscription.

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography is a scholarly journal published quarterly by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Recent issues display tables of contents (or full text for society and History Cooperative members). Issues from 1907-2003 are publicly available in full text through the Penn State University Libraries' digital collections.

Resource Library is an online publication devoted to American representational art and contains a section on American decorative arts.

Silver Magazine provides browsable/searchable tables of contents for issues from 1968-present.

Studies in the Decorative Arts from Bard Graduate Center has tables of contents from 1993 to present.

William and Mary Quarterly includes tables of contents from 1999-present. Full text book reviews are available from January 2000 to present. Full text is available to History Cooperative members.

Winterthur Portfolio: A Journal of American Material Culture provides full text beginning with Volume 37 (2002). Tables of contents from 1964 are also available (with links to full text content in JSTOR from UW-Madison library workstations).

return to top