Document Collections
Browse this page to find collections of primary sources for particular cities. You may select one or more of these collections as a nucleus for your paper. We can help to supplement and contextualize your primary source collection(s) with newspaper articles, secondary sources, biographical information, and other resources, some of which are listed on other pages of this guide.
We can give advice on cities not listed here.
Instructions for finding more primary sources via a variety of search methods are given in the Finding Primary Sources page of this guide.
California
Los Angeles
Changing Times: Los Angeles in Photographs, 1920-1990
L.A. as Subject "is a research alliance dedicated to preserving and improving access to the raw material of Los Angeles history"
- Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991
- Los Angeles Webster Commission records, 1931-1992 assessed law enforcement's performance in connection with the April, 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest.
- Watts riots records, 1965
- Richard M. Mosk Christopher Commission records, 1991 Police commission
- Los Angeles Union Station Collection (1930s) Planning and construction
- Race, Arts, and Placemaking -- Oral History Archives
- Kendall O. Price Los Angeles riots records, 1965-1967
San Francisco
Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897 to 1916
The Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire
San Francisco Freedom Archives
Connecticut
Bridgeport Working: Voices From the 20th Century
District of Columbia
Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, 1600 to 1925
Marion Barry Campaign Oral History Project (DC)
DC Statehood Constitutional Convention Papers
Washington Metrorail Oral History Project
Georgia
Atlanta
African American communities offers pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, photographs, maps and ephemera.
Voices Across the Color Line (Atlanta, Ga)
Illinois
African American communities offers pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, photographs, maps and ephemera.
Chicago Public Library Digital Collections
Chicago Imagebase (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection documents ethnic art traditions in over ethnic communities in Chicago.
Government Maps of Chicago in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s
University of Chicago collections
- Chicago Committee of Fifteen. Records, 1909-1927 (26 v.) Also known as Manuscript Codex 1028, documents investigation of Chicago crime, focusing on prostitution and the illegal alcohol sales. Includes notes from on-scene investigations, summaries of court records and newspaper clippings.
- Chicago in the 1890s sheet maps
- Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s the view from the Chicago School (the Social Science Research Committee maps) Documents University of Chicago research on Chicago itself which played a major role in establishing urban studies as an academic enterprise.
- Chicago 1900-1914 Maps
- Chicago Urban League Photos.
- The Chicagoan (1926-1934) offers views of the Chicago literary, cultural, artistic, athletic and social milieu.
- Government maps of Chicago in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s document role of municipal government in planning.
- Hart, Schaffner and Marx Labor Agreement. Records, 1919-1920 documents the unsuccessful nineteen-week strike of workers in the Chicago men’s clothing industry in 1910.
- Hyde Park Center. Collection, 1910-1917. The Hyde Park Center was an independent welfare organization providing services to children and youth in the neighborhood.
- Planning Maps of Midwestern Cities in the 1920s and 1930s. Largely zoning or land-use maps.
- Social Scientists Map Chicago offers maps emanating from scholarly studies of Chicago between the 1920s and the middle of the 20th century.
- World's Columbian Exposition. Records, 1891-1895 includes photographs, newspaper clippings, reports, guides, and visitor memorabilia.
Indiana
U.S. Steel Gary Works Photograph Collection offers over 2,200 photographs of the Gary Works steel mill and the corporate town of Gary, Indiana
Louisiana
Kim Lacy Rogers Civil Rights Oral History Collection
Louisiana Division/City Archives Photograph Collection includes thousands of photographic prints, negatives, slides, and born-digital images from individual photographers and New Orleans municipal government agencies.
Louisiana Digital Library largely photos and drawings
Treme Oral History Collection Treme is an African American section of New Orleans
Maryland
Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth
Baltimore Regional Studies Archive
University of Baltimore Digitized Archival Collections
Massachusetts
Boston Public Library's flickr photostream.
Boston (City) Departmental Reports
Boston's Latinx Community History
Historical Urban Atlases of Boston @ the BPL
Boston Public Schools Desegregation Project
Boston Public Schools, Re-Writing History: The Boston Busing Crisis
Boston Redevelopment Authority Collection offers maps and plans
Boston Schools Desegregation Papers (UMass)
Boston Citywide Coordinating Council Records
Boston Asian American Community History
Citywide Coordinating Council records: A court-created autonomous body that overseeing desegregation in Boston Public Schools (1975-1978).
Lower Roxbury Oral History Project
Mississippi
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive Hattiesburg (Note Hattiesburg under places in left hand column)
Missouri
St. Louis
African American communities offers pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, photographs, maps and ephemera.
New Jersey
Beyond Steel: An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry and Culture (mid-19th century- ) offers letters, books, photographs, maps, essays, and oral histories.
New York
Bronx
Bronx African American History Project Collections
Before the fires: an oral history of African American life in the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s
Brooklyn
Brooklyn Public Library oral histories
- AIDS/Brooklyn Oral History Project collection, 1992-1993
- Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation oral histories, 2007-2008
- Brooklyn Heights Synagogue oral histories, 2010
- Brooklyn Navy Yard oral histories, 2006-2011
- Brooklyn Navy Yard oral history collection, 1987-1989
- Crossing Borders, Bridging Generations oral history collection, 2011 –2014
- Crown Heights History Project collection, 1993-1994
- Hispanic Communities Documentation Project records and oral histories, 1986-1991
- Listen to This: Crown Heights Oral History collection, 2010
- Muslims in Brooklyn, 2018
- New Neighbors: Sunset Park’s Chinese Community records, 1992-1996
- Patricia Carino Pasick collection of Johnson Street Filipino-American oral histories, 2004-2014
- Puerto Rican Oral History Project records, 1973-1975
- Sarita Daftary-Steel collection of East New York oral histories, 2014-2015
- Voices of Brooklyn oral histories, 2006 – present
- Voices of Crown Heights, 2016-2017
- West Indian Carnival Documentation Project records, 1994-1995
Guides
New York City: Research and History: Researching NYC
Direct Me NYC 1786: A History of City Directories in the United States and New York City, .
Digital Collections
The Living City is a digital library initiative intended to capture the experience of life, health, and urban transformation during the decades between the end of the Civil War and the end of World War I in New York City.
New-York Historical Society Digital Collections
National Archives at New York City
NYC Municipal Archives Collections
New York City Municipal Archives Digital Galleries
NYC Records & Information Services: Historical Records
Gotham Center for Nne York City History
Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York
Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century documents art exhibitions of small galleries, society clubs and associations. Includes Ephemeral exhibition checklists, pamphlets and catalogs.
Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3
The Living City: New York City Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health includes annotated timeline of public health issues and events, and a database of historical documents relating to public health.
Metropolis: New York City Water and Transit Infrastructure in Photographs
New York Transit Museum Digital Collections offers resources on public transportation systems in the NY metropolitan region
Lehman Papers: Special Correspondence Series offers papers of New York Governor and U.S. Senator Herbert H. Lehman, 1878-1963.
Notable New Yorkers offers audio recordings of oral history interviews from Columbia Libraries' Oral History Research Office.
Collections about New York City (NYPL)
Examination Days: The New York African Free School Collection. The New York African Free School was opened in 1787 by the N Y Manumission Society. It was absorbed into the New York City Public School system in 1835.
La Guardia and Wagner Archives includes material on the NY Housing Authority
Real Estate Record and Builders Guide
Rochester
Rochester Black Freedom Struggle Online Project.
African American communities offers pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, photographs, maps and ephemera.
North Carolina
African American communities offers pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, oral histories, photographs, maps and ephemera. Covers several cities and towns.
Greensboro VOICES: 125 oral interviews, Greensboro Public Library and University Archives of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Civil Rights Oral History for Greensboro
Ohio
Urban Studies Resources: Cincinnati
Columbus African American Collection includes newspapers, photos, pamphlets, directories, etc.
Oklahoma
Tulsa Race Riot Collection offers 1,327 documents and images from state government agencies on the investigation into the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Includes eyewitness testimony, letters and telegrams, and police reports. Also documents vice conditions, such as prostitution, gambling, and illegal drink.
Pennsylvania
Beyond Steel: An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry and Culture (mid-19th century- ) offers letters, books, photographs, maps, essays, and oral histories.
Philadelphia Neighborhoods: Histories, Plans, and Futures
Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network (1600s- )includes maps, property atlases, city directories, industrial site surveys, and other items
Philadelphia Historical Digital Image Library
PLACES IN TIME: Historical Documentation of Place in Greater Philadelphia username: citiesclasses pwd: student2018
Civil Rights in a Northern City: Philadelphia
Philadelphia Historical Digital Image Library (Thomas Jefferson University and The Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
Tennessee
Memphis and the Mid-South collections include Crossroads to Freedom (Memphis) About the collections.
Virginia
Race & Place: An African American Community in the Jim Crow South Charlottesville,Virginia
Washington
WTO Seattle Collection. The protests depicted in this collection took place between November 29, 1999 and December 3, 1999, when the World Trade Organization (WTO)
Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
Wisconsin
March on Milwaukee. Civil Rights History Project. (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries)
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Digital Collections include several on Milwaukee