Finding Primary Sources: Research Port

Research Port is the University of Maryland Libraries' portal to online databases and digital materials. This includes online newspapers. The list below is a sample of databases that contain primary source material in select subject areas.Many of these databases are only available to University of Maryland students, faculty, and staff.

Newspapers and Periodicals

The University of Maryland Libraries subscribes to a number of newspaper and periodical databases.

African American Newspapers (19th Century)
American Jewess, 1895-899
- The American Jewess (1895-899) was the first English-language periodical targeted to American Jewish women, covering an evocative range of topics that ranged from women's place in the synagogue to whether women should ride bicycles.
American Periodicals Series UM only
- Full text images of over 1,100 colonial and early American magazines and periodicals spanning from colonial times to the mid 20th century. Titles range from America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository, to popular magazines like Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal.
Baltimore Afro-American Historical Newspapers (1893-1988) UM only
Baltimore Sun (1990-) UM only
Baltimore Sun Historical (1837-1985) UM only
Burney Collection Newspapers (17th and 18th Centuries) UM only
- Part of the British Library Newspapers collection, 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers is a full-text, fully searchable digital archive of nearly 1,270 newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom.
Economist Historical Archive (1843-2006)
Foreign Newspapers Database UM only
Internet Library of Early Journals (18th and 19th Centuries)
New York Times Historical (1851-2001) UM only
Nineteenth Century Serials EditionsUM only
Palestine Post (1932-1950)
The Pennsylvania Gazette (1728-1800) UM only
Times Digital Archive (1785-1985) UM only
Wall Street Journal (1984-) UM only
Washington Post Historical (1877-1988) UM only

Primary Source Databases and Indexes

The databases and sources listed below were created by a variety of different organizations and represent a wide-range of types of primary sources, from statistical data to digital images.

Access to Archival Databases (National Archives and Records Administration)
- The AAD System provides online access to material from more than 30 series of electronic records at the National Archives, including biographical, geographical, and organizational records.
American Factfinder (U. S. Census Bureau)
- Population, Housing, Economic, and Geographic data from the Census Bureau. Also includes maps, statistics, fact sheets and other publications.
American Jewish Committee Online Archive
- Founded in 1906, in response to the Kishinev pogroms in Russia, the American Jewish Committee soon became a leader in combating bigotry and extremism, promoting civil rights and interreligious understanding, advocating for Jewish security worldwide, and defending the State of Israel. The Archive offers a rich, varied, and extensive collection of materials in print, on film, and tape, and The American Jewish Year Book, 1899-2005.
American Memory (Library of Congress)
- Gateway to primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States including text, photos, books and manuscripts, sheet music, and video and sound recordings.
Cold War Database (University of Maryland)
- Primary and secondary sources in print, online, microform, audio and video/film formats produced during, or about, the period in history known as the Cold War.
Compact Memory: Internetarchiv Juedischer Periodika
- Full text of selected German Jewish newspapers from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Core Docs of U. S. Democracy (Government Printing Office)
- Online access to authenticated versions of the basic federal government documents that define our democratic society, including the Federalist Papers, Articles of Confederation, and the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection (Congressional Quarterly Press)
- Full-text database of statistics, analyses, definitions, and historical material on the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships.
Digital National Security Archive (ProQuest)
- Primary resources central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. More than 43,000 declassified documents are included in the database.
Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 UM only
- Fire insurance maps are a core resource for documenting the development of neighborhoods over time. Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. They show lot numbers, square footage of lots, street addresses, and other data.
Early American Imprints (1639-1800) UM only
- Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans. The definitive resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America. Contains books, pamphlets, games, periodicals, etc.
Early English Books Online (1473-1700) UM only
- A searchable database of the full text of a significant portion of works in the EEBO collection. The Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership has proposed to create 25,000 searchable and readable editions that link
  immediately to the corresponding image files in EEBO
Early Modern Women Database
- The Early Modern Women Database provides links to Web resources useful for the study of women in early modern Europe and the Americas. It focuses on the period from ca. 1500 to ca. 1800 and includes links to Web sites about the Medieval period and 19th Century as well. Resources have been selected for their scholarly value by librarians of the University of Maryland Libraries. Materials range from bibliographic databases to full-text resources, images, and sound recordings. Most of the resources linked here are free. Some require a license for access.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (1701-1800) UM only
- One of seven subsets of the Eighteenth Century Collections Online, a digital archive, which when completed will comprise more than 150,000 multi-disciplinary works published in the United Kingdom and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. The History & Geography subset includes a vast amount of primary source materials including biographies, memoirs, genealogical collections, gazetteers, chronologies, military information, maps, church documents and more. The database allows for full-text searching of these publications.
Ethnic Newswatch
- Full-text bilingual (English/Spanish) database of 200 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press.
HeinOnline U.S. Presidential Library
- Full-text access to a wide variety of Presidential documents.
Historical Statistics of the United States
- Historical Statistics of the United States has long been the standard source for quantitative indicators of American history. Includes statistics from over 1000 sources.
In the First Person
- A searchable index of Web-based, English-language personal narratives, oral histories, diaries, letters, memoirs and autobiographies. This free resource is compiled by Alexander Street Press, and indexes more than 3,300 collections located in archives and repositories worldwide, with more than 300,000 individuals' voices in the collection--and it's still growing.
Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies
- JIIS is an independent, non-profit organization. It provides a constant flow of relevant, essential and accurate data, in-depth background material, policy papers and professional analysis for use by decision makers and the general public.
Literature Online (LION) UM only
- A full text collection of over 350,000 works of poetry, drama, and prose written in the English language from the 8th century to the present with complementary criticism and reference resources.
Making of Modern Law
- Full-text online archive of historical legal treatises from the United States and Great Britain. The collection covers nearly every aspect of law, encompassing a range of analytical, theoretical, and practical literature. Gift of Louis M. Riehl, University of Maryland School of Law Class of 1938.
Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
- The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography consists of citations to articles, books, and doctoral dissertations about various aspects of Maryland's history and culture, divided into a set of standard subject categories. The citations are gathered from scholarly journals, local and state history-related newsletters and magazines, subject indexes to monographs and journals, publishers' catalogs, and electronic databases, among other sources.
Russian Pamphlet from the Library of Congress, 1866-1949
- This online bibliography of approximately 4400 records is the only electronic record for the individual items in the collection. Within the bibliography the records are grouped by LC classification and then listed alphabetically within each class. Moreover, nearly all of the 438 records in class "B" (religion and philosophy) have links to digital versions.
Women Writers Online
- Full text of women's writings in English or in English translation from 1400 to 1850. Includes novels, poems, drama, and non-fiction.
World News Connection
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Reports online. Includes full-text summaries and translations from around the world of newspaper articles, conference proceedings, radio and television broadcasts, non-classified technical reports, and local media sources.