InfoGuides: American History Sources 1600s-1820s: Find Primary Source Books and Imprints

Library Catalogs

Mason Library Catalog
Search for print and electronic books, films, music and more.
WRLC Catalog
Search the Washington Research Library schools book collections for titles not owned by Mason.
Center for Research Libraries
The University Libraries is a member of The Center for Research Libraries (CRL). This international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries provides our scholars with deep and diverse collections including many foreign language and ethnic newspapers as well as many archival collections available via microfilm.

WorldCat This link opens in a new window
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Provides records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries, such as books, music, videos, microform, digital content, and medieval manuscripts. Tutorial for the WorldCat database.

To find books in a catalog, try searching for your keywords and one of these LC Subject Headings for primary sources.

--correspondence; --description and travel; --interviews; --maps; --narratives; --collections; sources; --pictorial works; --diaries; --biography, --quotations; --discovery and exploration

Major Collections

America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
Broad range of books, pamphlets and broadsides printed during a century and a half of American life, spanning the early colonial, the formation of the new nation and the Early Republic. Rare and unique items from 17th, 18th, and early 19th century include sermons, religious tracts, political arguments, reports of organized bodies, doggerel ballads, advertisements, official decrees, news extras, and amateur elegies.
Tutorial for the America's Historical Imprints database.
American Theological Library Association (ATLA) Historical Monographs Collection: Series 1 This link opens in a new window
Collects titles from the 13th century through the 1893 World Parliament of Religions with the majority of titles from the 19th century. Covers diverse topics such as philosophy, the evolutionary debate, the Reformation, spiritualism, prayer, ancient linguistics, archaeology, devotionals, and ethics. Includes many volumes in Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages , documenting the recovery of languages used during the biblical era and provides an in-depth view of the way that biblical languages emerged during the nineteenth century.
Tutorial for the ATLA Historical Monographs Collection database.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
A collection of works printed in English now containing full-text images of 100,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) & the Early English Tract Supplement. EEBO covers many subjects including English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, & science.
Tutorial for the Early English Books Online database.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Collects over 136,000 titles (155,000 volumes) and 9,000 legal treatises tracing the development of law in the British Empire, covering Anglo-American law and legal practice during the 18th century. Includes many publications summarizing the laws, explaining the court system, dramatizing past and pending cases, guiding attorneys, and theorizing and commenting on the application of legal standards. ECCO is based on the English Short Title Catalogue, and includes books, pamphlets, broadsides, and more. View a tutorial on this database here.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
A digital preservation repository and access platform for long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in-copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.
View a tutorial on this database here.
Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500–1926 This link opens in a new window
Contains primary sources about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Includes books, pamphlets, serials, and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions, and religious history. Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography.