The Changed Nature of Historical Studies

Like most areas of human intellectual endeavor, the study of history has undergone radical transformation with digitization and online access. More information has become available to more people; at the same time, records not selected for digitization risk oblivion in the digital age.

For records that are available, digitization has changed how history is practiced. Keyword searchable indexes and databases make it possible to locate in a matter minutes items that would have formerly taken days or weeks to find. Keyword searches also make possible the quantification of textual interpretation by allowing historians to perform word-frequency and word-usage analyses in addition to interpreting the texts at hand.

These technical advances therefore open new possibilities at the same time they impose new challenges. Historical research can now be done with greater ease, but there is a concomitant responsibility to greater diligence in researching a given topic.

The digitized primary sources listed on this page are only a partial listing of what's out there, but they are basic to the study of American history in the digital age, regardless of one's subfield.

 


Historical Statistical Abstracts

Historical Census Data

The University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser

Historical Bulletins of the National Bureau of Economic Research

Making of America Project at Cornell

Records of the Union and Confederate Armies

Making of America Project at Michigan

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School

American Memory at the Library of Congress

A Century of Lawmaking at the Library of Congress

Documenting the American South at UNC

University of Virginia American Studies Hypertexts

Project Gutenberg

America’s Historical Newspapers (available through Drew subscription)