Research Guides: War & Society: American Revolution

Primary Source Materials

A Guide to the American Revolution, 1763-1783
Guide to the digital collections of the Library of Congress relating to the American Revolution. Includes papers of the Continental Congress, statesmen, travel narratives, rare books, and the Rochambeau Map Collection.
Avalon Project - The American Revolution
The Avalon Project is maintained by the Lillian Goldman Law Library of the Yale Law School. This page contains digital documents in chronological order from 1764-1783.

Early American orderly books, 1748-1817
Call Number: STROZIER LIBRARY Micromaterials Film 8952
Guide: STROZIER LIBRARY Micro Z 6724 H6 R4
Orderly Books were the controlling document of day-to-day military life. Included are thousands of pages of primary source material providing valuable information about soldiers' lives.

Naval Documents of the American Revolution
More than 16,000 pages contain the authentic words of actors in the drama of the Revolution, through diaries, letters, petitions, and ships' logs, as well as muster rolls, orders, official reports, and newspaper accounts. The collection includes American, British, French, and Spanish points of view and gives voice to common seamen, civilians, women, and slaves as well as policy makers, political leaders, and naval and military officers.
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12 vols. Published by the Naval Historical Center and Naval History and Heritage Command.

Hessian documents of the American Revolution, 1776-1783
Call Number: STROZIER LIBRARY Micromaterials -- Mif1282
Guide: STROZIER LIBRARY Micro E268.M64 1989
Transcripts and translations consisting largely of official reports, journals, order books, troop returns and correspondence provide detailed documentation of the military campaign of the Revolutionary War and the life and times of the German troops serving in North America.
American Rebellion: entry books (WO 36), 1773- 1783 by Public Record Office
Call Number: STROZIER LIBRARY Micromaterials Film 9260
Contains extracts of orders given to the British Army in America during the American Revolution.

History Commons This link opens in a new window
Formerly Accessible Archives, History Commons provides diverse primary sources from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century, reflecting broad views across American history and culture, including African American life, Women’s Suffrage, American County Histories, Colonial America, the Civil War, America in World War I, and much more. The databases allow access to the rich store of materials—eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, and commerce as seen through advertisements—from over 200 years of leading books, newspapers, and periodicals then current.
Abbreviation: aacarc
Vendor: Coherent Digital
Subjects: African-American Studies, History, Women's and Gender Studies
Type: Newspapers and Newswires
Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new window
The Burney Collection Newspapers is a full-text, fully searchable digital archive of nearly 1,270 17th and 18th century newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom. Collected by the Reverend Charles Burney, this unique collection represents the largest single archive of 17th and 18th century news media available from the British Library. In addition, there are approximately three hundred "newsbooks." Circulated during the Civil War and the Commonwealth, newsbooks were small, cheap weekly pamphlets of current news, the precursors to modern newspapers, Finally, the collection also includes almost three hundred pamphlets and broadsides. The 17th–18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers chronicles a critical period in the political history of Great Britain and as well as the early history of journalism in the English-speaking world.
Abbreviation: bcn
Vendor: Gale
Coverage: 1603–1788
Subjects: History
Type: Historical / Primary Sources, Newspapers and Newswires
Early American Imprints, Series I, Evans (1639–1800) This link opens in a new window
Based on the renowned American Bibliography by Charles Evans. The definitive resource for every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, witchcraft, and just about any other topic imaginable. Contains over 36,000 imprints and more than 2.5 million images.
Abbreviation: evans
Vendor: NewsBank
Coverage: 1639–1800
Subjects: History, Literature
Type: E-Book Collections, Historical / Primary Sources
Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Eighteenth Century Collections Online is based on The English Short Title Catalogue, a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private and public libraries worldwide. This includes over 150,000 English-language titles and editions published between 1701–1800. This online collection is divided into seven subject areas: history and geography; social science and fine arts; medicine, science and technology; literature and language; religion and philosophy; law; and reference. Part II expands the collection with an emphasis on literature, social science, and religion.

FSU has access to parts one and two.
Abbreviation: 18thcen
Vendor: Gale
Coverage: 1701–1800
Subjects: History, Literature
Type: E-Book Collections, Historical / Primary Sources