This guide is an in-depth listing of European Studies resources available to students and faculty at the University of Minnesota.
Primary Source Databases for European Studies
Below is a list of some of main primary source databases for the study of Europe. For databases covering historical news, see Find News.
- 19th Century British PamphletsMore than 26,000 digitized pamphlets from collections in seven universities in the UK, covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of 19th century Britain. Also includes some periodicals from 17th and 18th centuries.
- AM Primary Sources for Teaching and ResearchAM (formerly Adam Matthew) publishes unique primary source collections from archives around the world. Collections span the social sciences and humanities and cover a multitude of topics ranging from Medieval family life and Victorian medicine to 1960s pop culture and global politics.
- Age of ExplorationExplore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.
- Archives DirectCollections sourced from The National Archives, Kew, the official archive of the United Kingdom. Containing diplomatic correspondence, letters, reports, surveys, material from newspapers, statistical analyses, published pamphlets, ephemera, military papers, profiles of prominent individuals, maps and many other types of document, it consists of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the British state’s point of view.
- Book Sales Catalogues OnlineBook Sales Catalogues Online (BSCO) offers a comprehensive bibliography of book sales catalogues printed in the Dutch Republic before 1801. A sophisticated search menu provides access to some 3,750 digital facsimiles from ca. 50 libraries across Europe.
- British Online ArchivesContains a wide range of materials related to British history from the early 1600s onward, including the colonization of America, India, Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia and Melanesia. The collection contains sources that relate to both politics and history, including colonial missionary records, slavery in the Americas, World War One, and shipping records. Primary sources include journals, correspondence, official records and personal papers.
- C19, the nineteenth century indexThe most comprehensive and dynamic source for discovering nineteenth-century books, journals, official documents, newspapers, and archives. Includes the Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals.
- Early European Books : printed sources to 1700Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through the close of the seventeenth century. The resource represents a diverse array of printed sources and opens the door to some of the Europe's most significant collections of early printed books.
- EEBO: Early English Books Online (Page Images)Over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).
- EEBO: Early English Books Online: TCP (Book Texts)Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership (EEBO TCP) contains searchable, marked-up text for over 60,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). EEBO TCP covers a subset of the titles available in Early English Books Online (Page Images).
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineSearch books from the Enlightenment period in Great Britain between 1701 and 1800 with over 180,000 English-language titles and editions printed in the United Kingdom and the Americas. It includes books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more.
- Electronic EnlightenmentEdited correspondence among the greatest thinkers and writers of early 17th to mid-19th century in Europe, the Americas, and Asia with their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers. Coverage includes letters and documents, document sources such as manuscripts and early printed editions, scholarly annotations, and links to biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and other online resources.
- EuroDocs: Online Sources for European HistoryPortal to open access primary historical documents for European countries that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. Texts, video, sound files, maps, photographs and other imagery, databases, and other documentation are also available. Coverage is from Prehistoric Europe to present day.
- EuropeanaSingle access point to millions of artworks, artefacts, books, films and music from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.
- European Sources OnlineFrom the Cardiff European Documentation Centre, European Sources Online (ESO) features primary and official sources, commentary and analyses, summaries and media reports, journal articles, blog posts, monographs and textbooks on matters related to Europe.
- GallicaDigital library of French and francophone culture maintained by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Contains numerous electronic texts, images, maps, animation, and sound files of French and other publications in history, literature, science, philosophy, law, economics, and political science.
- HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new windowHathiTrust provides access to millions of books and other materials. Full text searching of most books is available and books in the public domain (generally older books) can be freely viewed and/or downloaded. Books still in copyright have more limited access. Users with print-reading disabilities can apply for special access to digitized works by emailing wilsref@umn.edu.
- Iter ItalicumThe online edition of Paul Oskar Kristeller's list of previously uncataloged or incompletely cataloged Renaissance humanistic manuscripts.
- Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new windowContains the full-text digital images of thousands of books and pamphlets covering Anglo-American trials, from the beginning of the modern period to the early in twentieth century. In addition to works pertaining to English-speaking jurisdictions, English-language titles about trials in other jurisdictions such as France are included. Books encompassing multiple trials are included as well as books about a single trial. Browse feature (by author or title) and full-text search engine provided.
- Making of the Modern WorldUse this source to find primary sources and full text books from the 1460-1850 period with focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing.
- Mass Observation Online (British everyday lives, 1937 to mid-1950)Original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, photographs and interactive features created by recruiting a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers to study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain from 1937 until the mid-1950s.
- Medieval and Early Modern Studies Online (MEMSO)Search Medieval and Early Modern Studies Online (MEMSO) to find primary sources from the medieval and early modern periods and books concerning the study of medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland.
- Nineteenth Century Collections OnlineSearch primary source collections of the nineteenth century (1800s) with books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more. Topics include British politics, theater and music; European literature, Asian exploration, photography, and more.
- Olms Online: MesskatalogeDigitized versions of the Frankfurt and Leipzig book fair catalogs, which offer an overview of German book production over a period of nearly 300 years (1594-1860)
- Perdita Manuscripts (British Women Writings)Over 230 manuscripts written or compiled by women living in the British Isle during the 16th and 17th centuries. Contents include account books, advice, culinary writing, meditation, travel writing, and verse. Perdita manuscripts can be searched by name, place, genre, and first lines of both poetry and prose.
- Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandAccessible through the Wiley Digital Archives platform, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) Collection contains the organization's entire archives running from 1871 to 1967. The content includes manuscripts, photographs, maps, drawings, correspondence, expedition and fieldwork reports, papers, meeting minutes, administrative papers, surveys, conference papers, and more.
- Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International PropagandaThis collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
- U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new windowFind House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1660. Includes Records of proceedings, the Debates (Hansard), and the House of Commons journal; Sessional papers providing information to parliament on matters of policy and administration: Bills, House papers, and Command papers. Also includes the House of Lords presented to the Commons, such as reports prepared by Lords Select Committees.
- UMediaDiscover 161,819 images, maps, manuscripts, video, audio, and more. UMedia provides open access to digitized materials from across the University of Minnesota.
- Visual History ArchiveA fully streaming video collection of more than 55,000 primary source testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, including the Armenian Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Central African Republic Conflict, contemporary antisemitism, the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Guatemalan Genocide, and the Nanjing Massacre. Note: only available remotely to UMN users. See Visual History Archive Online (version for non-UMN users).
- All Primary Source DatabasesList of all primary source databases available to University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff.
Finding Primary Source Materials in Library Catalog
Additional resources can be found by searching the University of Minnesota Libraries' Catalog. Enter the term "sources" as a subject keyword and the keywords for the country, event or topic (e.g. "france" "revolution" su="sources") . More information
Last Updated: Feb 14, 2025 3:35 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/moreeuropean