HIST 301: The Historian’s Craft: Reading, Research and Writing History

U.S. Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers (Archive of Americana)

U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Readex) and American State Papers  (Readex) include hundreds of thousands of legislative and executive agency publications. The University Library's subscription to both of these is part of Readex Corporation's Archive of Americana; it offers full text and a variety of ways to search these two very important collections. Select the appropriate collection for the time period of interest. Information about each of these collections is given below.

American State Papers, 1789-1838

American State Papers is a collection of legislative and executive documents from 1780-1838, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994, 1995-present

The Readex U.S. Congressional Serial Set digital collection includes the Serial Set in full-text format for 1817-1994. The database includes a Help page with tips for more effective searching.

For access to the U.S. Congressional Serials Set information from 1995 to present, use the U.S. Government Printing Office's Congressional Documents and Congressional Reports, both of which can be combined and searched using the FDsys Advanced Search.

The University Library also has print and microform holdings of various volumes of the Serial Set.

Some federal agencies are digitizing a number of their older publications to provide easier access. A few examples of such online collections are:

• U.S. Census Bureau has a Census Bureau Publications page offering (among others):
  • Statistical Abstract of the United States, published annually, 1878-2012. (Note: due to federal government budget cuts, the U.S. Census Bureau ceased compilation of the Statistical Abstract with the 2012 edition.) The link to Statistical Abstract: Earlier Editions also leads to the compilation entitled Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. This Bicentennial edition was published by the Census Bureau. The more recent Historical Statistics of the United States (Millennial Edition, CSUN subscription) was commercially published.
  • U.S. Census Bureau Catalog and Guide offers indexes, lists and descriptions of Census Bureau publications from 1790-1998.
  • Census of Population and Housing data has PDF versions of decennial census reports from 1790-present, including Census Bulletins and many other separate publications. (Most, but not all, decennial census published reports have been digitized thus far. The library also owns many of these decennial census reports in paper copy (search in the Library Catalog) and/or in the microfilm collection cataloged as United States decennial census publications, 1790-1960 : [microfilm edition] [microform] / Research Publications, if the decennial census titles of interest have not yet been digitized).
• Government Accountability Office offers all GAO reports since 1978 and selected earlier reports. Search by keyword or Browse by topic or date.
• Vital Statistics of the United States (National Center for Health Statistics). Annual reports that present detailed vital statistics data, including natality, mortality, marriage and divorce from 1890-present.

Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects (maintained by the U.S. Government Printing Office) lists digitization projects (usually done by libraries, government agencies, museums, and other non-profit institutions) that include U.S. Government publications. Browsing is by topic category or alphabetically by title; either provides an overview of the types of digital projects involved, an impressive and ever-expanding list covering a wide variety of subjects. Several of the more useful projects for history students include:

• Foreign Relations of the United States series (1861- ), the official historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and diplomatic activity for which the documents have been declassified and edited for publication. This University of Wisconsin digital project includes all years of the series that have been published. The State Department also has the most recently released volumes of Foreign Relations of the United States available on its website.
• Public Papers of the President of the United States: (University of Michigan). It includes volumes covering 1929-2000, the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. (Note the Public Papers of the President from FDsys includes more recent volumes of this series). Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. The University Library also has the Public Papers in hardcopy format, 1929-present.
• Children's Bureau Historical Publications, 1912-1969 (Maternal and Child Health Library, Georgetown University).
• Historical publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights (Thurgood Marshall Law Library, University of Maryland Law School)
• Historic Government Publications from World War II (Publications distributed through the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) from 1939 to 1945. Covers all facets of the war, from military campaigns abroad to activities along the home front.)
• Publications of the Women's Bureau (The publications digitized for FRASER, the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research, which pertain to women's role in the economy.)

Unpublished Federal Records and Archival Collections Online

• U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. While most material in the National Archive's collections is not available in digital format, an increasing number of guides to the collection are available online and there are very interesting full text collections online. Examples include:
  • 100 Milestone Documents
  • Access to Archival Databases. These online resources can be browsed by topic or time period.
  • 100 historical films from the National Archives, including a number of World War II newsreels, are available online via a cooperative project with Google. the University Library has cataloged these; search in the Library Catalog under title for "NARA streaming videos". This will lead you to records like:
    United States. National Archives Records Administration. (1969). The Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11.  The click "View It"
  • Online Exhibits
  • Audiovisual Records. Many of the catalogs of audiovisual records include online images of the photographs and pictures listed. The catalogs are generally organized by topics, such as Pictures of Indians in the United States, Photographs of the American West, 1861-1912, and Pictures of the Civil War.
• Digital National Security Archives (University Library subscription). A collection of declassified documents considered pertinent to U.S. policy decisions.
• FBI Vault. Formerly known as the FBI Electronic Reading Room, the site contains digitized copies of FBI files about specific people or organizations that are of interest to the public and have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. Examples of categories of reports include:
  • Civil Rights.
  • Anti-War Movement.
  • Organized Crime.
  • Unexplained Phenomenon.
  • Political Figures/Events.
• General Land Office records (Bureau of Land Management). Information on the initial transfer of land titles from the Federal government to individuals.
• Army Heritage Collection Online. Use the tabs to access the Digital Documents Online portion of this website which includes manuscripts, photographs, images of artifacts, and digitized publications.
• American Memory (Library of Congress). This large collection of materials, digitized from the Library of Congress' print and manuscript collections, includes some government documents. Examples of government records/documents/publications in American Memory are:
  • Government, Law Collections
  • Journals of the Continental Congress
  • Papers of and other materials about various Presidents (including the Library of Congress' collection of papers from presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln).
  • A Century of Lawmaking For a New Nation, U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875, which includes early congressional debates and documents.