Research Guides @ Fordham: Immigration: Finding Primary Sources

Open Primary Source Collections - General

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Provides a single search interface for discovering millions of digital materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country.
DocsTeach from the National Archives
Searching digitized primary sources from the U.S. National Archives.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Provides access to digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, films, audio recordings, newspapers, and more.

HathiTrust Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Partnership of major research institutions and libraries creating digital archive of library materials.

Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Digital collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.

New York Public Library Digital Collections
An open access database featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and more with new materials added frequently.

Additional Options

Helpful Databases Available with an NYPL card:

Image credit: "Immigrants landing at Castle Garden" via New York Public Library Digital Collections.

American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1-5 (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Digital collection of hisorical periodicals (magazines, newspapers, journals) from the colonial period to the early twentieth century.
American Periodicals (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 1,500 journals published between 1740 and 1940.
Accessible Archives (SEE History Commons 8/30/24)
Transcriptions of primary source materials from books, newspapers and periodicals with views of American history and culture during the 19th century.
Immigrations, Migrations and Refugees: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996 This link opens in a new window
Translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals, government documents and books providing global insight on immigration in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Image credit: "Caltilda Downes: Barbados Passport" via New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Bracero History Archive
Collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964 for Mexican agricultural workers.
DETAINED: Voices from the Migrant Incarceration System,
An oral history project archiving the narratives of asylum seekers formerly incarcerated in Arizona.
Center for Jewish History Digital Collections
This portal searches across 5 collections housed at the CJH. As you search, select the limiter under the heading Availability on the right panel for "Available Online."
Densho Archives
Contains primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration in the early 1900s through redress in the 1980s, with a strong focus on internment during World War II.
Online Archive of California
Provides access to primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions. Includes the Chinese in California 1850-1925 virtual collection plus images, organization records, and more.
South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)
Digitally documents, preserves, and shares stories of South Asian Americans.
Virginia Memory
Offers access to digital collections of the Library of Virginia.

Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index This link opens in a new window
Full text of The New York Times for 1851-2017.
Note: The digitized Index allows users to search on and view terms exactly as they appeared in the New York Times print index and newspaper articles.
America's Historical Newspapers, Early American Series 1-5 (1690-1922) This link opens in a new window
From Readex. Hundreds of newspapers chronicling the evolution of American history, culture and daily life from 1690-1922.
Historical Newspapers: Black Newspapers This link opens in a new window
More than 10 premier historical titles dating back to 1893.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Full text of ethnic and religious community newspapers, magazines, and journals since 1991.

Full List of Newspapers by Subscription at Fordham
Includes the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and more.

Bronx Italian American History Initiative
A community engaged research project at Fordham that studies the history of Italian and Italian American residents of the Bronx during the 20th century through oral histories.
Bronx African American Oral History Project
Founded at Fordham in the spring of 2002 in collaboration with the Bronx County Historical Society, the BAAHP has conducted over 300 full length interviews with African Americans who have lived and worked in the Bronx since the late 1930s. Includes interviews with immigrants.

Image credit: Cover of Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West (1917) via the California Historical Society/Online Archive of California.