History Commons

This is a collection of magazine, newspaper and book content reaching back to the 1600s. The content has been processed and structured to make it easy to cite and search, resulting in a much more accessible collection. These are the collections available:

• African American Newspapers
  • The Liberator
  • National Anti-Slavery Standard
• African American Newspapers in the South
• American County Histories
• American Inventor
• The Civil War Collection
• Colonial Newspapers
  • South Carolina Newspapers
  • The Pennsylvania Gazette
  • The Virginia Gazette
• Frank Leslie’s Weekly
• Women's Magazines and Newspapers
  • Godey’s Lady’s Book
  • The Woman’s Tribune
• World War I: Military Camp Newspapers

There are also subset collections:

• Anatomy of Protest in America
• Native Americans in History
• Quarantine and Disease Control in America

The resource also includes these freely available collections:

• Twelve Years A Slave
• The Pennsylvania Genealogical Catalogue
• Reconstruction of Southern States: Pamphlets
• Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
• History of Woman Suffrage 

Content can be search by keyword in the full text, title, author or book publisher, and can be combined with Boolean operators. Limiters include publication type, publication date and publication title. You can also view specific collections (listed above) or browse the entire archive by publication title.

Laurier Library has provided access to this since January 2020. In September 2024, all content moved to the History Commons platform.