| Archives and Special Collections Catalog |
Use this catalog to search the records and finding aids of the Archives, Special Collections, and Visual Resource collections. |
Mount Vernon Open Access |
| Digital Collections from the Washington Library |
These digital collections are selected from among the resources of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, and from other staff resources at George Washington's Mount Vernon. |
Mount Vernon Open Access |
| The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington |
The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington provides concise articles exploring numerous aspects of George Washington's world. |
Mount Vernon
Open Access |
| Mount Vernon Museum Collections |
The Museum collection includes paintings, prints, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metals, glass, textiles, tools, clothing, and personal accessories owned by or related to George and Martha Washington and their family, as well as period pieces similar to original Mount Vernon objects. |
Mount Vernon
Open Access |
| Slavery Database |
An online database about the enslaved community at Mount Vernon. Complements the current museum exhibit, "Lives Bound Together." Search by person, skill, or event. |
Mount Vernon
Open Access |
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open access databases |
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| American Archives, Documents of the American Revolutionary Period |
Northern Illinois University Library collection of digitized documents covering a wide range of aspects concerning the American Revolution from military operations to ideological arguments and minority experiences. |
Open Access |
| Colonial North American Project at Harvard University |
When complete, the project will make available to the world digitized images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America. |
Open Access |
| Dance Figures Index: American Country Dances, 1730-1810 |
This database is a is a guide to the basic figures in all American printed and manuscript longways country dances in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century sources. It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
| Dance Figures Index: English Country Dances, 1650-1833 |
This database is a guide to the basic figures in major English printed longways country dances in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century sources. It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
| Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589-1839: An Index |
This is a series of indexes derived from a data base of musical information compiled from primary sources covering the 250 years of the initial exploration and settlement of the United States. It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
| Early American Songsters, 1734-1820: An Index |
This database is an index of all of known songsters currently available based on Irving Lowens' Bibliography of Songster Printed in America Before 1821 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1976). It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
| Financial Papers of George Washington |
The George Washington Financial Papers Project (GWFPP) is an innovative digital documentary editing project that makes GW's business and household accounts freely accessible in a digital edition using an open-source editorial platform. |
Open Access |
| Founders Online |
This database contains manuscript material related to George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. |
Open Access |
| George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress |
The George Washington Papers collection in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress constitute the largest collection of original Washington papers in the world. It consists of approximately 77,000 items accumulated by Washington between 1745 and 1799, including correspondence, diaries, and financial and military records. This database has the nearly complete collection scanned and available for free. |
Open Access |
| Hathi Trust |
Partnership of research institutions and libraries that makes available in a digital format public domain books and pamphlets within their collections. |
Open Access |
| Internet Archive |
Digital multimedia collection of public domain works. Includes copies of print works, video, and audio resources. Also allows limited exploration of archived websites from around the Internet. |
Open Access |
| Maryland Gazette |
Digitized issues of the Maryland Gazette, hosted by the Maryland State Archives. The Maryland State Archives owns two microfilm collections containing images of the Maryland Gazette Collection from 1745-1839. |
Open Access |
| Naval Documents of the American Revolution |
A growing collection of correspondence and other documents related to the naval aspect of the American Revolution. |
Open Access |
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O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law, & Family
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This site documents the challenge to slavery and the quest for freedom in early Washington, D.C., by collecting, digitizing, making accessible, and analyzing freedom suits filed between 1800 and 1862, as well as tracing the multigenerational family networks they reveal. |
Open Access |
| Project Gutenberg |
Database of free ebooks; available in HMTL, EPUB, Kindle, and plain text formats. Growing collection of public domain works. |
Open Access |
| The Dancing Master, 1651-1728: An Illustrated Compendium |
This digital publication is a compilation of all of the dances, tunes and songs contained in The Dancing Master, from 1651–1728. It includes indexes for all of the editions, and a graphic image for each "unique" dance, with its printed music and dance instructions, 186 tunes without dances and three songs. It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
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The Performing Arts in Early American Newspapers, 1690-1783
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This publication fills a major gap in access to eighteenth-century American sources for research in the performing arts and related humanities fields. It
includes all references to music, poetry (lyrics), dance, and theatre in American newspapers, from the 1690-1783. It is hosted by the Country Dance and Song Library. |
Open Access |
| Virginia Gazette |
Digitized issues of the Virginia Gazette begin with William Parks' earliest known issue (September 10, 1736) and terminate with Clarkson & Davis' last issue printed in Williamsburg (December 9, 1780), hosted through Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. |
Open Access |
| WorldCat |
A searchable database of the collections of over 70,000 libraries around the world. |
Open Access |
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subscription databases |
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| American Book Prices Current |
An annual record of books, manuscripts, autographs, maps and broadsides sold at auction. Useful of confirming the title, format, date of publication, edition, and limitations of printed materials. |
Subscription |
| American Founding Era Rotunda Collection |
Published through the University of Virginia Press, Rotunda's American Founding Era Collection contains the papers of John and Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley Madison, James Madison, John Marshall, the Diaries of Gouverneur Morris, the Pinckney-Statesman Papers, Eliza Lucas and Harriott Pinckney papers, and the Papers of George Washington. |
Subscription |
| American History, 1493-1945 (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History) |
Over 50,000 primary source documents, including correspondence, diaries, government documents, business records, books, pamphlets, newspapers, broadsides, photographs, artwork and maps. Manuscripts about and by Tobias Lear, George Washington, and Martha Washington are especially useful in this collection. |
Subscription |
| America's Historical Imprints |
Searchable books, pamphlets, broadsides and other scarce printed material of American history, literature, culture and daily life. (1639-1819). |
Subscription |
| America's Historical Newspapers |
Searchable American newspapers from two series: American newspapers 1690-1900 and Caribbean newspapers 1718-1876. |
Subscription |
| Ancestry Library |
Ancestry Library Edition contains census data, vital records, directories, photos, and more. Inside the more than 7,000 available databases from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. |
Subscription |
| ARTstor |
Search and browse the over 1.5 million images in the ARTstor Digital Library. A useful database for visual and decorative arts. |
Subscription |
| The Chicago Manual of Style |
Completely searchable full contents of the 16th and 15th editions. Provides recommendations on editorial style and publishing practices compatible with the needs of the digital age. |
Subscription |
| Dolley Madison Digital Edition |
A work in progress to be the first-ever complete edition of all of Dolley Payne Madison’s known correspondence. As of January 2015 it is complete through 1845, with a total of 2035 documents. Transcribed letters are easily searchable by topic, date, location, or content. |
Subscription |
| Early English Books Online |
Database of English language works published from 1473-1700. |
Subscription |
| Eighteenth Century Collections Online |
Eighteenth Century Collections Online contains more than 180,000 titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800. The majority of significant English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas included. |
Subscription |
| Fold3 |
This database contains significant amounts of military history material from the U.S. National Archives and War Department. Invaluable for researching military service records, unit histories, pension claims, and prize claims. |
Subscription |
| House and Senate Journals, Series I, 1789-1817 |
This collection contains the Journals of the House of Representatives and Senate 1789 to 1817, covering the first 14 Congresses of the United States. |
Subscription |
| Invaluable |
The world’s largest online auction marketplace of fine and decorative arts, antiques, collectibles, and estate sales. Useful for material culture research. |
Subscription |
| Journal of Architectural Conservation |
Features policy, practice and science papers on historic buildings, monuments and places. Includes recent case studies and construction techniques. 1995-present |
Subscription |
| Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts |
This journal provides scholarly research that highlights pre-1860 decorative arts in the Southern United States. |
Subscription |
| JSTOR |
JSTOR digitizes millions of pages of scholarly journals for searchable access. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, The William and Mary Quarterly, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, and The Journal of American Studies are especially useful. |
Subscription |
| Oxford American National Biography Online |
The Oxford American National Biography online database explores the individuals that have shaped the history of the United States. |
Subscription |
| Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography explores the individuals that have shaped the history of the British Isles. |
Subscription |
The Papers of George Washington, Digital Edition
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While on-site, use the link to explore the complete version, including scholarly notes. While off-site, please enjoy the special guest edition, which provides the same content, without the scholarly notes. These have been prepared especially for the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Learning Center at the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center at Mount Vernon. |
Subscription |
| Prices4Antiques |
Prices4Antiques is a database of auction sales and contains descriptions and photographs of the items. Useful for researching material culture topics. |
Subscription |
| Project Muse |
Database of digitized books and academic journals exploring a wide range of humanities topics. |
Subscription |
| Readex AllSearch |
This weblink allows researchers to search across three of Readex’s databases, America's Historical Imprints, America's Historical Newspapers, and House and Senate Journals, Series I. |
Subscription |
| Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive |
This historical archive encourages the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual and global way. Explore 1.9 million cross-searchable pages: 7289 books, 79 serials, 16 manuscript collections, 377 Supreme Court records and briefs and 194 reference articles from Macmillan, Charles Scribner's Sons and Gale encyclopedias. |
Subscription |
