Law and Capitalism: More Free Historical Primary Sources

Catherwood Library

• Cornell University Library states: "The Martin P. Catherwood Library, School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, is the most comprehensive resource of its type in North America. Its collection of 200,000 books, journals, pamphlets and related materials supports education and research in nearly every aspect of the workplace."
• Includes:
  • Collective Bargaining Agreements - NYS Public Employment Relations Board
  • Collective Bargaining Agreements - U.S. Department of Labor
  • Retail and Education Collective Bargaining Agreements - U.S. Department of Labor
  • Key Workplace Documents focusing on the employer/employee relationship (government documents, statistics and policy papers)

Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives

• Cornell University Library states Kheel Center's "continuing purpose is the preservation of original source materials relevant to the history of American labor unions, management theory as it applies to labor and industrial relations, and the history of employees at the workplace."
• Provides browsing by: Subcommunities and Collections; Issue Date: Author; Title; Subject; and Type.

Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire

• Cornell University states: "This site includes original sources on the fire held at the ILR School's Kheel Center, an archive of historical material on labor and industrial relations."

Harvard Library's keyword search feature to search "all documents available through the Harvard Library Viewer."

Harvard LIbrary CURIOSity Digital Collections (arranged by subject)

Includes collection:

Worlds of Change

• Harvard Library describes this searchable collection as: "more than 700,000 digitized pages of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th- and 18th-century North America."

• Includes12 essays by Arcadia Fellows Alicia DeMaio, Alexi Garrett, Matthew Gin, and Theresa McCulla to provide additional context for this collection.  Example:

  • Female Laborers at Harvard

• Browse Worlds of Change collection material by categories: Women; The Sea; Maps; Families; Science; and Law.

• Worlds of Change main screen provides a search box. 

  • Run a search (example: women and work and Massachusetts)

    • Use post-search filters (examples: Creator/Contributor, Date, Language, Subject, Place, Collection) to narrow results.

Harvard Library also provides tools How to Use Harvard Library's Special Collections and Archives and HOLLIS [catalog] for Archival Discovery.

Business and Labor History: Primary Sources at the Library of Congress (guide)

• Many collections of personal papers and records of companies/organizations described in this guide are only available in the U.S. Library of Congress.
• The guide includes many digital finding aids.
• The guide links to some digital collections.  Example:
  • American Federation of Labor Records (1883-1925)

Library of Congress: Chronicling America: Historical American Newspapers + new beta site 

• Provides historic American newspaper pages from 1770-1963.
• Tip: Use Topics in Chronicling America Research Guides, including Guides by Subject (examples of guides: American Enterprise and American Industrialization and Development).

Library of Congress: Digital Collections are grouped by topic.  

• African American History includes these collections:
  • African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Rare Book Collection
  • Born in [Enslavement]: Narratives [of Formerly Enslaved People] from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
    • More than 2,300 first-person accounts of enslavement and 500 photographs.
  • Civil Rights History Project
  • Frederick Douglass Newspapers, 1847-1874
  • Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
  • Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs
  • [Enslaved People] and the Courts, 1740-1860
    • 105 books and manuscripts of the Library of Congress
  • Voices Remembering [Enslavement]: Freed People Tell Their Stories
• American History includes:
  • Papers of many former U.S. presidents
  • Benjamin Franklin Papers
  • A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774 to 1875
  • Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789  
• Social and Business History includes:
  • Business in America Web Archive
  • Eugene Meyer Papers
  • Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904
  • National Child Labor Committee Collection
• Women's History includes:
  • Papers of Anna E. Dickinson, Betty Herndon Maury, Carrie Chapman Catt, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Church Terrell and Susan B. Anthony.
  • Women's and Gender Studies Web Archive (July 2018-)

LLMC Digital Open Access Collection (select free sources).

• Categorizes these open-access sources under headings: U.S. Federal Government, U.S. States and Territories, United Kingdom, Other Countries (= Denmark, Mexico, Spain, and Vatican City), Indigenous Law, and Special Focus Collections (= British Empire Studies, Drew Days III Archive, Early State Records, General Works, Historic Jurisdictions and Military Law Collection).
• Includes The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800 and historic U.S. state constitutions, laws and some agency reports.

In the blog post Anniversary of Wall Street (Mar. 10, 2023), Michael Lorenzini wrote: "The [New York City] Municipal Archives plans to add new content to New Amsterdam Stories by 2024 describing colonization from the perspectives of the original Munsee Lenape inhabitants and enslaved peoples to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Dutch settlement on Manhattan. These long overdue stories were originally planned when the website was launched, but the relocation of our offsite collections and COVID disrupted these plans."