Digital Collections

The Manuscript Division continues to digitize materials, in cooperation with the Library’s digitization initiative, to help users gain access to important historical documents and collections of high research value. Manuscript Division materials in the collections listed below are available as digital images and are accompanied by descriptive information and related articles and essays written by Division specialists.

Manuscript Division collections that have been digitized are also available on the Library’s main digital collections page where researchers can refine the list of collections by topic, Library division, or format (on the left-hand side). Limited keyword searching is also available (at the top of the page). 

Please note that only a few of our collections have been transcribed, but the Manuscript Division continues to participate in the ongoing efforts of the By The People transcription program.

For additional assistance with digital collections, users are still encouraged to reach out to reference staff through Ask A Librarian.

  •
    Collection
    Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress The papers of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), lawyer, representative from Illinois, and sixteenth president of the United States, contain approximately 40,550 documents dating from 1774 to 1948, although most of the collection spans from the 1850s through Lincoln’s presidency (1861-1865). Roughly half of the collection, more than 20,000 documents, comprising 62,000 images, as well as transcriptions of approximately 10,000 documents, is online. Included on this…
    • Contributor: Lincoln, Abraham

    Collection Items: View 20,206 Items

  • Collection
    Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress The collection contains over 145,000 items. The online version contains 4,695 items (equaling about 51,500 images), consists of correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell's invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the education of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research. Dates span from 1862 to 1939,…
    • Contributor: Fairchild, Marian - Bell, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard - Hubbard, Gardiner G. (Gardiner Greene) - Bell, Alexander Melville - Bell, Alexander Graham
    • Date: 1862

    Collection Items: View 4,715 Items

  • Collection
    Alexander Hamilton Papers The papers of Alexander Hamilton (ca. 1757-1804), first treasury secretary of the United States, consist of his personal and public correspondence, drafts of his writings (although not his Federalist essays), and correspondence among members of the Hamilton and Schuyler families. The collection, consisting of approximately 12,000 items dating from 1708 to 1917, documents Hamilton's impoverished Caribbean boyhood (scantily); events in the lives of his…
    • Contributor: First Church in Albany - Hamilton, Alexander

    Collection Items: View 882 Items

  • Collection
    Alexander Hamilton Stephens Papers The papers of Alexander Hamilton Stephens (1812-1883), lawyer, journalist, governor of Georgia, member of both houses of the United States Congress, and vice president of the Confederate States of America, span the years 1784-1886, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1850-1883. The collection consists primarily of correspondence, supplemented by an autobiography and journal and miscellaneous memoranda, legal documents, and clippings.…
    • Contributor: Stephens, Alexander H. (Alexander Hamilton)

    Collection Items: View 124 Items

  • Collection
    American Colony in Jerusalem, 1870-2006 The papers of the American Colony in Jerusalem, a non-denominational utopian Christian community, consist of approximately 16,600 items, spanning the years 1786-2007, of which about three-fourths of the materials (50,288 images) have been digitized and presented on this site. The American Colony was founded in 1881 by a small group of American expatriates and their associates in Ottoman Palestine. The collective community expanded greatly…
    • Contributor: American Colony (Jerusalem) - Vester, Bertha Spafford - Spafford, Anna T. - Spafford, Horatio Gates
    • Date: 1870

    Collection Items: View 536 Items

  • Collection
    American Federation of Labor Records The records of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) span the years 1883-1925 and consist of letterpress volumes of correspondence of Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) and William Green (1870-1952), presidents of the organization, and by other officials including James Duncan, Gabriel Edmonston, Frank Keyes Foster, and John McBride. Comprising approximately 172,300 items (328,445 images) digitized from previously produced microfilm, the collection relates to the formation…
    • Contributor: American Federation of Labor

    Collection Items: View 359 Items

  • Collection
    American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents vary in form from…
    • Contributor: Federal Writers' Project - United States. Work Projects Administration - Writers' Program (U.S.) - United States. Works Progress Administration
    • Date: 1936

    Collection Items: View 2,838 Items

  • Collection
    Andrew Jackson Papers The Andrew Jackson Papers is one of twenty-three presidential collections in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Jackson archival collection contains more than 26,000 items dating from 1767 to 1874. Included are memoranda, journals, speeches, military records, land deeds, and miscellaneous printed matter, as well as correspondence reflecting Jackson’s personal life and career as a politician, military officer, president, slave holder…
    • Contributor: Jackson, Andrew
    • Date: 1767

    Collection Items: View 17,171 Items

  • Collection
    Andrew Johnson Papers The papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items (63,710 images), most of which were digitized from 55 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1783-1947, with the bulk dating 1865-1869, the collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, messages and speeches, courts-martial and…
    • Contributor: Moore, William G. (William George) - Johnson, Andrew

    Collection Items: View 98 Items

  • Collection
    Anna E. Dickinson Papers The papers of lecturer, reformer, actress, and author Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) span the period 1859-1951, but are chiefly concentrated in the years from 1859 to 1911. The collection consists of approximately 10,000 items (20,221 images), most of which were digitized from 25 microfilm reels. Included are family correspondence, general correspondence, speeches and writings, a legal file, financial papers, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and research…
    • Contributor: Dickinson, Anna E. (Anna Elizabeth)

    Collection Items: View 404 Items

  • Collection
    Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton Papers The seven volumes of diaries and notebooks, 1793-1861, of Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton (ca.1775-1865) document her position at the center of a Washington, D.C., social circle that included George and Martha Washington, James and Dolley Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Margaret Bayard Smith, and the cabinet members, congressmen, and diplomats who constituted the city's entwined social and political worlds. Thornton was the daughter of Ann Brodeau,…
    • Contributor: Thornton, Anna Maria Brodeau

    Collection Items: View 12 Items

  • Collection
    Associated Press News Dispatches, 1915-1930 The collection of news dispatches of the Washington, D.C., Bureau of the Associated Press spans the period 1915-1930 and consists of 375 volumes (387,082 images), housed in 254 boxes, the contents of which provide an unbroken chronology of world and national events as reported by the news agency.
    • Contributor: Associated Press. Washington Bureau

    Collection Items: View 380 Items

  • Collection
    The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands This online collection contains digitized items from the Library of Congress collection that was originally made available as The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands/De Atlantische Wereld: Amerika en Nederland digital library project, as part of the Global Gateways initiative.

    Collection Items: View 82 Items

  • Collection
    Benajah Jay Antrim Journals The journals (5 items; 517 images) of Benajah Jay Antrim (1819-1903), a chemist, photographer, mathematical instrument maker, and artist, are comprised of three volumes of handwritten diary entries and two complementary volumes of pencil or pen-and-ink drawings and watercolor images of his February-April 1849 journey from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to San Francisco, California, through Mexico. The collection was purchased by the Library of Congress in…
    • Contributor: Antrim, Benajah Jay

    Collection Items: View 11 Items

  • Collection
    Benjamin Franklin Papers The papers of statesman, publisher, scientist, and diplomat Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) consist of approximately 8,000 items spanning the years 1726 to 1907, with most dating from the 1770s and 1780s. The collection's principal strength is its documentation of Franklin's diplomatic roles as a colonial representative in London (1757-1762 and 1764-1775) and France (1776-1785), where he sought to win recognition and funding from European countries…
    • Contributor: Oswald, Richard - United States. Legation (France) - Franklin, William Temple - Franklin, Benjamin

    Collection Items: View 41 Items

  • Collection
    Benjamin Harrison Papers The papers of U.S. senator from Indiana and U.S. Army officer Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), who became the twenty-third president of the United States, consist of 69,600 items (178,479 images), most of which were digitized from 151 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1780 to 1948, with the bulk dating from 1853 to 1901, the collection contains correspondence, speeches, articles, notebooks in shorthand,…
    • Contributor: Harrison, Benjamin

    Collection Items: View 189 Items

  • Collection
    Betty Herndon Maury Maury Papers The papers of diarist Betty Herndon Maury Maury (1835-1903) consist of a diary kept by Maury from June 3, 1861, to February 18, 1863. The two-volume diary was scanned from one reel of microfilm. Maury wrote the diary primarily in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and it contains detailed comments on the progress of the American Civil War, especially in the local area; contributions by women to…
    • Contributor: Maury, Betty Herndon Maury
    • Date: 1861

    Collection Items: View 7 Items

  • Collection
    Blackwell Family Papers The Blackwell Family Papers span the years 1759-1960, with the bulk of the material dating from 1845 to 1890. Consisting of approximately 29,000 items (58,002 images), most of which were digitized from 76 reels of microfilm, the collection predominantly represents two generations of the Blackwell family and twenty individual family members. Nearly two centuries of the family’s daily lives are documented in correspondence, diaries,…
    • Contributor: Blackwell, Antoinette Louisa Brown - Blackwell, H. B. (Henry Browne) - Blackwell, Emily - Blackwell, Alice Stone - Blackwell, Elizabeth - Library of Congress. Manuscript Division - Stone, Lucy - Blackwell, Kitty Barry

    Collection Items: View 2,313 Items

  • Collection
    Blair Family Papers The papers of the Blair family, a prominent nineteenth-century political family, consist of 19,100 items (48,166 images) most of which were digitized from 49 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1744-1968, with the bulk dating from 1829 to 1892, the collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, speeches, lectures, writings, legal files, financial records, military records, biographical and genealogical material, printed matter, photographs, and…
    • Contributor: Blair, Woodbury - Clapp, Charles Q. - Blair, Francis Preston - Woodbury, Levi - Stevens, Samuel - Blair, Frank P., (Francis Preston) - Blair, Gist - Blair, Montgomery

    Collection Items: View 602 Items

  • Collection
    Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited…
    • Contributor: Federal Writers' Project - Library of Congress. Manuscript Division - Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress. National Digital Library Program
    • Date: 2001

    Collection Items: View 603 Items

  • Collection
    Branch Rickey Papers The approximately 1,750 baseball scouting reports from the 1950s and 1960s presented here are part of the papers of Branch Rickey (1881-1965), best known as the executive who broke Major League Baseball's color line by signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers roster in 1947. By that date, however, Rickey had already built an impressive career as a player, manager, and baseball executive, which…
    • Contributor: Rickey, Branch

    Collection Items: View 38 Items

  • Collection
    By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's rookie season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. When he stepped onto Ebbets field on April 15th, 1947, Robinson became the first African American in the twentieth century to play baseball in the major leagues -- breaking the "color line," a segregation practice dating to the nineteenth century. Jackie Robinson was an extremely talented multi-sport athlete and a…
    • Contributor: Library of Congress. Manuscript Division - Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress. National Digital Library Program
    • Date: 1998

    Collection Items: View 77 Items

  • Collection
    C. Hart Merriam Papers The digitized portion (244 folders; ca. 1,500 items; 21,297 images) of the papers (5,000 items) of naturalist, mammalogist, ornithologist, and ethnographer C. Hart Merriam (1855-1942) relates almost entirely to his efforts to collect vocabularies of California Indians and other Native American language families from Indigenous knowledge bearers between circa 1902 and 1936. The content falls into three major types of materials:
    • Contributor: Merriam, C. Hart (Clinton Hart)

    Collection Items: View 249 Items

  • Collection
    Calvin Coolidge Papers The papers of John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), thirtieth president of the United States, consist of approximately 179,000 documents (222,732 images), which have been digitized from 190 reels of previously reproduced microfilm. Held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, these papers constitute the largest collection of original Coolidge documents in the world. The collection contains incoming correspondence with attachments, notes, carbon copies of outgoing…
    • Contributor: Coolidge, Calvin

    Collection Items: View 250 Items

  • Collection
    Carrie Chapman Catt Papers The papers of suffragist, political strategist, and pacifist Carrie Lane Chapman Catt (1859-1947) span the years 1848-1950, with the bulk of the material dating from 1890 to 1920. The collection consists of approximately 9,500 items (11,851 images), most of which were digitized from 18 microfilm reels. Included are diaries, correspondence, speeches and articles, subject files, and miscellaneous items, including photographs and printed matter. The…
    • Contributor: Catt, Carrie Chapman - Library of Congress. Manuscript Division

    Collection Items: View 573 Items

  • Collection
    Charles S. Hamlin Papers The digitized portion (8,096 items; 17,808 images) of the papers of lawyer, politician, assistant secretary of the treasury, and governor of the Federal Reserve Board Charles S. Hamlin (1861-1938) includes diaries (1887-1937), diary indexes (1887-1937), and miscellany (1894-1939) relating principally to the formation and early history of the Federal Reserve System and Hamlin's service as a governor and first chairman of the Federal Reserve…
    • Contributor: Hamlin, Huybertie Pruyn - Hamlin, Anna - Hamlin, Charles S. (Charles Sumner) - Robles, Sebastian T. (Sebastian Tomas)

    Collection Items: View 209 Items

  • Collection
    Charles Wellington Reed Papers, 1776 to 1926 The papers of Civil War soldier and artist Charles Wellington Reed (1841-1926) span the years 1776-1926, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1862-1865, when he served with the Ninth Independent Battery, Massachusetts Light Artillery. The collection includes approximately seven hundred sketches previously bound in two volumes and correspondence relating primarily to the Civil War. Other items consist of articles, citations…
    • Contributor: Reed, Charles Wellington
    • Date: 1776

    Collection Items: View 36 Items

  • Collection
    Charles William Le Gendre Papers This selection of the first five containers (1,760 items; 4,774 images) of the papers of army officer and diplomat Charles William Le Gendre (1830-1899) spans the years 1866-1893, but is concentrated in two periods, 1866-1875 and 1891-1892. The materials consist of correspondence, memoranda, dispatches, reports, Chinese and Japanese documents, and other papers relating chiefly to Le Gendre’s diplomatic career in the American foreign service…
    • Contributor: Le Gendre, Charles William

    Collection Items: View 62 Items

  • Collection
    Chester Alan Arthur Papers The papers of Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1886), who became the twenty-first president of the United States in 1881 after James A. Garfield’s assassination, consist of 4,400 items (7,675 images), most of which were digitized from 10 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1843-1960, with the bulk dating from 1870 to 1888, the collection contains correspondence, financial papers, scrapbooks, clippings, and other papers…
    • Contributor: Arthur, Chester Alan

    Collection Items: View 103 Items

  • Collection
    Civil War Soldier in the Wild Cat Regiment: Selections from the Tilton C. Reynolds Papers Comprising 164 items (359 digital images), this online presentation includes correspondence, photographs, and other materials dating between 1861 and 1865 documenting the Civil War experience of Captain Tilton C. Reynolds, a member of the 105th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. The letters feature details of the regiment's movements, accounts of military engagements, and descriptions of the daily life of soldiers and their views of the…
    • Contributor: Reynolds, Tilton C. - Reynolds, Juliana Smith
    • Date: 1851

    Collection Items: View 174 Items

  • Collection
    Clara Barton Papers The papers of nurse, educator, philanthropist, and lecturer Clara Barton (1821-1912) consist of 62,000 items (81,608 images), most of which were digitized from 123 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1805-1958, with the bulk dating from 1861 to 1912, the collection contains correspondence, diaries and journals, reports, addresses, legal and financial papers, organizational records, lectures, writings, scrapbooks, biographical material, printed matter, memorabilia,…
    • Contributor: Hubbell, Julian B. (Julian Bertine) - Barton, Clara
    • Date: 1805

    Collection Items: View 975 Items

  • Collection
    Confederate States of America Records The records of the Confederate States of America span the years 1854-1889, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1861-1865, during the Civil War in America. The collection relates to the formation of the government of the Confederacy and the conduct of its internal, external, and military affairs. With few exceptions, the collection consists of official or semiofficial records generated by…
    • Contributor: Confederate States of America. War Department - Confederate States of America. Department of the Treasury - Confederate States of America. Department of Justice - Confederate States of America. Navy - Wadsworth, James Wolcott - Confederate States of America - Confederate States of America. Army of Tennessee - Confederate States of America. Post-Office Department - Confederate States of America. Department of State

    Collection Items: View 89 Items

  • Collection
    Donald Benham Civil War Collection The Donald Benham Civil War Collection consists of 300 items (576 images) in one container, and spans the years 1806 to 1916, with the bulk dating from 1850 to 1870. The collection consists of correspondence, financial and legal records, military orders and records, speeches, and miscellaneous items comprising Civil War material amassed by collector Donald Benham.
    • Contributor: Benham, Donald

    Collection Items: View 15 Items

  • Collection
    E. B. Washburne Papers The papers of United States representative from Illinois, diplomat, lawyer, and historian E. B. (Elihu Benjamin) Washburne (1816-1887) consist of 37,000 items in 144 containers. The material spans the years 1829-1915, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1852 to 1882. Bound volumes of letters received by Washburne constitute the largest part of the collection and relate to Washburne's career as a member…
    • Contributor: Washburne, E. B. (Elihu Benjamin)

    Collection Items: View 169 Items

  • Collection
    East Florida Papers This collection consists primarily of the records (65,000 items; 190,918 images) of the Spanish colonial government of East Florida from 1784, when Spain regained the colony from Great Britain according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris External, which settled the Revolutionary War, until 1821, when Spain ceded Florida to the United States after the Adams-Onís Treaty External of 1819. Some records dating…

    Collection Items: View 480 Items

  • Collection
    Edward F. Edinger Papers The papers (3,100 items; 10,077 images) of leading Jungian analyst Edward F. Edinger (1922-1998) span the years 1550 (photostatic copy of an alchemical treatise) to 2016, with the bulk of the material dating from 1951 to 1998. Reproduced from the originals donated to the Manuscript Division in 2016-2021, the collection illustrates Edinger’s ability to explain C. G. Jung's ideas and concepts in a simple…
    • Contributor: Edinger, Edward F.

    Collection Items: View 154 Items

  • Collection
    Edwin McMasters Stanton Papers, 1818-1921 The papers of lawyer and Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton (1814-1869) span the years 1818-1921, with the bulk of the material originating between 1862 and 1870. They consist of approximately 7,650 items, most digitally scanned from 14 microfilm reels. The papers focus chiefly on Stanton's tenure as secretary of war under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson and stress his role in the…
    • Contributor: Stanton, Edwin M. (Edwin McMasters)

    Collection Items: View 56 Items

  • Collection
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers The papers of suffragist, reformer, and feminist theorist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) cover the years 1814 to 1946, with most of the material concentrated between 1840 and 1902. Consisting of approximately 1,000 items (4,164 images), reproduced on five reels of recently digitized microfilm, the collection contains correspondence, speeches, articles, drafts of books, scrapbooks, and printed matter relating to Stanton and the woman's rights movement.…
    • Contributor: Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

    Collection Items: View 169 Items

  • Collection
    Eugene Meyer Papers The subject files, 1929-1959, of investment banker, financier, public official, and newspaperman Eugene Meyer (1875-1959) relating to his tenure as fifth chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, 1930-1933, consist of correspondence, memoranda, minutes of meetings, copies of congressional legislation, printed material, and other papers (2,134 items; 4,269 images). They represent a part of a larger collection of Meyer's papers available to researchers in the…
    • Contributor: Meyer, Eugene

    Collection Items: View 56 Items

  • Collection
    Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond A thematic collection exploring changing models of the universe through time, ideas of life on other words and Carl Sagan’s place in the tradition of science. It features manuscripts, rare books, celestial atlases, newspaper articles, sheet music and movie posters.
    • Contributor: Druyan, Ann - Sagan, Carl - Macfarlane, Seth
    • Date: 1495

    Collection Items: View 352 Items