Primary and historical sources

  • American Periodicals: Digitized images of the pages of 1000 American magazines and journals published between 1741 and 1805. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, the first American professional journals, and several consumer magazines still in publication, such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal.

  • Archives of Sexuality and Gender: Digital books on historical and social topics related to sexuality and gender, covering the 16th through 20th centuries.

  • Boston's LGBTQIA History: A collection of materials from the Northeastern University Special Collections & Archives illustrating a diverse range of individuals, activism, and networks in the Boston LGBTQA community from the 1970s onwards.

  • Children's Literature and Childhood: Primary sources related to the experience of childhood in Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century.

  • Digital Transgender Archive: Online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings relating to trans history.

  • Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive: US and UK trade magazines (1880-2000) covering the vaudeville era to the internet era. Includes Billboard, Variety, Broadcasting, Melody Maker and more.

  • LGBT Magazine Archive: Full text of 26 magazines, chiefly from the US, covering LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) interests. Covers more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community.

  • North American Women's Letters and Diaries: A full-text primary source database that includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.

  • Women at Work During World War II (Rosie the Riveter and the Women's Army Corps): Consists of the records of the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Correspondence of the Director of the Women's Army Corps.

  • Women's Rights Collections 1880-1990 in ProQuest History Vault: Primary source materials that tell the story of the women and voting rights and reproductive rights at national, regional and local levels.

  • Women Working, 1800-1930: Digital exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression.  Women Working is part of the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program.

  • Women Writers Online: Women Writers Online is a full-text collection of early women’s writing in English, published by the Women Writers Project at Northeastern University. It includes full transcriptions of texts published between 1526 and 1850, focusing on materials that are rare or inaccessible.

Archives and Special Collections

Northeastern University's Archives and Special Locations are located on the lower floor of Snell Library, and are open to the public as well as members of the Northeastern community. Our archives collect materials on the history of Northeastern University, the surrounding neighborhoods, and Boston and the New England area, with a particular focus on materials related to the history of social justice and underrepresented groups in Boston.

The Archives' digitized resources are curated collections of browsable media from a range of organizations and groups. Users may also search for or browse materials in the Archives by finding aid, or using the Archives and Special Collections Research Guide.

For help using the Archives, to set up an appointment or to make a request for a particular material, contact the Archives and Special Collections Staff.