Presidential Research

A wealth of help in navigating our rich resources.

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This gateway to the Library of Congress’s resources of digitized American historical materials contains more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture. Presidential material includes the Coolidge Era, the Abraham Lincoln Papers, and U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875.

This site from the Library of Congress contains America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1943. The U.S. Newspaper Directory located here contains information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. OCR bulk downloads are available from 1836-1922 for text mining.

From 1992 to the present, this collection consists of the Weekly Compilation and the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, the official publications of materials released by the White House Press Secretary. Published by the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and NARA and includes proclamations, executive orders, speeches and White House announcements.

The official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began in 1873 and continues to present day. 1873-2001 and 2005-2009 are available digitally.

These guides provide links to Digital Resources across LOC’s website and external sites. The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a large selection of primary source materials associated with the presidents of the United States, including manuscripts, letters, broadsides, government documents, prints, photographs, sheet music, sound recordings, and films. Research Guides are currently available through the Carter Administration.

Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. Photographic portfolios are also available. Currently, FDsys contains the Public Papers for Presidents George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama’s Papers are available for bulk download by year.

The National Archives, through its National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), entered into a cooperative agreement with The University of Virginia Press to create this site in 2010. This partnership allows historical documents of the Founders of the United States. This archive contains over 178,000 searchable documents, fully annotated including records from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

The 14 official Presidential Libraries managed by the Office of Presidential Libraries, which resides within NARA, are archives and museums. These libraries consolidate documents and artifacts of a President and his administration for the public and research community. Digital exhibits are updated often and are excellent sources for primary resources. One can search within each library or across all presidential libraries.

Basic contact information for current and past presidents

The leading source of presidential documents on the internet, APP’s archives contain 128,879 documents and is growing rapidly. Hosted at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been a collaboration between John T. Woolley (UCSB) and Gerhard Peters (Citrus College) since 1999. APP is the only online resource that has the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, the Public Papers of the Presidents, the Weekly and Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, plus an extensive archives, consolidated, coded, and organized into a single searchable database.

A digital library of documents relating to law, history and diplomacy from Yale Law School’s Lillian Goldman Law Library contains Presidential Papers from eight administrations. The project includes static text and links to supporting documents. The site has full search facilities and a facility to electronically compare the text of two documents.

Founded by historian and journalist Allan Nevins in 1948. With over 10,000 interviews, the CCOH Archives is one of the largest oral history collections in the United States. The Columbia Center for Oral History Archives is housed at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library in Butler Library. Collections include the Eisenhower Administration Project and the John F. Kennedy Project.

Digital Collections from the Washington Library include original manuscripts, letterpress copies, and retained copies or handwritten drafts from Washington's secretaries. The black and white images come from microfilms of the manuscripts. Additionally, the collections include letters to and from George Washington; letters from members of his family, household, and staff; and reports from Mount Vernon farm managers. Washington's annotated copy of the U.S. Constitution is also here.

The well-known Presidency Collection includes biographies, presidential speeches, presidential oral histories, Secret White House tapes with a redesigned website in 2017.

A paid subscription, this interdisciplinary journal focuses on the American presidency. PSQ is published by Wiley-Blackwell for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, D.C. PSQ is an indispensable resource for understanding the U.S. Presidency with articles, features, review essays, and book reviews covering presidential decision making and the operations of the White House. Worth noting is that researchers can search the journal archive by President.

Material in the CIA’s Electronic Reading Room ranges from the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the CIA's Internal Investigation of the Bay of Pigs and many historical collections. Searching by collection at the bottom of the site page gives you the most comprehensive overview of content.

This site includes Chief FOIA Officer Reports, FOIA Logs, and records searchable by country or keywords such as Detainee Recidivism Reports and Medical Records.

The collections can be searched by selecting their title and may also be searched by using the Virtual Reading Room Documents Search tool. The documents within each collection are included in the number of total searchable documents. Secretary Clinton Emails, the Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala Declassification Projects, Henry Kissinger Telephone Transcripts can be located here.

Search by Administration or search collections including Department of State Telegrams,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States and Pre-1861 Resources.

Official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Search within the volumes from Truman-Reagan; see also a list of all pre-Truman volumes.

This site shows recently posted FOIA requests and commonly requested documents such as Digitized FBI Files and the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Assassination Records Collection. Frequently requested records such as Census records and Federal Prison Records are available here.

Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars, the National Security Archive’s holdings now total 8-10 million pages of declassified documents. The Archive's holdings start in 1945, with the beginning of the Cold War, to the present. Electronic Briefing Books covering topics in U.S. foreign policy ranging from Cuba, North Korea and NATO Expansion are excellent research resources. Sourcebooks are also available by subject with relevant declassified documents. The Digital National Security Archive (DNSA) is a paid ProQuest subscription within the site.

Resources available through the Office of the HIstorian at the Department of State.

News broadcasts and news specials of ABC, CBS, and NBC since 1968, adding coverage from CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera America, and MSNBC

Presidential campaign commercials from 1952-2016.