The American Revolution is part of our ongoing series Sources in U.S. History Online. Consisting of 450 titles totaling 94,000 pages of text, this digital collection has been selected and edited by Professor Katherine Hermes of Central Connecticut State University.
This digital archive documents the revolution and war that created the United States of America, from the earliest protests in 1765 through the peace treaty of 1783. The collection examines the political, social, and intellectual upheaval of the age, as well as the actual war for American independence through its eight long years of conflict. The archive focuses on a diversity of issues through a wealth of original documentary material; allowing the reader to examine economics and international relations, contemporary religion and science, and the strategies and battlefield realities of combatants on both sides of the conflict. The experiences of commanders and common soldiers, women and slaves, Indians and Loyalists are all recorded in this collection, providing a richer sense of the causes and consequences of one of the great turning points in human history. Drawn from the Sabin collection and other Gale sources, the archive provides access to a wide variety of documents: personal narratives and memoirs, political pamphlets and speeches, sermons and poems, legislative journals and popular magazines.
There are several ways to find materials in this archive. You can click on the large illustrations on the opening page to explore documents relevant to the Boston Massacre, military recruitment, Abigail Adams, and the surrender at Yorktown, among other topics. You can also click on the thumbnails at the bottom of the page to access the contents via topics identified by the collection's editor. Here you will find introductory essays providing historical context and educational structure, as well as links to the documents. Alternatively, you can go directly to the key subjects and link to the documents from there.
This archive aims to be as user-friendly and accessible as possible. You can browse the entire collection organized by subjects, authors, and titles. To locate documents in the collection most relevant to a specific research assignment or personal interest, you can also search by keyword, subject, author, title or full-text. This collection makes it possible to research the American Revolution easily and conveniently from your own computer, allowing for an individual evaluation of the formative years in the history of the United States.