Digital Collections

The digital collections and online resources of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source and educational materials related to the local history for each U.S. state and territory.

Architecture and Historic Buildings

Part of the digitized image collections, these architectural and engineering records can be useful in researching local history and genealogy.

Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
The collection includes photographs, measured drawings, and written historical documentation on thousands of structures from about 1933 to the present. Search the collection to find the communities and buildings where your ancestors lived, worked, or visited. View the Place Index to look up entries posted for your community.

Bibliographies and Guides

These research guides provide additional digital and print state-specific resources.

City and Telephone Directories

City and telephone directories allow you to look for individuals, families, or businesses to view such details as: addresses, occupations, and household residents. Observed broadly, they will also provide a community perspective. The following resources provide an inventory of the city and telephone directories available at the Library of Congress.

Images Online

U.S. Telephone Directory Collection
The Library of Congress's online collection of telephone directories represents the following states and localities: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the city of Chicago. The dates of the directories span most of the 20th century. The Library's United States telephone directory collection consists of 8,327 digitized reels of microfilm; of these, about 3,500 are presented in this collection.

For a convenient list of the digitized directories:

Click on the Collection Items tab.
Scroll down the sidebar until you see Location. On that list, click More Locations.
On this page, you can select the option to organize the location list alphabetically.
Now you can navigate all cities included in the digital collection. Once you select the city of interest, you can use the Sort By box in the top-right corner to arrange the directories for that city by date.

Lists of Available Directories in Print and Microform

Directories By Address: Inventories of Library Collections
There are directories that organize alphabetically and there are directories that organize by street address. The Library has both types, but this guide is primarily an inventory of directory collections where the directories are organized by address.
United States: City and Telephone Directories
City and telephone directories are used to identify people and businesses from a specific time and place. This guide provides an index to the extensive collection of United States city and telephone directories available at the Library of Congress.

Maps

The following online map collections include maps and views of cities, counties, battlefields, transportation, and general geography. Explore each collection using the search box on the upper-right. Type in city or town names to view related items. Search all digitized map collections to find additional local and state geographical documentation of communities from the colonial era to present day.

Cities and Towns
These maps depict a range from individual buildings to panoramic views of large urban areas. They record the evolution of cities illustrating the development and nature of economic activities, educational and religious facilities, parks, street patterns and widths, and transportation systems.
Civil War Maps
Brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia.
Panoramic Maps
The panoramic map was a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known also as bird's-eye views, perspective maps, and aero views, panoramic maps are nonphotographic representations of cities portrayed as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. Although not generally drawn to scale, they show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective.
Railroad Maps, 1828-1900
Type the state name into the search box on the upper-right to reveal state-specific railroad maps that represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms.
Sanborn Maps
The Sanborn maps are arranged by state, then city and release data. The Sanborn Map Company, the best known of the U.S. fire-insurance map producers, has made maps since 1867. The fire insurance maps produced by Sanborn show building footprints, building material, height or number of stories, building use, lot lines, road widths and water facilities. The maps also show street names and property boundaries of the time. This collection of maps is historically significant as it is sometimes the best detailed map of a town or city dating from the mid 1800s.

Also see the Union List of Sanborn & Other Fire Insurance Maps External for the most comprehensive list of maps that are known to exist. The include maps at the Library of Congress as well as other repositories.

Narratives

Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, 1600 to 1925
The Capital and the Bay comprises first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs in an attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Washington, D.C., as the nation's capital, has had a powerful effect upon the whole of the region surrounding it. In the beginning, its regional impact was minor, for it was then the seat of government of a nation located on the fringe of the European world. However, rapid growth in the wealth, size, and population of the United States was reflected in the evolution of a small provincial capital into a burgeoning center of national and world politics.

Newspapers

Historic newspapers provide important content for historical and genealogical research.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Chronicling America contains millions of word-searchable newspaper pages from 1756-1963, covering the United States and Territories. The headlines, articles, and advertisements capture the life and times of the American people, shining new light on historic events as they unfolded. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries
Use the Directory of U.S. Newspapers to find information about American newspapers published from 1690-present.

To search the Directory, click the "Collection Item" tab and then choose "Advanced Search." Once you generate the search results, click on each entry to learn more. Go to the "Libraries That Have It" tab to discover which repositories house the archives.

Personal Papers of District of Columbia Residents

The Library's manuscript collections provide a wealth of research materials related to important individuals in state and local history.

Mary Church Terrell Papers
The papers of educator, lecturer, suffragist, and civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954), primarily focusing on Terrell's career as an advocate of women's rights and equal treatment of African Americans. The Terrell Papers reflect all phases of her public career. They show her as educator, lecturer, club woman, writer, and political campaigner. Among the issues she addressed were lynching and peonage conditions in the South, women's suffrage, voting rights, civil rights, educational programs for blacks, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Terrell was one of the founders in 1896 and the first president of the National Association of Colored Women. Among the groups featured in the Correspondence series in the papers are the National American Woman Suffrage Association, National Woman's Party, and International League for Peace and Freedom.

Prints and Photographs

The Library of Congress has digitized a wealth of unique and historical visual materials important when researching local and family history.

Search the digitized print and photographic collections to view images related to District of Columbia history, locations, events, and people.
To learn more about locating local and family history photographs, view the Library of Congress Using Local and Family History Photographs to Tell the Stories of Your Ancestors Research Guide.

The Teacher's Page

The resources on this site are designed for teachers of elementary through high school teachers and students.

Primary Source Set: District of Columbia
The extensive collections at the Library of Congress contain historic artifacts and cultural materials from across the U.S. This list is just a sample of the many District of Columbia resources available for free on the Library's Web site.

Today in History

These web pages highlight important events connected to particular dates in history.

April 16, 1862
On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an important step in the long road toward full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans.

Veteran's History Project

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects and preserves the remembrances of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them.

Veteran's History Project: District of Columbia

District of Columbia: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide

Local History & Genealogy: Ask a Librarian