Digital Collections

Use this page to explore select Library of Congress digital collections hosted on the Library of Congress website, as well as digitized content from the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH, a public media provider based in Boston.

We encourage you to explore the overview guides listed on the Research Guides page to gather more details about Library of Congress holdings related to Native peoples in specific formats and on certain topics.

Library of Congress Digital Collections

See below for links to select digital collections that relate to Indigenous communities of the Americas. Additional digital collections are available on the Library of Congress website. Digital content can also be explored through online exhibitions, through the search box on the Library of Congress homepage, and elsewhere on the Library of Congress website.

Ancestral Voices
This first presentation in the Ancestral Voices project is the result of a collaborative venture among the America Folklife Center, the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine, and the creators of TK Labels and Mukurtu CMS. Passamaquoddy elders have provided cultural narratives and added traditional knowledge about Passamaquoddy recordings, which were spoken in a French-influenced dialect of the Passamaquoddy language in 1890.
C. Hart Merriam Papers
The digitized portion of the papers 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.
Chronicling America
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Use this link to find digitized newspaper content specifically associated with Indigenous communities.
Edward S. Curtis Collection
The Edward S. Curtis Collection offers a unique glimpse into Curtis's work with Indigenous cultures. The more than 2,400 silver-gelatin photographic prints were acquired by the Library of Congress through copyright deposit from about 1900 through 1930.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft Papers
The digitized portion of the papers of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864), ethnologist, U.S. Indian Agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Michigan Territory and the state of Michigan, pertains primarily to his wife, Ojibwe poet and translator Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (Bamewawagezhikaquay) (1800-1842), the first Native American woman poet to receive major literary recognition in the United States, and heritage documentation created by her Ojibwe family.
Indigenous Law Web Archive
This is the Indigenous Law web archive of the Law Library of Congress. The Law Library collects and preserves primary law sources of Indigenous nations, which are sovereign governments by treaty with the United States.
J. Kislak Collection
The J. Kislak Collection includes more than 400 unique three-dimensional objects of pre-Columbian date, documenting the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
Living Nations, Living Words
This collection—part of Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s “Living Nations, Living Words” signature project—contains audio recordings of 47 contemporary Native American poets reading and discussing an original poem. Listen to Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Long Soldier, and other featured voices.
Native American Constitutions and Legal Materials
The Law Library of Congress holds most of the laws and constitutions from the early 19th century produced by the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole who were forced to leave the Southeast for the Indian Territory after passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Some of these documents are in the vernacular languages of the tribes. This collection includes 19th century items and those constitutions and charters drafted after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
Omaha Indian Music
Presented here are selections from the American Folklife Center's collections documenting Omaha music traditions.
The PALABRA Archive
Listen to audio recordings of prominent writers from Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, the Caribbean, and other regions with Luso-Hispanic heritage populations reading from their works at the Library of Congress. The PALABRA Indigenous Voices Project is a subset of the PALABRA Archive focused on oral and written poetry and literature in Indigenous languages.

American Archive of Public Broadcasting

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH, a public media provider based in Boston. The below links will take you to select digitized radio and television content.

KYUK radio station External
From the website: "KYUK is owned and operated by Bethel Broadcasting, Inc., a Native American run organization that is working to educate, stimulate, and inform; as well as provide cultural enrichment, entertainment, and opportunity for public access; and language maintenance for cultural survival."
Koahnic Broadcast Corporation External
From the website: "Koahnic Broadcast Corporation was created as a non-profit media corporation in 1992 by Alaska Native leaders to preserve culture and languages, combat widespread misconceptions and prejudices against Alaska Natives, and create cross-cultural bridges."
"Native Narratives: The Representation of Native Americans in Public Broadcasting" External
This online exhibit "explores how Native American peoples and cultures have been represented both in non-Native-produced and Native-created public broadcasting programs in the AAPB collection."
Vision Maker Media Documentaries Collection External
From the website: "The Vision Maker Media Documentaries Collection includes 40 documentary films featuring Native voices from Native producers, created between 1982 and 2012. These films, created by independent Native producers and broadcast on PBS, inspire people to look at the world through Indigenous eyes and encourage youth to embrace their rich culture as part of their identity."

Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress

General Inquiries: Ask a Librarian

Digital Collections

Library of Congress Digital Collections

American Archive of Public Broadcasting