Research Guides: HIST 478: Cold War Landscapes: Digital Collections and Websites

Recommended Digital Projects and Websites

Internet Archive
The Video section of Internet Archive has films produced by the government, newsreels, educational films, cartoons, and more. Content is provided by libraries, archives, and individuals.

Primary Resources on the Cold War
Contains links to many websites with primary sources selected by Margaret O'Mara, Miller Center, University of Virginia.
Nuclear Proliferation International History Project
The Woodrow Wilson Center's project "explores the international history of nuclear weapons and their proliferation using archival documents and oral history interviews from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Israel, India, South Africa, Sweden and more."
Nuclear Vault: Resources from the National Security Archive's Nuclear Documentation Project
Includes Electronic Briefing Books with declassified documents on nuclear weapons policy issues; photo gallery; key readings list; and links to related websites.
Voices of the Manhattan Project
Oral histories of Manhattan Project veterans and their families conducted by Atomic Heritage Foundation and the Los Alamos Historical Society.
Dear Professor Einstein
Contains letters and other materials from the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists Records at the Oregon State University.
Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog
Blog about nuclear secrecy, past and present, run by Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He posts essays, archival documents, and visuals. See the documents list and resources list.
Atomic History Blog
"Atomic History explores the acceptance of the atom and nuclear war through government publications and other documents published during the Cold War." Maintained by Susan Maret, School of Library and Information Science, San José State University. Note particularly the links along the right hand side, which go to sites with additional primary sources.

Finding Digitized Archival Collections

Search Google

Enter keywords for your topic, event, or person
Add search terms such as "archives," "digital," or "digitized"
Also try search terms related to the type of primary source you would like to find, such as "oral history," "transcript," "speech," etc.

Be sure to evaluate the sites you find, particularly who created the site in order to determine biases and what information might be included/excluded.

Search Williams WorldCat

Some libraries catalog their digitized archival collections in Williams WorldCat.

Search for your topic, event, or person
Look at the Format facet on the left, and choose "downloadable archival material," "computer file," "continually updated resource," or "website"

Note: some items will not be freely available or may just be collection finding aids.

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