History

Also includes materials related to constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.

Comprised of over 150,000 cases from the generation before the American Civil War to the decade of the Vietnam War and Watergate. It covers every aspect of law: civil rights law; constitutional law; corporate law; environmental law; gender law; labor law; legal history and legal theory; property law; taxation; trademark and intellectual property law, among other subjects.

Subject indexing allows researchers to assess specific cases and groups of cases. Users can also search by organization or personal names, including names of petitioners, respondents and attorneys. Amicus brief indexing allows researchers to retrieve all briefs submitted by a single organization or a Member of Congress. Pro and con positions are also noted.

Searchable and cross-searchable, full text collection of primary and secondary materials that include The Adams Papers, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, The Dolley Madison, The Papers of James Madison, The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry, The Papers of George Washington, The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, and Founders Early Access.

Also documents some of the most important Latino organizations of the time, including LULAC, TELACU, La Raza, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the American G.I. Forum.

Also includes materials related to constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.

Another key collection included consists of the records of the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). The SACB files constitute one of the most valuable resources for the study of left-wing radicalism during the 1950s and 1960s.

Also includes Forman’s involvement with the "Black Manifesto" and the Bureau’s "COINTELPRO" investigations into "Black Nationalist - Hate Groups / Internal Security," which include information on the activities of SNCC.  Forman acted as Executive Secretary of SNCC until 1966, arranging transportation, food, and housing for volunteers, and raising funds. From 1967-1969, Forman served as SNCC’s International Affairs Director and became involved with linking SNCC to the black power movement.  He authored a memoir, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, and founded the Unemployment and Poverty Action Committee (UPAC), a nonprofit social action organization, serving as its president from 1974-2003. 

Provides access to the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. The series, which is produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, began in 1861 and now comprises more than 450 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies.

Declassified Documents Reference Service provides searching and fulltext access to declassified U.S. government documents. Covering major international events from the Cold War to the Vietnam War and beyond, this single source enables users to locate key information underpinning studies in international relations, American studies, United States foreign and domestic policy studies, journalism and more.

Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia. In modern times, as well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through Afghanistan, temporarily establishing local control and often dominating Iran and northern India. Islam has played a key role in the formation of Afghanistan as well. Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade for over two millennia, Afghanistan did not become a truly independent nation until the twentieth century. In much of the twentieth century, Afghanistan remained neutral. It was not a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the U.S. vied for influence by building such infrastructure works as roads, airports, water and sewer systems, and hospitals. The U.S. State Department Central Classified Files are the definitive source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout the world in the twentieth century.

Beginning in 1946 with reports of the CIA’s predecessor, the Central Intelligence Group, CIA Research Reports reproduces over 1,500 reports on eight areas: Middle East; Soviet Union; Vietnam and Southeast Asia; China; Japan, Korea, and Asian security; Europe; Africa; and Latin America. This series deals with international questions and biographical reports, offering profiles of relatively unknown leaders. The Murphy Collection provides information on war recovery efforts, international aid, and the formation of countries and substantial information on the Chinese Communist Party.

The Africa files cover the brutal civil war between Biafra and Nigeria in the late 1960s, the 1964 Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela and seven leaders of the African National Congress, violent protest against the South African government coupled with police crackdowns on the resistance, the troubled relationship between the U.S. and the apartheid regime, and the first years of independence in Ghana and the Congo. The files on Egypt offer considerable detail on the Egyptian political structure which was dominated by Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s. Political issues are also covered in extensive detail in the files on Iran, Iraq, and Israel. Documents on Iran follow Ali Amin's tenure as prime minister and his succession by Asadollah Alam. In Israel, State Department personnel tracked developments in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), the political fortunes of important members of the Israeli government, and the fragile security situation faced by Israel.

Major topics covered in the China files include the tensions between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, the U.S.'s Two Chinas policy, and the Cultural Revolution in China. In Japan, State Department personnel reported on student demonstrations, the activities of Japanese political parties, the 1964 Olympics, negotiations regarding Japanese import and export restrictions, issues pertaining to the Japanese Self Defense Force, relations with South Korea, the possible reversion of Okinawa to Japan, diplomatic meetings, and the Japanese fishing industry. In the Vietnam files, documentation on agricultural commodities shipped to Vietnam as part of the Food for Peace program will give researchers a sense of agricultural prices, currency rates, and the food supply in Vietnam during the war. State Department records on Vietnam also cover relations between Buddhists and the government, and U.S. military intervention and military assistance in Vietnam. The records on Laos in this module focus on the political instability in Laos.

Some topics covered in these files include: incidents between U.S. and Soviet fishing boats in Alaskan waters; Cuban sugar industry; international reaction to the Bay of Pigs invasion; East-West tensions in Berlin, Germany; development aid from West Germany to developing nations; activities of the Organization of American States; settlement of the dispute over the Chamizal region in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua; salt content of the Colorado River waters delivered to Mexico; anti-American protests in Panama; American military aid to Latin American nations; and visits and meeting with Soviet leaders such as Nikita S. Khrushchvev, Aleksei Kosygin, Andrei Gromyko, Anastas Mikoyan, and others.

Includes files of the American ambassadors to India and Pakistan during this time, and thousands of official records on the conflict and competition between India and Pakistan during a key period in the Cold War era. Subjects covered: political parties and elections, unrest and revolution, human rights, government administration, fiscal and monetary issues, national defense, foreign policy-making, wars and alliances, religion, culture, trade, industry, natural resources, and more.

Independent India's first years were marked with turbulent events - partition, a massive exchange of population with Pakistan, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and the integration of over 500 princely states to form a united nation. This collection identifies the key issues, individuals, and events in the history of the Subcontinent between 1945 and 1949, and places them in the context of the complex and dynamic regional strategic, political, and economic processes that have fashioned India in the postwar period.

During World War II and the first decade and a half of the Cold War, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the State Department assigned leading scholars to write special, classified reports about Asia, Europe, the Soviet Union, Latin America, and Africa. These reports helped to shape U.S. foreign policy decisions.  Topics covered include: the occupation of Japan by the U.S. following World War II; the Nationalist-Communist struggle for China and Mao's consolidation of power in the 1950s; independence for India; the Korean War; and the outbreak of war in Indochina, the German war effort, occupation and division of Germany, reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan, de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic, formation of the Common Market, and Soviet control of Eastern Europe.  Major developments covered include Palestine, African nationalism as well as economic stagnation and famine, Communist movements in South America and U.S. intervention in Central America.

The following countries or cities are represented in this module: Japan; Cuba; El Salvador; Honduras; Nicaragua; Iran; Iraq; Beirut; Jerusalem; Aden; Lebanon; Russia and the Soviet Union.