HIST 249: Cold War Culture: Primary Sources

The AdViews digital collection provides access to thousands of historic commercials created for clients or acquired by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency or its predecessor during the 1950s - 1980s.

Discover historic programs of publicly funded radio and television across America. Watch and listen.

Maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection, searchable by date, keyword, and more.

This is a collection of “persuasive cartography,” maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs - to send or reinforce messages - rather than to communicate objective geographic information (Tyner 2015, 1087). Maps of this sort have also been described as “suggestive cartography,” “rhetorical cartography” and “propaganda maps” (a less apt term, because the word “propaganda” has become a pejorative).

Focus on international military and economic documents, and major laws and acts.

Offers more than 2,000 original drawings for editorial cartoons, caricatures, and comic strips from the Cold War period.

Digital collections providing insight into all levels of American life in the 20th Century.

Primarily government and military documents from US history.

rich source from the Woodrow Wilson International Center

Over 5600 primary sources on the Cold War like radio broadcasts, photos, speeches, and more.

Debates & proceedings in the U.S. Congress 1789-present

declassified documents on US involvement in other countries

Files on leading individuals and organizations in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

In the 1950s and 60s, the FBI's Counterintelligence Program infiltrated organizations of the extreme left and right, as well as African American groups and others.

Official historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions, declassified (meaning a significant delay) and edited for publication. Earlier volumes available from the University of Wisconsin.

The most complete online library of Marxism with content in 62 languages and the works of over 720 authors readily accessible by archive, subject, or history.

Full transcripts of the U.S. Senate hearings led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, charging many officials, journalists, Hollywood figures and others with Communist ties.

Leftist and liberal pamphlets & other writings on a host of social & political issues during the period of the Cold War.

Labor and Left oral history interviews, including many Communist Party members and their experiences during the Cold War, labor leaders, and academics targeted for their teachings and beliefs.

Declassified foreign government documents on 20th century international relations & diplomacy.