Step into the stories that shaped our world
History Commons presents a curated universe of landmark primary-source collections presented on Coherent Digital’s award-winning, next-generation platform.
From protest movements to political revolutions, events covered in the collections open doors to deeply human narratives and untold truths. Whether you're diving into the Social Justice and Culture Series, exploring North American histories, or uncovering the layers of European transformations, this is where researchers, students, and educators engage with history in vibrant, searchable, unforgettable ways.
Explore our new Social Justice and Culture series
Our history range
Social Justice and Culture Series
LGBTQ+ Social Justice and Culture in History Commons
Indigenous Peoples Social Justice and Culture in History Commons
Refugees, Migration, and Borders Social Justice and Culture in History Commons
North American collections
Exclusive and previously undigitized files on a next-generation platform
Get up close and personal with primary sources
Seamlessly scroll, rotate, adjust aspect ratios, and zoom to an astonishing one thousand percent for a closer examination. It’s almost like holding the physical document.
Discover millions of documents easily with a powerful search engine
Our accessible, modern, mobile-responsive platform works on all browsers, with most documents loading in under a second. Advanced search features include Boolean operators, NEAR proximity searches, and wildcard truncation.
Upload your own content for free
Upload your content or links to other digital resources. We'll enrich, index, and publish your item with a permanent identifier in seconds. Thanks to our partnership with Google Scholar, your content will be discoverable to millions of researchers.
"It is a fantastic system...by far the best digital archive I have used."
Explore our American History series
"What you have is one of the most important developments in early American research since microfilm."
The Charlestown Gazette rekeyed to 99% accuracy
Manually rekeyed for accuracy and accessibility
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a valuable tool for digitizing newspapers and other printed materials. However, older materials with nonstandard fonts can pose challenges for OCR technology.
Our North American collections are manually rekeyed to ensure 99% accuracy. This meticulous approach not only makes the content easy to read but also meets accessibility standards for the visually impaired. Also, we've structured the articles to enable richer text and data mining and to make citing easier.
"... some of the most valuable files from the British official archive... there is an Aladdin's cave of secret history to be found here.”
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