Iowa History

The African American Museum of Iowa’s collection chronicles the history and culture of Iowa’s African American community. Since the museum was founded in 1993, the collection has grown to include thousands of objects, documents, photographs, and oral histories. Some are available to access for free online.

Rod Library's online index of articles from official campus publications, dating from 1876 to the present. Yearbooks, newsletters, newspapers, books.

This collection includes digitized versions of published county histories from the 19th century as well as histories compiled in the 1940s by the Iowa Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration (formerly the Works Progress Administration).

The Iowa Department of Transportation's Historic Archives Digital Collections is a compilation of transportation-related photos, maps and other documents gathered by Iowa DOT employees or donated to the department. It is one of the few digital collections of historical transportation artifacts in the country.

Iowa Heritage Digital Collections is a resource for students, educators, historians, genealogists, and anyone else interested in the people, places and institutions of Iowa. The site provides free access to digital collections from a variety of Iowa cultural institutions.

The Iowa Women’s Archives holds more than 1,200 collections that chronicle the lives and work of Iowa women, their families, and their communities. Items include personal papers, organizational records, and oral histories. Follow this link to view digitized materials from the archive.

UNI's Special Collections & University Archives (SC&UA) collects, preserves and provides access to rare and valuable collections of books, manuscripts and UNI's institutional records. Not all collections are available to view online, but items can be digitized upon request. View UNI History collections here. Make an appointment to visit SC&UA here.

Browse the State Historical Society of Iowa's digitized resources. Resources include vital records, maps, diaries, photographs, land records, and more.

UNI's institutional repository contains many collections related to Iowa history, including Landmarks in Iowa History Films, Cedar Valley Historical Resources, African-American Voices of the Cedar Valley Oral History Project, and more.