Skip navigation

UNC Chapel Hill Libraries - Main Navigation

Researching the American South: Data, Maps, and Images

Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition
Contains more than 37,000 annual time series of quantitative historical information covering virtually every quantifiable dimension of American history: population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, governance, and international relations, all from the earliest times to the present. Essays place the data into historical context, and the data can be downloaded in Excel or CVS.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Pre-Colonial America to the present

United States Historical Census Data Browser
Data included here describe the people and the economy of the United States for each state and county from 1790 to 1960.

Statistical Abstract of the United States
Published yearly since 1878. Davis Library has print volumes at Davis Library Reference Bay 11.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. North Carolina residents with a borrower's card may access from off campus by visiting NCLive directly. Contact the Davis Library Service Desk for the NCLive password.
Coverage: 2013 - Present
American FactFinder
This provides online access to US Census Bureau data from the 1990 Decennial Census forward.

Access: No restrictions.
Coverage: Varies

Odum Institute for Research in the Social Sciences: Data Archive Services
The Odum Institute maintains one of the oldest and largest catalog of machine-readable data in the U.S. It has an extensive collection of U.S. Census data, including one of the most complete holdings for 1970 Census files. Other major sources of data include the North Carolina State Data Center, which distributes North Carolina census data.

Early Maps of the American South
Early Maps of the American South provides links to many different maps covering areas of the southern United States, from the 16th through the 18th centuries.
North Carolina Maps
UNC's North Carolina Maps collection contains over 3000 maps of North Carolina from the 1500's to 2000 available online. The collection includes both maps of the entire state and more specific maps detailing individual counties and local areas.

Sanborn Maps North Carolina
This resource provides digital versions of maps created by the Sanborn fire insurance company to assess liability. These maps are large-scale plans of a city or town and are great for tracking changes in a city over time, or learning about the layout of a city in a given year.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users. North Carolina residents with a borrower's card may access from off campus by visiting NCLive directly. Conta
Coverage: Late 19th - Mid-20th Centuries

South Carolina Sanborn Maps
The University of South Carolina has digitized and made available many of the Sanborn fire insurance maps for South Carolina from 1884 to the 1960's. These large-scale maps are great for tracking changes in a city over time, or learning the layout of a city in a given year.

Images of the American Civil War
This database of 50,000 images, includes photographic portraits of Civil War officers and enlisted men; recruitment posters from the North and South; illustrated envelopes and cartes-de-visite; etchings and engravings representing battle views and key historical events; and satiric cartoons from a wide range of periodicals.

Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

GIS at Davis Library
Provides information on the GIS services at Davis Library. This includes a variety of maps, both current and historical, and information on census data resources.
North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives
The photographic archives at Wilson Library contains a large number of photographs from the nineteenth century through the present. Although most collections are focused on North Carolina places and people, many collections, such as the C. Ford Peatross Collection on William Nichols and the Bayard Morgan Wootten Collection contain images from throughout the American South. Some images have been digitized and are available electronically.

Subjects: African-American Studies, American Studies, History, United States History