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Full Text Books

The Online Books Page, maintained by the University of Pennsylvania, is a web site that facilitates access to books that are available over the Internet. It includes an index of thousands of online books freely readable on the Internet, plus directories and pointers to other archives. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/aboutolbp.html

Project Gutenberg is the Internet's oldest producer of free electronic books. The Project Gutenberg Philosophy is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search.  http://promo.net/pg/

Google Books includes both publisher's and library collections and makes both rare and common books searchable and easy to locate. Search results show useful information about the book, and in many cases, a few snippets – a few sentences to display your search term in context. When a book is out of copyright, you can view or download it in its entirety. http://books.google.com/

USGenWeb Special Collections  provides an entry page to scanned out-of-print books on family studies, historical books and various journals permanently stored in the USGenWeb Archives for free access. Included here is the well known William & Mary Quarterly, and the Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish in Virginia, as well as many others. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/special/

The American Colonist's Library  is a site focused on  primary source documents pertaining to early American history. A valuable collection of historical works which contributed to the formation of American politics, culture, and ideals. You probably won’t find a book about your ancestors in this collection, but you will find the books your ancestors read and lived by. http://home.wi.rr.com/rickgardiner/primarysources.htm 

1st-Hand-History Foundation  Have a look at what really happened in the early days of America. This is probably not the same history that you learned in school. What you will see here is unvarnished and raw, directly from the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s. It is real people talking with and about each other, expressing their thoughts, feelings, and ambitions. Here is the real pioneer spirit at its best and worst.

  http://www.1st-hand-history.org/

The Early Americas Digital Archive at the University of Maryland  is a collection of electronic texts and links to texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820. http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/