Urban Studies Resources

The Library of Congress's digital collections have a ton of material related to Urban Studies and Urban History topics including maps, government, and architecture.

The Urban Landscape Digital Image Access Project is a database of 1000 images from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University that pertain to the theme of “The Urban Landscape.”

Contains a variety of images from many sources. Included in the collection are images of urban planning projects from China, Africa, Europe, and the United States.

This website displays a collection of materials relating to the history of the New York City Subway system. The site includes photographs, documents, and maps.

Wright Brothers Collection at Wright State University documents the invention of the airplane, the lives of the Wright Family, and the Wrights' flying exhibitions in Europe and the United States. The collection provides thorough coverage of the Wrights' early inventive period documenting their early gliders and flight testing in both North Carolina and Ohio.

Includes digital collections and exhibits on the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway, the Mark Twain Zephyr, and Springfield (Mo.) Transportation photos. Go to "topics" and then "transportation."

A digital collection of images and documents from the Special Collections Department at Cleveland State University. Online exhibits include: Bridges of Northeastern Ohio, the Golden Age of Downtown Shopping, Disasters in Cleveland History, Crime Scene Cleveland, Feeding Cleveland: Urban Agriculture, and League Park: Cleveland’s Original Ballpark

In partnership with Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio, UCLA Library Special Collections developed the Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Platform in commemoration of the Aqueduct’s centennial, November 5, 2013. The Los Angeles Aqueduct Digital Platform provides access to primary sources that document the Aqueduct’s history, as well as scholarship that investigates the Aqueduct’s impact on the development of Southern California.

View digitized the images from the Los Angeles Times. The photographs chronicle the history and growth of Los Angeles from 1919 to 1990.

NYPL’s Digital Gallery features several online collections tied to New York City’s history, architecture, and people.

From the collections of the California State University at Northridge

An online exhibit on the National Archives and Records Administration website showing images taken by John H. White of Chicago’s African American community. The pictures were taken while White was working for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Documerica project during 1973 and 1974.

A collection of images in the University of Washington Library’s Digital Collections documenting scenes from the streets of Seattle. The database includes images of graffiti, electric signs, and protestors.

The collections include photographs of the city of Louisville, African American Oral Histories, and images of the University of Louisville, an urban research university.

A digital collection from Cornell University of 13,000 nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photographs of architecture, decorative arts and sculpture.

Many of Ball State University's Digital Collections highlight architectural records including the Kibele and Garrard Architectural Records, the Arthur Henning Architectural Records, and the Daniel Young Landscape Architectural Records.

A collection of materials on South Asian architecture from Cornell University.

For many years, architect and University of Cincinnati professor, Robert A. Deshon (1915-2007), photographed courthouses throughout Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. The contents of this initial collection of 559 images are from the holdings of the Ohio Historical Society Library