Library Services

U.S. History Research Guide

Online Databases | Reference Materials | Web Resources

Online Databases
U.S. History Databases

 

African-American Biographical Database
Biographies of thousands of African Americans, many not to be found in any other reference source. Contains extended narratives of African American activists, business people, former slaves, performing artists, educators, lawyers, physicians, writers, church leaders, homemakers, religious workers, government workers, athletes, farmers, scientists, factory workers, and more--both the famous and the everyday person. Their stories are pivotal to an understanding of the Black American experience over the last two centuries. 1790-1950.

America: History and Life
America: History & Life - covers United States and Canadian history from prehistory to the present. Includes current affairs, area studies, ethnic studies, folklore, historiography and methodology, international relations, oral history, prehistory, government and political science, popular culture, urban affairs, teaching of history, and interdisciplinary studies of historical interest and history-related topics in the social sciences and humanities. 1964 to date.

American Periodical Series Online (APS) 1740-1900
Searchable full-text of over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals.

CQ Public Affairs Collection
Provides in-depth reports on vital issues, statistical and historical analyses, historic documents and primary source materials, as well as a directory of key government, non-profit, and private organizations in each of the major policy areas. Organized by 22 key public affairs subject headings, such as Advocacy and Public Service, Education, Energy, the Environment, Health, and Transportation

CQ Researcher
Provides in-depth reports on current events and topics of current interest. Each report provides historical background on the topic, outside commentary, pro/con arguments, chronological information, and a substantial bibliography. CQ Researcher addresses a wide range of topics including legal, political, and social issues, communication and mass
media, health, education, science, and technology. Coverage is from 1991 to the present.

Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Contains over 125,000 titles from 1473 to 1700.

Essential Primary Resources (in Gale Virtual Reference Library)
Source titles are part of " the Social Issues Primary Sources Collection designed to provide primary source documents on leading social issues of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. International in scope, each [title] is devoted to one topic and contains approximately 150 to 175 documents that will include and discuss speeches, legislation, magazine and newspaper articles, memoirs, letters, interviews, novels, essays, songs, and works of art essential to understanding the complexity of the topic.

    • Crime and Punishment: Essential Primary Sources
    • Family in Society: Essential Primary Sources
    • Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary Sources
    • Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources
    • Immigration and Multiculturalism: Essential Primary Sources
    • Social Policy: Essential Primary Sources
    • Terrorism: Essential Primary Sources

 

GPO Monthly Catalog
Consists of records published by the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) since July 1976. Includes references to congressional committee reports and hearings, debates, documents from executive departments, and more.

History Resource Center: US
Contains 1,000 primary documents, secondary reference sources, and journal articles from pre-colonial times to the present. Includes full-text coverage of approximately 65 periodicals, as well as access to the citations for history journals from ISI's Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

JSTOR
Provides searching and full-text content of about 20 key history journals, some dating back to the late 1800s.

Lexis-Nexis Congressional
Gives researchers access to vast and varied information published by and about Congress. In addition to the indexing and abstracting of the CIS/Index to Publications of the U.S. Congress from 1970, Congressional Universe provides the tools for: searching the Congressional Record, tracking proposed legislation by keyword and sponsor, searching the Federal Register, searching congressional committee schedules, finding members of Congress, and searching the National Journal. Congressional Universe has full text of almost all Committee Reports from 1990 forward and Congressional testimony from 1988 forward.

Lexis Statistical
"Enables easy access to statistics produced by the U.S. government, major international intergovernmental organizations, professional and trade organizations, commercial publishers, independent research organizations, state government agencies, and universities. " Tabular data is linked to the full-text source document in 'PowerTable' searching.

Oxford African American Studies Center
Online reference sources and primary documents "on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture."

 

Florida History Databases

 

Florida Heritage Collection
The Florida Heritage Collection is an ongoing cooperative Florida State University Libraries' project to digitize and provide web access to materials broadly representing Florida's history, culture, arts, literature, sciences and social sciences. Significant materials have been selected from libraries, archives and special collections departments of the SUS institutions. Thematic areas in this growing collection include Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, the natural environment, and local and regional interests.

 

Multidisciplinary Databases

 

Academic Search Complete  (EbscoHost)
Full text for more than 4,650 publications, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed journals. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. This database is updated on a daily basis.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online  
Enhanced version the Encyclopedia, in full-text and fully searchable. Includes to thousands of websites.

InfoTrac OneFile
Includes full-text articles from over 4,900 journals. Indexes total of over 8,500 titles; 2,500+ are refereed. Covers virtually all academic disciplines. From 1980 forward; updated daily.

LexisNexis Academic
"Full-text documents from over 5,600 news, business, legal, medical, and reference publications. (ASCII text only.)" Includes "national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources, U.S. Federal and state case law, codes, regulations, legal news, law reviews, and international legal information. Includes Shepard’s® Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789."

Proquest Research Library
Indexing, abstracts, and mostly full-text of selected academic journals, popular magazines and newspapers. Search for coverage of a broad range of subjects including arts, business, children, education, general interest, health, humanities, international, law, military, multicultural, psychology, sciences, and the social sciences. 1971 to date.

Wilson Omni File
This multi-disciplinary database provides the complete content - indexing, abstracts, and full text - from six of Wilson's full-text databases, and full-text articles from five additional periodical databases available on WilsonWeb. Indexing begins in 1982, abstracts in 1984, and full-text coverage in 1994. Full text from over 1,700 journals; indexing/abstracts from over 3,000.

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Reference Materials

Encyclopedias

Blanco, Richard L. (Ed.) (1993). The American Revolution, 1775-1783 : an encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub.
REF E208 .A433 1993

Boatner, Mark Mayo (1974). (Bicentennial ed.). Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. New York: D. McKay Co.
REF E208 .B68 1974

Boyd, Kelly, Ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. London, Chicago: Fitzroy, Dearborn.
REF D14 .E58 1999

Boyer , Paul S. (Ed.) (2001). The Oxford companion to United States history. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
REF E174 .O94 2001

Carruth, Gorton (1997). (10th ed.). The encyclopedia of American facts and dates. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
REF E174.5 .C3 1997

Cornelison, Pam (2004). (2nd ed). The great American history fact-finder : the who, what, where, when, and why of American history. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
REF E174 .C67 2004

Dictionary of American History. (2003). 10 volumes. Charles Scribner's Sons. (Also available through the Library Catalog as an e-book).
REF E 174. D52 2003

Encyclopedia of American Historical Documents. (2004). 3 volumes. New York: Facts on File.
REF E173 .E54 2004

Greene, Jack P. (1984). Encyclopedia of American political history: studies of the principal movements and ideas. New York: Scribner.
REF E183 .E5 1984

Greene, Jack P. and Pole,J.R. (Eds.) (1991). The Blackwell encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell Reference.
REF E208 .B635 1991

Heidler, David Stephen and Heidler, Jeanne T. (Eds.) (2000). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War : a political, social, and military history. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.
REF E468 .H47 2000

Kutler, Stanley I.(Ed.) (1996). Encyclopedia of the United States in the twentieth century. New York; London: Charles Scribner's Sons; Simon &Schuster and Prentice Hall International.
REF E740.7 .E53 1996

Kutler, Stanley I. (2003). (3rd ed.). Dictionary of American history. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
REF E174 .D52 2003

Ness, Immanuel (Ed.) (2004). Encyclopedia of American social movements. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference.
REF HN57 .E594 2004

Woolf, D.R. , Ed. (1998). A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing. New York: Garland Pub.
REF D 13 .G47

Guides to the Literature

American Historical Association (1995). (3rd. ed.). AHA's Guide to Historical Literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
REF D20 . A44 1995

Barbuto, Domenica M. (1996). Guide to Civil War books : an annotated selection of modern works on the War Between the States. Chicago: American Library Association.
REF E468 .B18 1996

Blazek, Ron (1994). United States history : a selective guide to information. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited.
REF E178 .B57 1994

Blewett, Daniel K. (1995). American military history: a guide to reference and information sources. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited.
REF E181 .B58 1995

Freidel, Frank Burt (Ed.) (1974). Harvard guide to American history. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
REF Z1236 .F77 1974

Fritze, Ronald H. (2004). Reference Sources in History : An Introductory Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
REF D20 .F75 2004

Norton, Mary Beth (Ed.) (1995). (3rd ed.). The American Historical Association's guide to historical literature. New York: Oxford University Press.
REF D20 .A44 1995

Shrader, Charles Reginald (Ed.) (1991). Reference guide to United States military history. New York: Facts on File.
REF E181 .R34 1991

Tingley, Donald Fred (1979). Social history of the United States : a guide to information sources. Detroit: Gale Research Co..
REF HN57 .T5

Indexes

International index : a guide to periodical literature in the social sciences and humanities. 1907-1965. New York: H.W. Wilson.
REF AI3. I5

New York Times Index. 1851-2002. (also available online, 1999 to present - see Online Databases). New York: New York Times Co.
REF AI 21 .N44

Nineteenth Century Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature 1890-1899. 2 vols.. New York: H.W. Wilson.
REF AI 3 . R496

Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.1802-1906. New York: P. Smith.
REF AI 3. P751

Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. 1900 to date. New York: H.W. Wilson.
REF AI 3 .R4

Social Sciences and Humanities Index. 1965-1974.. New York: H. W. Wilson.
REF AI3 .S6

Social Sciences Index. 1974-1988. New York: H. W. Wilson.
REF AI3 .S62

Civil Rights

Bradley, David and Fishkin, Shelley Fisher (1998). The Encyclopedia of civil rights in America. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
REF E185.61 .E544 1998

Cartwright, Rita Cantos (2000). Human rights in the United States : a dictionary and documents. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.
REF KF4747.5 .C37 2000

Dorsen, Norman, Bender, Paul and Neuborne, Burt (1976-1979). (4th ed.). Emerson, Haber, and Dorsen's Political and civil rights. Boston: Little, Brown.
REF KF4748 .E5 1976b

Guide to the Scholarly Resources microfilm edition. Series 3 : Civil rights advocates : William Pickens papers, Oakley Johnson papers, Richard Parrish papers, Alexander Crummell collection. (1995). Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
REF E185.61 .G85 1995

Grossman, Mark (1993). ABC-CLIO companion to the Civil Rights Movement. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.
REF E185.61 .G895 1993

Lowery, Charles D. and Marszalek, John F. (Eds.) (2003). The Greenwood encyclopedia of African American civil rights : from emancipation to the twenty-first century. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
REF E185.61 .E54 2003

Martin, Jr., Waldo E.and Sullivan, Patricia (2000). Civil rights in the United States. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
REF E184.A1 C47 2000

Sigler, Jay A. (1998). Civil rights in America : 1500 to the present. Detroit: Gale.
REF JC599.U5 S53 1998

Primary Documents

Commager, Henry Steele (1973). (9th ed.). Documents of American history. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
REF E173 .C66 1973b

Historic documents index, 1972-1989 (1991). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
REF E839.5 .H57 Index

Kohn, George Childs (Ed.) (2003). Dictionary of historic documents. New York: Facts on File.
REF D9 .D525 2003

Levy, Peter B. (Ed.) (1994). 100 key documents in American democracy. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
REF E173 .A15 1994

Nelson, Michael (Ed.) (1989). Historic documents on the presidency : 1776-1989. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
REF JK511 .H57 1989

Risley, Ford (2004). The Civil War : primary documents on events from 1860 to 1865. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
REF E464 .C54 2004

Rosenfeld, Susan (2004). Encyclopedia of American historical documents. New York: Facts On File.
REF E173 .E54 2004

Saari, Peggy (2000). Colonial America reference library. Detroit: U•X•L.
REF E188 .S23 2000

Smock, Raymond W. (1999). Landmark documents on the U.S. Congress. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.
REF JK1041 .L36 1999

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Web Resources

Historiography

Katz, Phillip M. (2005). Retrieving the Master’s Degree from the Dustbin of History; A Report to the Members of the American Historical Association. American Historical Association.

Rael, Patrick. (2004). Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students. Bowdoin College.

 

 

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