Major Research Tools

America: History and Life

Index
Time period covered: prehistory to present; publication coverage: 1910 to present.

Indexes journal articles, book reviews, and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada. Subjects include area studies, folklore, government, historiography, political science, popular culture, and urban history.


History Research Tools - U.S. (General)

Gateway

Skillman Library's links to major indexes and full-text collections covering multiple periods of United States history.


LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940

Full-Text

Archive of primary sources on the LGBTQ community, including historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.


Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History

Reference

In depth articles on major topics and trends relating to the study of American history. Written (and periodically updated) by scholars and peer-reviewed.


Other Suggested Research Tools

African American Newspapers, Series 1 & 2

Full-Text
Coverage: 1827-1998
Collection of digitized newspapers written by and for African-Americans from more than 35 states.

Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980

Full-Text

Digitized collection of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries. Includes many titles published bilingually in Spanish and English.


History Matters

Full-Text, Gateway

Selective gateway to online U.S. history resources. Also includes first-person, primary documents and teaching resources. Searchable by keyword or topic.


Indigenous Peoples of North America

Full-Text
Coverage: 16th C. - 1986

Large collection of primary sources split into two parts. Part I covers the documented history, sociology, and culture of Indigenous peoples across the US and Canada from the age of invasion and colonization through western settlement and forced displacement. Part II presents the record and sometimes-troubled history of the Indian Rights Association, an organization founded by White philanthropists that attempted to advocate for Indigenous rights.


Periodicals Index Online

Index

Electronic index to millions of articles published in over 6,000 periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, covering more than 300 years.


Readers' Guide Retrospective

Index

Index of articles published in many different popular press magazines from 1890 through 1982.


Specialized Collections

African American Communities

Full-Text

Primary source material on race relations across social, political, cultural and religious arenas from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Focuses primarily on New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and North Carolina.


American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

Full-Text

Collection of newspapers published in prisons by incarcerated persons. Still a work-in-progress, but will eventually include hundreds of prison newspapers from across the country from penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions.


American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

Database of hundreds of prison newspapers from across the U.S. representing penal institutions of all kinds, with special attention paid to women's-only institutions. From Reveal Digital, a library crowdfunded open access initiative.


Archives Unbound

Full-Text

Collection of specialized document archives. Most cover American history, but there are also collections covering Cuba (Feminism in Cuba), Mexico (Revolution in Mexico), India (Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India; The Hindu Conspiracy Cases), and Africa (Evangelism in Africa).


Cold War Intelligence

Full-Text
Coverage: 1945-2008

Collection of over 2,300 "formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher)" highlighting "the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War." Includes declassified memos, reports, studies, speeches, and more from the CIA, NARA, Library of Congress, National Archives of the United Kingdom, and several Presidential Libraries.


Digital National Security Archive

Full-Text

Collections of declassified documents covering US policy decisions around nuclear escalation and non-proliferation, the space race and military uses of space, and the Cuban missile crisis. Also includes collections of documents covering US foreign policy in relation to: Argentina; China; Colombia; Cuba; Mexico; South Africa; and North and South Korea.


Ebony Magazine Archive

Full-Text
1945-2014

Digitized full-text archive of Ebony, the seminal magazine with an African-American focus on culture, politics, civil rights, business, education, and fashion. Includes the iconic cover pages and advertisements in addition to full text articles.


Foreign Relations of the United States

Full-Text

Collection of primary source documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, NSA, CIA, AID, foreign affairs agencies, and private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy. Selected volumes online. Complete print version available in Skillman Library (Call No. JX 233 .A3).


Global Commodities

Data, Full-Text

Primary sources such as manuscripts/diaries, rare books, maps, paintings, advertisements, company records, etc., covering the global history of 15 major commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, energy, opium, porcelain, silver & gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, wine & spirits. Also includes data on energy production, consumption, and reserves by country from 1965 to the present.


Hurricane Digital Memory Bank

Full-Text, Gateway

Collection of personal accounts, records, photographs, videos, and maps documenting Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the personal responses to them.


In Their Own Words

Full-Text

Collection of oral histories, documents, and images related to the National Institutes of Health's early research on AIDS.


Independent Voices

Full-Text

Open Access collection of over 1,000 alternative press newspapers, magazines, and journals from the 1960s-80s focused on the following series: Feminism; LGBTQ; Ethnicity and Race; Campus/community; GI Press; Small literary magazines; Right-wing press.


Internet Archive

Full-Text

Collection of archived web pages dating back to 1996, currently searchable by URL and date range only. Special features document the 2000 U.S. presidential election, the 1996 election, the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, and the development of the Arpanet. The site can be useful for locating press releases, reports, position papers, and other documents that were placed on the web by businesses, organizations, government bodies, or individuals, but have since been removed.


Jet Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1951-2014

Digitized archive of Jet, a weekly magazine covering art, news, politics and other social topics with an African-American focus.


Living Room Candidate

Full-Text

Collection of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to present, organized by year and theme. Includes commentary, historical background, and election results. From the Museum of the Moving Image.


National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Books

Full-Text

Collection of declassified United States government documents on foreign affairs and national security since World War II. Documents are grouped by topic or region of the world and cover nuclear history, U.S. intelligence and government secrecy, humanitarian interventions, the 9/11 attacks, and more.


Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security

Full-Text

Primary document collections related to the development of NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, their mutual threat perceptions, and military plans.


Political cartoons

Visual Resource

Collection of contemporary political/editorial cartoons. Most arranged chronologically, but some arranged by theme (e.g. immigration, climate change). Not searchable.


September 11 Digital Archive

Full-Text, Gateway

Collection of personal accounts, images, and reports documenting the September 11, 2001 attack in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and the public responses to them. The site also serves as a gateway to other sites on the topic. From the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.


Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice

Full-Text
Coverage: 1490-2007

Vast collection of documents relating to the global slave trade and subsequent abolition efforts and social justice movements. Documents include manuscripts, court records, maps, lists of slaves and ships' logs, books, statistics, and many types of images.


Social Security Online History Page

Full-Text

Collection of primary source material related to the Social Security Administration from the 1930s to the present. Includes a detailed chronology, reports and studies, speeches and articles, Presidential statements, legislative histories, oral histories, and public information materials.


Student Activism on Campus in 20th-century America

Full-Text

Collection of primary sources documenting the history of student organizing in the United States from the 20th and early 21st century. From Reveal Digital, a library crowdfunded open access initiative.


Three Mile Island 1979 Emergency

Full-Text

Site from Dickinson College covering the nuclear emergency at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Includes a collection of primary sources, such as utility industry reports and pamphlets, government documents, local newspaper articles, and interviews.


Wilson Center Digital Archive

Full-Text

Declassified historical materials from archives around the world covering the history of the late twentieth century, including topics such as the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Chernobyl nuclear accident.


Women's Issues and Identities

Full-Text

Archive of primary sources documenting movements for women's rights throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, including movements for suffrage and reproductive rights.


Women's Magazine Archive

Full-Text
Coverage: 1885-2005

Archive containing cover-to-cover, color issues of 11 of the leading women's interest magazines from the 19th century through the 21st: Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, Redbook, Seventeen, WIN News, and Women's Day.


WTO History Project

Full-Text

Collection documenting the 1999 protests of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. Includes interviews with protest organizers and participants, photos, signs, fliers, and planning documents. Compiled by the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington.