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Library Guide for HIS 498-I: Americanism & Anti-Americanism: 1890-1990

The purpose of the guide is to help you locate secondary sources and primary sources for your research paper in this class. The guide emphasizes published sources, especially those available online.

Online resources are hyperlinked, and print resources are linked to catalog records with complete holdings information. Links are indicated by underscoring.

Table of Contents

  1. Catalogs
  2. Secondary Sources
  3. Published Primary Sources

I. Catalogs

  1. University of Illinois Online Catalog. See the Guide to using the Online Catalog
  2. Online Research Resources. Access to electronic resources licensed by the University Library. Look here for e-journals, article indexes, and full text collections.
  3. I-Share Catalog. The fastest way to request materials not available here. I-Share is a union catalog covering all libraries in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). Turnaround time for requests is usually about 48 hours.
  4. WorldCat. See our FirstSearch Quick Guide
  5. Google Books. See University of Michigan’s Google Books Search Guide.

II. Secondary Sources

Finding Secondary Sources: What Scholars Have Already Written on Your Topic

  1. America : history and life. Coverage: 1954-present. Index to scholarship in the field of American and Canadian history. Covers over 1,700 journal titles.
  2. JSTOR. Searchable full text collection of the back issues of over 70 journals in the field of history. Focuses on back issues. For more recent scholarship (1 to 5 years), use Project MUSE (below).
  3. Project MUSE. Searchable full text collection of over 50 history journals. Search JSTOR and Project MUSE simultaneously using the Project MUSE Advanced Search.
  4. Digital Dissertations (ProQuest). Citations to dissertations written since 1861. Dissertations written since 1980 include abstracts. Over 750,000 dissertations available for immediate download. See our ProQuest Quick Guide.
  5. History Cooperative. Searchable full text collection of over 20 journals.
  6. Google Scholar. Will need to configure: Scholar Preferences > Library Links > Find Library > Check University of Illinois and > Save Preferences.

Selected List of Secondary Sources

General Reference Sources

  1. Oxford Reference Online. A searchable, full-text collection of over 170 Oxford University Press reference works.
  2. Xref Plus. Now called Credo Reference. A searchable, full-text collection of over 270 reference works from 57 different publishers.

Subject Encyclopedias

Useful for general, background information and topical surveys. Often include short bibliographies for further reading. Good places to begin an inquiry.

  1. Encyclopedia of American social history 3 vols.

Biographical Sources

  1. Biography and genealogy master index (Gale/InfoTrac). Online. Covers all time periods and nationalities.
  2. Biography resource center (Gale/InfoTrac). Online. Covers all time periods and nationalities.
  3. American national biography.

III. Published Primary Sources

Current Newspapers

Most of our current newspapers are now online. Some are available only as e-text, and do not preserve illustrations, advertisements, or the layout of the print editions. To view newspapers as originally published in print, use Press Display (covers most recent 60 days only) or microfilm. The UIUC Library Newspaper Database is a good title-discovery tool. For much more information, please consult the extensive Find Newspapers guide from the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library.

  1. Access World News (NewsBank). E-text only. Over 600 domestic and 700 international papers. Time period varies by title, but mostly begins after 2000. See our NewsBank Quick Guide
  2. Library Press Display. Reproduces the layout of the original print editions. Over 250 titles worldwide. Covers the past 60 days only. Searching capabilities are unreliable, due to the speed of digitization.
  3. Newspaper Source (EBSCOhost). E-text only. Complete coverage of 25 domestic and international papers; selected coverage of an additional 260 domestic papers. Time period varies by title, but mostly begins in the 90s. See our EBSCOhost Quick Guide.
  4. Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe. E-text only. See our LexisNexis Quick Guide.

Current Magazines

Searches for current magazine content typically begin in a periodical index. Some of these indexes provide direct links to content, but you will also have to use the Online Catalog and the Online Research Resources catalog to locate specific magazines. Coverage in each index varies by title, but most begin in the 1980s.

  1. Academic Search Premier (EBSCOhost). See our EBSCOhost Quick Guide.
  2. Expanded Academic Index (Gale/InfoTrac). See our Gale/InfoTrac Quick Guide.
  3. Periodical Abstracts (FirstSearch). See our FirstSearch Quick Guide

Historical Newspapers

  1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Chicago Tribune (1849-present), Chicago Defender (1905-1975), Los Angeles Times (1881-1985), New York Times (1851-2003), Wall Street Journal (1889-1989), and Washington Post (1877-1990). See our ProQuest Quick Guide
  2. Early American Newspapers: Series I (NewsBank). Covers 1690-1876. See our NewsBank Quick Guide.
  3. Nineteenth Century U.S. newspapers (Gale/InfoTrac). See our Gale/InfoTrac Quick Guide.
  4. UIUC Library Newspaper Database. Search for titles by country, continent, and date.
  5. Historical Newspapers Online. A research guide from the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library. This page offers our most complete and up-to-date information on availability of content in this constantly-expanding collection.

Historical Magazines

  1. Periodicals Archive Online (Chadwyck Healey). Covers 1770 to the present. Full text access to over 1.8 million articles from more than 500 periodical titles. titles. See our Chadwyck-Healey Quick Guide
  2. Periodicals Index Online (Chadwyck Healey). Electronic access to citations of over 16 million articles from more than 5,000 periodicals going back to 1665. See our Chadwyck-Healey Quick Guide
  3. Reader’s Guide Retrospective (WilsonWeb). Covers 1890-1982. The famous index to general periodical literature.
  4. American periodicals series online, 1740-1900 (ProQuest). See our ProQuest Quick Guide

Alternative & Underground Press

  1. Alternative press index. Coverage: 1969-2004. A print index. Alternative press index online available for 1991-present.
  2. Underground Press Collection. 550 titles from the 1960s and 1970s. Supplemented by Hoover Institution supplement to Underground press collection (16 reels + guide) and UMC Library underground newspaper collection (9 reels + guide).
  3. Alternative press collection. Coverage: 1986-1990 ; 1990-2002. 210 reels + guides for the years 1986-1990.
  4. Miscellaneous Negro Newspaper Series (12 reels + guide). Coverage: 1850-1950. Over 200 black newspapers owned by the Library of Congress.
  5. Gender Watch (ProQuest). Coverage: 1970-present. Gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, gender, and women’s studies. Access to over 200 titles, including scholarly, popular, and gray literature. See our ProQuest Quick Guide.
  6. Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest). coverage: 1960-present.
  7. Directory of the American left (1984). Includes a bibliography of periodicals. Continued by Guide to the American left (1989,1991).
  8. The Right wing collection of the University of Iowa Libraries: 1918-1977 (177 reels + guide). A collection of publications from the radical right.

Public Opinion Sources

  1. The Gallup poll. Coverage: 1935-present.
  2. Gallup Brain. Coverage: 1935-present. Identifies 70 years of public opinion in the form of answers to more than 136,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by The Gallup Poll since 1935.
  3. Index to international public opinion. Coverage: 1978-1999.
  4. The Gallup Poll : public opinion, 1935-1971 3 vols.
  5. The Gallup international public opinion polls, Great Britain, 1937-1975 2 vols.
  6. The Germans: public opinion polls 1947-1966. Supplemented by The Germans–public opinion polls, 1967-1980.
  7. The Gallup international public opinion polls, France, 1939, 1944-1975. 2 vols.
  8. Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Coverage: 1935-present. Collection of public opinion polls.
  9. American public opinion data. Coverage: 1981-2000. A microfiche set located in Central Reference. Use the American public opinion index for subject access to the polls contained in the microfiche set.
  10. Compendium of American public opinion polls. Coverage: 1984-1986 primarily.
  11. An American profile : opinions and behavior, 1972-1989 : opinion results on 300 high-interest issues derived from the General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center.

Other Primary Sources

Published research collections are usually in microform or digital format; they bring together large numbers of source documents–more than could be published in a book–around a broad thematic issue: foreign policy, war, welfare history, and so forth.

Research Collections

  1. The Gerritsen collection women’s history online : 1543-1945 (Chadwyck-Healey). See our Chadwyck-Healey Quick Guide.
  2. Papers of the NAACP. Microfilm set.
  3. Women’s studies manuscript collections from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. Series 2, Women in national politics. 52 reels of microfilm.
  4. U.S. military intelligence reports : surveillance of radicals in the United States, 1917-1941 (34 reels + guide). Microfilm set.
  5. American Civil Liberties Union archives (293 reels + guide). Coverage: 1917-1950. Supplemented by American Civil Liberties Union archives, 1950-1990. Series 3 (358 reels + guide). Series 3 emphasizes Freedom of Belief, Expression, and Association; Due Process of Law; Equality Before the Law; and International Civil Liberties. Series 4 : 1950-1990 is available in part. Series 4 covers legal case files.
  6. FBI file on the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) (9 reels + guide). Microfilm set.

Finding Aids

  1. OAIster. Item-level access to content in digital research collections; this content is often hidden from Web search engines.
  2. BUBL Information Service. Directory of academic resources on the web.
  3. INFOMINE. Directory of scholarly resources on the web.
  4. ibiblio. A directory of freely available thematic research collections on the Web.
  5. Intute
  6. Voice of the Shuttle. Directory of humanities resources on the web.
  7. Internet Modern History Sourcebook.