United States History: Starting Points
Rosa Parks in her booking photo during the February 1956 Montgomery bus boycott. Public domain (Source: Wikimedia Commons (1)).
Focused Topical Overviews
These resources offer compact, authoritative discussions of focused topics, individuals, or research areas in history, as well as bibliographies to begin your research.
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Cambridge Histories OnlineProvides online access to over 250 volumes in the Cambridge History series, each one offering a comprehensive selection of authoritative essays on individual topics in history.
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Gale eBooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library)Dozens of specialized encyclopedias and reference works across the disciplines, with contents available online in full-text.
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Oxford BibliographiesOxford Bibliographies offers authoritative research guidance through highly specific annotated bibliographic guides. The bibliographies identify the best work available on a topic, whether it is in the form of a chapter, a book, an article, a website, an archive, or a dataset.
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Oxford Dictionary of National BiographyProvides full, accurate and concise articles on noteworthy people.
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Opposing Viewpoints in ContextComplete one-stop source for information on social issues.
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Points of View Reference CenterEssays that present multiple perspectives on controversial current issues.
Librarian
Top Databases in American History
In these resources you can find abstracts, citations, or the full text of articles published in scholarly and popular journals on topics in U.S. history.
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JSTORFull-text of the most important journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, as well as thousands of books and copious primary source material.
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Project MuseMajor full-text archive of journals in the humanities and social sciences.
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America: History and LifeDatabase covering the history of the U.S. and Canada.
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American National BiographyOffers biographical portraits and information about more than 19,000 Americans.
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Periodicals Archive OnlineArchive of hundreds of journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, offering full-text access to more and more of the journals indexed in its sister database, Periodicals Index Online.
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Periodicals Index OnlineIndex of major journals in the humanities and social sciences, from as far back as 1660 up to the present.
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U.S. Serial Set Digital CollectionA continually growing collection of U.S. Government publications compiled under the direction of Congress.
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Humanities SourceProvides full text of hundreds of journals, books and other published sources from around the world.
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Fulltext Sources Online (FSO)A directory of publications in multiple subject areas that are accessible online in full text.
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Academic OneFileFull-text access to thousands of leading journals in biology, chemistry, criminal justice, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology, as well as access to thousands of podcasts and videos. Topic-level access to world history content on the History page.
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Academic Search CompleteComprehensive, full-text database covering more than 6,000 journals in all disciplines.
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General OneFileA collection of general interest periodicals not typically found in academic databases.
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MasterFILE PremierGeneral database with coverage in all subject areas.
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Ulrichsweb: Global Serials DirectoryDirectory of full-text magazines, journals, and other serial publications.
The Stonewall Inn, site of the historic 1969 Stonewall riots, a major turning point in the gay liberation movement. Photo: David (Source: Wikimedia Commons (2)).
Open Access & Public Domain Resources
Open access (OA) is a contemporary movement in online research, designating websites, databases, and other resources that voluntarily place no restriction (paywalls, etc.) on access to their information and frequently also put up few or no barriers to the further use of that information (Source: Wikipedia, "Open access"). The public domain is a legal designation for the condition of intellectual property (books, music, etc.) for which the exclusive rights of distribution and reproduction have expired, been waived or forfeited by their owner, or are otherwise inapplicable (Source: Wikipedia, "Public domain"). The links listed in this section represent a mixture of open access and public domain resources, sometimes within the same site or service. We encourage you to bear in mind that certain legal restrictions on the use or reproduction of material in these resources may still apply, regardless of their designation as 'open access' or 'public domain' on this guide.
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HathiTrust Digital LibraryA repository of millions of books and articles contributed by major research institutions and libraries in order to ensure that the cultural record is preserved and accessible long into the future.
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Digital Public Library of AmericaRich primary-source material from libraries, archives, and museums in the U.S., much of it either open access, in the public domain, or both.
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OpenDOARDirectory of open access academic repositories containing primary and secondary material.
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Google BooksThe world's most comprehensive index of full-text books.
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Google ScholarBroadly search for scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
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New York Heritage Digital CollectionsDigital collections which are freely accessible from libraries, museums, and archives throughout New York State.
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The Internet ArchiveA non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
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World Digital LibraryMore than 16,000 multimedia items - text, image, video, audio - connected to the history of 193 different countries, from 8000 BCE to 2000 CE.
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EuropeanaExplore more than 53 million artworks, artefacts, books, videos and sounds from across Europe.
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Digital Collections @ The Library of CongressDigital collections at the U.S. Library of Congress.
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Digital Collections @ The New York Public LibraryMore than 722,000 items digitized from the NYPL's archives, with new materials added every day, including prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.
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MERLOT: Humanities MaterialsThousands of open access resources - collections, exhibitions, softwares, etc. - related to the humanities.
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Google Arts & CultureA carefully curated, beautifully presented collection of digital texts, images, audio, and video from Google's vast libraries, connected with the art, culture, and history of countries across the globe and in every era.
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Directory of Open Access BooksA directory of more than 1,000 open access scholarly books in the humanities.
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Wikimedia CommonsA collection of more than 41 million media files - images, sounds, and videos - to which anyone may contribute.