Reference
For American history, browse the 973 section of reference. Here’s a sampling of what you might find:
Atlas of the Lewis & Clark Expedition Atlas Stand
Presidential Ballots 1836-1892 R 324.73 V5
Slavery in the United States R 306.362 SL16r
Encyclopedia of American Indian History R 970.00497 En19j
Revolutionary America (almanac) R 973 P978r
James Madison and the American Nation 1751-1836 R 973.4 J231r
Jeffersonian Cyclopedia R 973.46 J35j
Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography R 973.46 J359t
Encyclopedia of the War of 1812 R 973.5203 H363e
Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1850s in America R 973.603 G131c
Historical Statistics of the United States R 317.3 H629c
Subject Searching
- Use this phrase: United States history, then browse to the appropriate time period, e.g. 1783-1865.
Personal Narratives & Political Papers
- For a list of diaries, eye-witness accounts, etc., in our book collection, use the keyword category of the online catalog and type: United States personal narratives [your subject, i.e. African Americans].
- To find personal papers of a political figure, try combining the person you are searching for with some of the following phrases in a keyword search: archives, papers, correspondence, manuscripts.
Microfilm
Shelved alphabetically by title in the microfilm area:
American Women’s Diaries (located in catalogued section!)
Congressional Globe 1833- 1873
Mechanics’ Free Press
Pennsylvania Gazette 1728 – 1815
Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations
Register of Debates in Congress 1825-1838
Databases
America: History and Life
Contains citations and abstracts to articles and books covering the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Check our journals list to access full text articles!
- Use the advanced search for more searching options.
- Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? to account for variant spellings. Ex.: slav* retrieves slavery, slaves, etc. wom?n retrieves woman and women
- Boolean/Phrase search mode requires “AND” to break your search terms.
- Limit by Historical Period and Language. Use the browse feature to limit to a time period.
JSTOR
A largely full-text, social sciences database that covers complete runs of scholarly periodicals, but NOT the most current 2-5 years!
- Use the Advanced Search.
- If you want only full-text, select "Include only content I can access."
- Select whichever disciplines/journals are relevant to your searching.
- Use the drop-down menu for options to connect search terms – and, or, near.
- Use “?” on the end of your term to account for plurals, and “*” to account for variant word endings.
- Use quotes to search phrases. Ex.: “Lewis and Clark” AND “Thomas Jefferson”
Project MUSE
Full text of nearly 200 scholarly journals published by university presses in the humanities and social sciences.
- Use quotations (e.g. "manifest destiny") to search for phrases.
- If desired, combine terms by typing Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT, or type terms in separate boxes and use the pull-downs at the left of the search boxes.
- Select fields to search from the right-hand pulldowns.
- Use truncation (*) on the end of your term to search for plurals or parts of words.
- If needed, use limits to narrow the search results to specific sets of journals or articles.
Primary Source Library Databases:
If we don’t have the journal you need, please check UCA’s catalog, BearCat. If they don’t have what you need, you can always order your article through interlibrary loan. See a librarian for more information.
Web Sites
Abolitionism in America (Cornell)
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/abolitionism/
Democracy in America: Alexis DeTocqueville (Univ. of Virginia)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/home.html
Documents on Slavery (The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/slavery.htm
Documenting the American South (UNC at Chapel Hill)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
Dred Scott Case (Washington University)
http://library.wustl.edu/vlib/dredscott/
Jefferson Digital Archive (University of Virginia)
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/
Lewis & Clark – Archives (PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/archive/index.html
Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters 1846-1869 (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/upbhtml/
Last Modified on 8/30/2010