LibGuides: HIST 381 Urban History: Other Sources

Reference Sources

Most of the works in this first section are print resources. Each title is linked to its catalog record, where you will find the most up-to-date holdings informaton.

Chicago in Periodical Literature: A Summary of Articles by Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Illinois
Call Number: 016.977.31W93C
Publication Date: 1940
Illinois History: An Annotated Bibliography by Ellen M. Whitney
Call Number: 016.9773 W612I
ISBN: 0313282358
Publication Date: 1995
See also A Guide to the history of Illinois by John Hoffmann (Call No. 016.9773 G941).
A Guide to the History of Illinois by John Hoffmann
Call Number: 016.9773 G941
ISBN: 0313241104
Publication Date: 1991
African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography by James P. Danky and Maureen E. Hady
Call Number: Q. 015.73035 Af83
ISBN: 0674007883
Publication Date: 1998
Arranged alphabetically by title, with a geographic index, as well as an index of editors and a subject index. Known locations are indicated.

African-American Newspapers and Periodicals (Electronic Version)
Available through Hathitrust Emergency Temporary Access

Index to Black Newspapers by Black Newspaper Indexing Project.
Call Number: 016.0713 IN2
ISBN: 0149-7502
Publication Date: 1977-1986
Continued by: Black Newspapers Index (see below).
Black Newspapers Index
Call Number: 016.0713 IN21
ISBN: 0149-7502
Publication Date: 1987-2007
Continues: Index to Black Newspapers (see above).
Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879 by Franklin Wililiam Scott
Call Number: 016.07173
Publication Date: 1910
The Chicago Reporter by Community Renewal Society
Call Number: 305.896073 C432
ISBN: 0300-6921
Publication Date: 1982-1994
"A monthly information service on racial issues in metropolitan Chicago."
Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait by Melvin G. Holli (Editor); Peter d' A. Jones (Editor)
Call Number: 305.800977311 ET35 1995
ISBN: 0802870538
Publication Date: 1995
Chicago Since 1840: A Time-Series Data Handbook by Wesley G. Skogan
Call Number: 309.177311 ONLINE
Publication Date: 1976
Index to Periodical Articles by and about Negroes by Hallie Q. Brown Memorial Library, Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio,and the Schomburg Collection, the New York Public Library
Call Number: 325.2605 IND
Publication Date: 1950-1972
Continued by: Index to periodical articles by and about Blacks (see below).
Index to Periodical Articles by and about Blacks by Hallie Q. Brown Memorial Library, Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio
Call Number: 325.2605 IND1
Publication Date: 1973-1983
Continues: Index to Periodical Articles by and about Negroes (see above).
Continued by: Index to Black Periodicals (see below).
Index to Black Periodicals
Call Number: 325.2605 IND1A
ISBN: 0899-6253
Publication Date: 1984-1999
Continues: Index to Periodical Articles by and about Blacks (see above).
Continued by: G.K. Hall Index to Black Periodicals (see below).
G.K. Hall Index to Black Periodicals
Call Number: 325.2605 IND1A
ISBN: 1539-8307
Publication Date: 2000-2004
Continues: Index to Black Periodicals (see above).
The Encyclopedia of Chicago by James R. Grossman (Editor); Ann Durkin Keating (Editor); Janice L. Reiff (Editor); Newberry Librar (Contribution by); Chicago Histori (Contribution by)
Call Number: 977.311 ONLINE
ISBN: 0226310159
Publication Date: 2004
American Newspapers, 1821-1936: A Union List of Files Available in the United States and Canada by Winifred Gregory
Call Number: Q. 016.071 AM351967A
Publication Date: 1937
Intended as a continuation of Clarence Brigham's History and Bibliography of American newspapers, 1690-1820.
Women Building Chicago, 1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary by Rima Lunin Schultz, Adele Hast
Call Number: Q. 305.40977311 W842
ISBN: 0253338522
Publication Date: 2001
Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area by Chicago Fact Book Consortium ̣
Call Number: Q. 917.731 W74L1990
ISBN: 0914091603
Publication Date: 1990
With vols. for 1938, 1950, 1960, 1970/1980, and 1990.

Microfilm

The Jane Addams Papers by Jane Addams
Call Number: FILM 361.973 J253
Correspondence, records, and clippings on 82 reels. Separate subject indexes for correspondence and writings. Jane Addams in American National Biography.

Online Resources

African American Research Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Illinois Library Digital Collections
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Books, brochures, audio recordings, cartoons, diaries, court reports, interviews, letters, speeches, videos, and more. Produced by historians Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin. It includes an online journal and more than 1,600 primary source documents and several hundred images. Also included are a dictionary of social movements and organizations, a chronology of U.S. women's history, and a series of subject-based teaching strategies. The database is searchable by movements, authors, sources, a controlled vocabulary of subject terms, and other parameters.
HeritageQuest
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A subset of the record collections in Ancestry.com. Includes: U.S. Decennial Census enumeration forms (1790-1940); city directories (1821-1989); 1850 and 1860 slave schedules (from the Seventh and Eighth U.S. Decennial Censuses); Indian census rolls (1885-1940); U.S. Decennial Census Mortality Schedules, 1850-1885 (availability of records varies by state); and U.S. Decennial Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880 (emphasis on agriculture schedules and manufacturing/industry schedules).
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1867-1970: Illinois
Detailed descriptions of urban areas. The original maps were printed in color, and the digitized versions are low resolution black-and-white, resulting in significant loss of information. Full-color reproductions of the originals held by the University of Illinois Map Library are available here.
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960-1974
Diaries, letters, autobiographies, memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, alternative press periodicals, and scholarly commentary.
Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey
The Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey was published in 1942 by the Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project of the Work Projects Administration of Illinois. Its purpose was to translate into English and classify selected news articles appearing in the Chicago area foreign language press from 1861 to 1938. The project consists of a file of 120,000 typewritten pages translated from newspapers of 22 different foreign language communities in Chicago.
Women Working, 1800-1930
Over 3,100 books, pamphlets, magazines, trade catalogs, diaries, memoirs, and institutional archives, as well as 1,400 photographs, all from Harvard University's library and museum collections, documenting women's work in the United States.
Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930
Over 2,000 books, pamphlets, serials, diaries, biographies, manuscripts, and archival materials, as well as over 7,800 photographs from Harvard University's library and museum collections.
Black Metropolis Research Consortium
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is an unincorporated Chicago-based association of libraries, universities, and other archival institutions with major holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. The University of Chicago serves as Host Institution of the BMRC.
Homicide in Chicago, 1870-1930
A database version of the Chicago Police Department's Homicide Record Index, which chronicles 11,000 homicides in the city between 1870 and 1930.

African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
ProQuest History Vault: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle This link opens in a new window
This collection provides coverage of both well-known and unheralded events in the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century, from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.
Some parts of this collection on trial through August 2022.

HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust members steward the collection — the largest set of digitized books managed by academic and research libraries — under the aims of scholarly, not corporate, interests.
Illinois Library Government Information Services
Government Information Services provides access to federal, state, and local government information both online and through the collections housed in the University Library. We have been a United States Federal Depository Library since 1907 and also include a substantial collection of 19th century U.S. government documents. The University Library has been a member of the Illinois Documents Depository program since the late 1960s. Our collection also includes legislative documents dating from Illinois’ statehood in 1818.

Finding Unpublished Primary Sources

The UIUC Library also has some unpublished primary source material (archives and manuscripts), but this is a relatively small body of material compared to the abundance of published primary sources held by the Library. Most of the unpublished primary source material will be found in the University Archives, located in room 146 of the Main Library, the Student Life and Culture Archive, located east of the President’s house on Florida Avenue in Urbana (1707 S. Orchard St.), and the Illinois Historical Survey (room 322 of the Main Library).

UNCAP: Uncovering Chicago Archives Project
From a single interface, search multiple Chicago archives and repositories.
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Institutions represented include Chicago Defender newspaper, the DuSable Museum of African-American History, the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature of the Chicago Public Library, Northwestern University, the South Side Community Art Center, and the University of Chicago.
University of Illinois Archives Holdings Database
Finding aids for archival collections held by the University Archives, and the Student Life and Culture Archive
Archive Grid
Includes nearly a million collection descriptions provided by thousands of libraries, museums, and archives from around the world.