America: History and Life
For scholarly articles on history, we recommend beginning with either either American: History and Life, or Historical Abstracts:
- America: History and LifeThe main article database for researching American history. Use to find journal articles, book reviews, and dissertations on all periods of North American history. Includes some links to full text. Complements Historical Abstracts. Indexes publications from 1964-present.
- Historical AbstractsJournal articles, book reviews, and dissertations on all aspects of world history, excluding North America, from 1450. Includes links to the full text of some articles. Complements America: History and Life. Indexes publications from 1954-present.
Other article databases relevant to your research for this class include the following:
- Urban Studies AbstractsIdentifies journal articles on urban studies, urban affairs, community development, and urban history. Indexes publications from 1973-present.
- Sociological AbstractsIdentifies journal articles on all aspects of sociology, comparable in scope to SocINDEX, but includes more books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Indexes publications from 1952-present.
- Worldwide Political Science AbstractsIdentifies articles from political science periodicals published around the world. Indexes publications from 1975-present.
- PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) IndexIdentifies articles, books, websites, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, and microfiches on political, social, public policy issues. Indexes publications from 1915-present.
- Ethnic News Watch1959-present. Newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from ethnic, minority and native presses.
- Chicano DatabaseIdentifies journal articles, newspaper articles, books, and book chapters on all aspects of the Chicano and Latino/Latina experience in the United States. Indexes publications from 1960s-present.
- PRISMA (Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humanísticas) with HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index)Two key article databases for Hispanic American, Latin American, and Caribbean Basin studies. Multi-disciplinary. Identifies journal articles about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Hispanics in the United States. While HAPI is an article index, PRISMA is a full text collection of scholarly journals. Together they cover a combination of peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed journals and periodicals. HAPI Indexes publications from 1966-present.
- Gender WatchNewspapers and periodicals with an emphasis on women and gender issues. Indexes publications from 1970-present.
- Alternative Press Index and Alternative Press Index ArchiveIdentifies articles from alternative newspapers, magazines and journals. Indexes publications from 1969-present. Alternative Press Index file actually only covers 1991-present. To add 1969-1990, you must click "Choose Databases" above search box, and select Alternative Press Index Archive as well.
Full Text Collections
There are several major collections of full-text electronic journals. In these databases you can browse individual issues of journals, or you can do a search across the entire database.
- JSTORThe full text of over 2,800 scholarly journals, with coverage back to the first issue for each, in some cases as far back as the 17th century. Recent issues of most journals in this database are embargoed by journal publishers, so to be certain you are also identifying the most recent publications, use an article index like Historical Abstracts or America: History, and Life.
Some of the titles you will find in JSTOR:
- Ethnohistory
- Hispanic American Historical Review
- English Historical Review
- American Journal of Legal History
- Journal of African American History (and its predecessor, Journal of Negro History)
- Journal of American History
- Journal of Social History
- The Economic History Review
- Project MUSEOver 600 scholarly journals, with emphasis on recent ten years of issues. Originally intended as a complement to JSTOR.
Here you will find, for example,
- Diaspora: Journal of Transnational Studies
- Journal of Asian American Studies
- Journal of Interdisciplinary History
- History and Memory
- Journal of Social History
- Radical History Review
- Journal of Women's History
- Oral History Review
- Periodicals Archive Online1665-present. Over 700 European and American periodicals in the humanities and social sciences.
- American Periodicals1740-1940. Over 1,000 titles. Probably the single most important digital collection of early American periodicals. Includes the sub-collection American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries, which is particularly strong in trade and labor periodicals.
- African American Periodicals, 1825-1995About 170 periodicals published by, for, or about African Americans. Part of the Archive of Americana.
- Women's Magazine ArchiveExtensive runs of 18 major women's magazines, including Better Homes and Gardens (1886-2005); Cosmopolitan (1928-2005); Essence (1970-2005); Good Housekeeping (1885-2005); Ladies' Home Journal (1885-2005); Parents (1926-2005); Redbook (1903-2005); Seventeen (1944-2005); Town and Country (1846-2005); Woman's Day (1937-2005); Chatelaine (1928-2005); and WIN News (1975-2003). Coverage primarily twentieth century.
- British PeriodicalsHundreds of influential British periodicals (literary, political, religious, and more) published between 1680 and 1940.
- Nineteenth Century U.K. PeriodicalsPeriodicals published in Great Britain from 1800-1900. Many periodicals reproduced in full color. Series 1: New Readerships (emphasizing women, children, humour, leisure, and sport). Series 2: Empire (emphasizing travel, anthropology, economics, evangelism, colonialism). Part of Gale Primary Sources: Newspaper and Periodical Databases (formerly Gale NewsVault).
- Harper's Weekly Historical Archive, 1857-1912The popular, American illustrated weekly magazine. One of the few major American periodicals not included in American Periodicals Online. Includes searchable subject indexes, with separate subject access to the illustrations. 1913-1916 available in HathiTrust.
- Life and Labor: The Journal of the American National Women’s Trade Union League, 1911-1921Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- LanternHundreds of periodicals and books covering the early twentieth century American entertainment industry, including radio, television, and motion pictures.
- American Popular Entertainment Collection1853-1922. Trade journals published for the entertainment industry in the United States, with a focus on vaudeville. Digitized by the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library at the University of Illinois.
- The Nation Historical Archive1865-present. Facsimile edition of the influential, American liberal news weekly.