Research Guides: History: Databases for Articles, etc.

Selected Databases

Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Provides comprehensive indexing and abstracting coverage for more than 13,800 journals with more than 9,000 full-text. The database is updated daily and includes more than 7,800 peer-reviewed journals, full-text periodicals, reports, books and more. PDF content dates back to 1887 and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,400 journals. Contains a searchable image collection.

ACLS Humanities E-Book
An online collection of over 1,500 e-books in various areas of world and U.S. history and other humanities disciplines recommended and reviewed by historians.

African American Experience This link opens in a new window
A wide-ranging research tool for African American history and culture. Includes more than 300 titles including reference books, primary source materials, WPA slave narratives, and thousands of photographs, maps and other images.
African American Studies This link opens in a new window
An interdisciplinary academic collection devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of Black Americans covering the tumultuous period from1900 to present day.

America: History and Life
Provides references to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present, with indexing of academic historical journals since 1964. Can be searched simultaneously with Historical Abstracts.
JSTOR
An interdisciplinary archive of over 1,000 scholarly journals, with approximately 100 history journals. The entire database is full-text, with the earliest content dating back to 1665. Please note that the most recent few years are not available.

American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
A collection of over 1,100 periodicals that began publishing between 1740 and 1940. They include special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children’s and women’s magazines, and other historically-significant titles. This series is made available by the ProQuest database and employs its interface.
Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Offering the original profiles of Current Biography and World Authors series, and the periodical coverage of Biography Index. Search result limiters include occupation/activity, gender, place of origin, birth day or month, and lifespan.
Biography Reference Source This link opens in a new window
Contains many of the top-ranked biographical reference collections and magazines. Offers a comprehensive collection of full-text biographies, as well as thousands of unique narrative biographies.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States This link opens in a new window
This site is a free, open resource for students and educators who are researching U.S. Black history. It features over 2,000 curated primary-source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Black Studies Center consists of scholarly journals, commissioned overview essays by top scholars in Black Studies, historic indexes, and The Chicago Defender newspaper from 1910-1975. The components of Black Studies Center include: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience; Black Studies Periodicals Database; The Chicago Defender; Black Literature Index; Proquest Black Newspapers; and Black Abolitionist Papers.
Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
Hartford Courant (Historical) 1764-1922 This link opens in a new window
This database is made available by the ProQuest database and employs its interface.
New York Times (Historical) 1851 to 2017 This link opens in a new window
This database is made available by the ProQuest database and employs its interface.

Project Muse
Full-text access to more than 300 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. Years covered vary by title.

Hints for Searching Databases

Try some of these suggestions to identify better search results.

Start with keywords
Remember the singular and plural of a word may yield different search results, therefore use the * (asterisk symbol) after the root of the word and it will find all words with that root. For example, crim* will find crime, crimes, criminal, criminals, criminology, etc., but note that it will also find Crimea if in the database.
Use these connectors when appropriate: and, or
Use quotes around phrases
Check for database options to limit results, such as language, peer-reviewed, article, etc.
Read abstract of article for a summary
Recognize and incorporate database subject headings
Use Ctrl F to search a word or phrase in an article OR use the PDF option which is part of the printing, save bar. Click it and then the binoculars on the left and enter term(s)
.
Click on author's name(s) for their other articles
Use the references or works cited or bibliography to identify additional articles
If there is an HTML or text version of the full article, the references may be hyperlinked