Kresge Library Catalog --people can be searched as authors or as subjects. Works of literature can also be subjects--always preceded by the author's name.
WorldCat --union catalog of libraries worldwide
MelCat --union catalog of many Michigan libraries; 1st stop to interloan books. When you search for a book in the Library Catalog and find that OU does NOT own it, a link to MelCat automatically appears.
Subject headings, a sampling:
United States History 1865-1898
United States Social Life and Customs 1865-1918
United States Social Conditions 1865-1918
United States Civilization 1865-1918
United States Intellectual life 19th century
Popular Culture United States History 19th century
Bierce, Ambrose, 1842-1914?
..and many more!
Boolean Keyword searching:
"united states" and "1865-1918"
gambling and history and "united states"
cather and "my antonia"
America: History & Life The definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Provides indexing for 1,700 journals. How to export to RefWorks. Coverage: 1964-present
JSTOR Full text of core scholarly journals from their beginning to approximately one year ago. Disciplines include botany, business, ecology, general science, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and statistics. Browsable by discipline and full-text searchable across all disciplines. Especially good for historic or classic articles in most fields. Coverage: 1665 to present. How to export to RefWorks
MLA Bibliography A subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. It is produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), an organization dedicated to the study and teaching of language and literature. The electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 2 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals (including peer-reviewed e-journals) and 1,000 book publishers.
Project MUSE Project Muse provides full-text access to the content from over 400 scholarly journals in the humanities and the social sciences. How to export to RefWorks
New York Times Historical (1851-2006)--Note that you can restrict your search to a date range ("from" "to). This is a great source for obituaries of famous people, for articles on events, or even for searching topics such as segreation, jazz, atom bomb, etc. You can also just pick a date and look at ads for clothing, furniture, medicines, homes, etc. Try Sunday papers--just put in a specific date, then click on "page map" on one of your results. From there you can "browse" the entire day's paper. JSTOR --Another great thing about JSTOR is that it includes many journals published during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Among them are: American Historical Review (1895-2002), American Journal of Psychology (1887-2004), American Journal of Sociology (1895-2002), American Literature (1929-1999), Journal of Negro History (1916-2001), PMLA (1889-2002), Political Science Quarterly (1886-2003), and many others. To limit to journals by year of publication, use the "advanced search" and include these years in the "date range."
Modernists Journals Project--growing collection of fulltext journals aiming to cover the Modernist period, 1890-1922. Some journals have only a few issues, but Poetry (1912-1922), New Age (1907-1922), and Wheels (1916-1921) include issues from several years. There are also single issues of over 20 journals published "on or about December 10." Links on the page are hard to find--they are under the picture/masthead on the left.
Detroit News, 1890-2007--This might be a good source to consult for the Michigan take on things. Unfortunately it is available at OU only on microfilm (Microfilm AN 2 .D47 D49). There is no index until the 1970s, but you could determine dates of particular events and then go to that day's paper. At the Circulation Desk there is a microform reader that enables you to digitize articles!Other titles just in microfilm for this period--Atlantic Monthly/Atlantic (1857-1953), New Republic (1914-1959), Nation (1865-1959), Poetry (1912-1962). Check the Library Catalog for call numbers. (Microfilm is in KL143, on the first floor).
Refworks allows you to create a personal database of references and automatically generate formatted bibliographies for your projects.
Writing Resources for Students
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Writing Center
The consultants can help you with every stage of the writing process.
Cambridge Companions Offers introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics and periods.
Credo Reference A collection of online reference titles. You can search the entire collection or a sub-set. It is also possible to look at reference works individually. A few of the potentially useful titles include: The Reader's Companion to American History, The Chronology of American Literature, Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
Dictionary of Literary Biography Provides more than 16,000 biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genres. DLB Complete Online includes the DLB main series, the DLB Documentary Series, and the DLB Yearbook Series.
Encyclopedia of American Studies This source brings together a wide range of disciplines related to the history and cultures of the United States, from pre-colonial days to the present. It features broad, synthetic articles covering areas such as history, literature, art, photography, film, architecture, urban studies, ethnicity, race, gender, economics, politics, wars, consumer culture, and global America.
Oxford English Dictionary Now available online. The OED is a historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day and showing the development of meanings through time.
The Chronology of American Literature Authors and their works are grouped within each year by category: fiction and nonfiction; poetry; drama; literary criticism; and publishing events. Short, concise entries describe an author's major works for a particular year while placing them within the larger context of that writer's career.
Perspectives in American Literature (Paul Reuben, Calif. State, Stanislaus)
American Literature sites (Donna Campbell, Washington State)
American Memory --A collection of photographs, posters, documents, films, sound recordings and other materials from American history. Areas covered include: American culture and folklife, African American history, women's history, Native American history, adverstising, war, religion and sports.
The NYPL Digital Gallery --700,000+ images from primary sources and printed rarities including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs, illustrated books, and printed ephemera.
Yale University Library Digital Collections --Includes several digital collections. Especially interesting is the "Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Digital Images" which contains collections on "Picturing Literary Modernism," the James Baldwin papers, the Langston Hughes papers, and many more fascinating items.
American Cultural History - The Twentieth Century--well done web sites giving high points of the decade, with very handy links and with lots of facts. From Lone Star College, Kingwood Library.