LIBRARY GUIDE TO History - 20th Century U.S. History

America: History & Life
The most comprehensive way to search for articles and other materials in U.S. history

JSTOR and Project MUSE
Archives the full-text of articles from numerous history journals.

Cambridge Histories Online
Numerous volumes covering U.S. history: U.S. foreign relations, economic history, religion, native peoples....

The American Yawp is a free, online American history textbook created by history professors as an alternative to the traditional textbook.

Library OneSearch
Use the catalog to find books, videos, recordings, and goverment documents we have at the library.

MelCat
A statewide catalog of many of Michigan's libraries. It allows you to request books at another library be sent to Kresge Library for you.

Interlibrary Loan
You may request materials we don't have and we'll borrow them from another library for you.

The Journal of American History. One of the leading scholarly publications in the field of American history.

The American Historical Review. The journal of the American Historical Association covers all fields of history and is the leading scholarly historical publication in the U.S.

The Journal of Contemporary History. International forum for the discussion and analysis of 20th century history: the people, periods, places and critical issues.

The Journal of Social History. One of the leading publications in social history of all parts of the world.

Social Science History. Interdisciplinary research in history and the social sciences.

History Vault: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
A collection of digitized primary sources documenting the civil rights movement, from the early 20th century to the 1970s with an emphasis on the 1960s. NAACP Papers are included.

Historical newspapers

• New York Times Historical
  Offers full-text, full-image articles of The New York Times, going back to 1851. The database can be used to search national and international news, editorials, obituaries, birth and marriage announcements, plus historical photos and advertisements. The documents are downloadable in PDF format. How to export to RefWorks
• Chicago Defender (Proquest Historical Newspapers)
• Reveal Digital: Independent Voices
  Collection of alternative newspapers from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Useful for the history of LGBT, feminist movements and other minorities
• Historical African American Newspapers: this guide lists 20th-century newspapers available online.

Government documents

• Foreign Relations of the United States at KL and online
• Congress.gov (Library of Congress): federal legislation
• National Security Archive (declassified documents)
• Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection (FBI files of far right and communist groups)
• Cold War International History project
• Historic government publications from WWII
• WPA Film Library (archival footage)
• Statistical Abstract of the United States (Proquest) includes Historical Statistical Abstracts of the U.S: 1878-1928 and 1929-1969
• United States Army in the First World War (a 17-volume set compiling key documents, maps, and records for the American Expeditionary Forces)

Other sources

• ARTstor
  Over one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. To find U.S. history resources browse by Geography, select United States.
• American Life Histories: manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-940

• Digital Schomburg: online archives and exhibits on African American history (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
• Theodore Roosevelt Papers
• The United States and its Territories, 1870-1925: comprises the full text of monographs and government documents published in the United States, Spain, and the Philippines between 1870 and 1925. The primary focus of the material is the Spanish-American war and subsequent American governance (approximately 1898-1910).
• The Making of Modern Michigan: a collaborative project to place online materials documenting Michigan history
• American Demographic History Chartbook, 1790-2000: graphics and data taken from the U.S. Census

Additional sources are listed in the general history guide

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