American History: Journal Articles
A guide to resources that support research in American History
History Databases
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Covers the world's scholarly literature in United States and Canadian history. It includes article abstracts from 1700 journals and bibliographic citations of books and dissertations. The coverage is 1954- .
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowHistorical Abstracts offers coverage of world history, from 1450 onward, outside the US and Canada. (The companion index for those countries is America: History and Life). Historical Abstracts provides citations with abstracts to articles in over 1,700 journals, published 1954 to the present. It also contains bibliographic citations to books and dissertations. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
As of Sep 2023, we've received some reports from users encountering access issues while using Chrome.
General Databases
- Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new windowThis multi-disciplinary database offers full text for nearly 2,000 scholarly journals, including more than 1,500 peer-reviewed titles. Covering virtually every area of academic study, Academic Search Elite offers full text information dating as far back as 1985. This database is updated on a daily basis.
- Alt-Press Watch This link opens in a new windowFull-text database indexes over 250 alternative, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines. Includes selected abstracts from research journals. (Main Library Reference Area holds vol. 1- July 1969- to present in the paper edition.)
- Ethnic Newswatch Complete This link opens in a new windowEthnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowPrimarily a full text database with some abstracts that contains periodicals, academic journals, newsletters, magazines, regional publications, and government reports focused on gender and women's issues. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new windowA freely accessible research database focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched but accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond.
- JSTOR (Journal Storage) This link opens in a new windowProvides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, philosophy, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each titles. Journals may be searched across multiple titles as well as by the individual titles below
Note that this database comprises mostly back issues: for most titles the JSTOR database does NOT include full text of the most recent 3 to 5 years. - Periodicals Archive Online This link opens in a new windowCompanion to: Periodicals index online. Archive of hundreds of digitized journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowWith full text for well over 300 journal titles from university publishers, Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and many others. Coverage begins in 1995.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive index to the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States. This database is available through WilsonWeb and covers the time period from 1890-1982. (Formerly on WilsonWeb)
Google Scholar
Selected Subject Databases
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; As a compilation of the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Anthropological Index and Harvard University's Anthropological Literature databases, Anthropology Plus is the world’s most comprehensive index covering the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and related interdisciplinary research. This database offers worldwide indexing of journals from the early 19th century to today, providing extensive indexing of journal articles, reports, and commentaries.
- Art Full Text plus Art Index Retropsective This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Cross-searching both Art Full Text and Art Index Retrospective databases.
- ATLA Religion Database + ATLAS This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Contains the complete contents of Religion Index One (journal literature in religion from 1949-present), Religion Index Two (multi-author works, such as Festschriften, conference proceedings, and other volumes of collected articles and essays, 1960-present), and Index to Book Reviews in Religion. Included are article citations from some 650 journals and essay citations from over 14,000 multi-author works as well as book review citations.
- Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Indexes works from the sixteenth century to the present, including monographs, essays, journal articles, dissertations and U.S. and Canadian government publications. Areas covered include native American topics and issues, including education, anthropology, psychology, political science, sociology, and legal and medical research. This bibliography, from Human Relations Areas Files (HRAF), contains the citations from the cumulative eight volumes of the Ethnographic bibliography of North America as well as additional new citations.
- Black Studies Center This link opens in a new windowBlack Studies Center combines three invaluable resources for research and teaching in Black Studies: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index of Black Periodicals (IIBP), and The Chicago Defender. This fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies includes scholarly essays, recent periodicals, and historical newspaper articles.
- Chicano Database This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; A comprehensive bibliographic index for all types of material about Mexican-Americans. Extensive coverage from the 1960s to the present, with selective coverage dating back to the early 1900s. Records added since 1992 have expanded its scope to include the broader Latino experience, including Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Central American immigrants.
- Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowRECOMMEND USING CHROME; Combines CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University).
- ERIC (EBSCOhost version) This link opens in a new windowThis database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to education-related literature. ERIC provides coverage of journal articles, conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
- Film and Television Literature Index This link opens in a new windowCovers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film and television theory, preservation and restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews. Some full text is available.
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowHeinOnline is the world's largest image-based legal research collection and contains more than nine centuries of legal history. All content is image-based in PDF format just as they appear in the original print copy thus preserving the authenticity of the hard copy in a digital environment.
- MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO Version) This link opens in a new windowThe MLA International Bibliography is 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.
- PAIS International This link opens in a new windowPAIS International covers the literature of public affairs including political, economic and social issues. PAIS International contains references to articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, research reports, conference reports and publications of international agencies. Publications from more than 120 countries are included. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowProvides article abstracts from 1,800 journals in sociology, from 1952 to the present. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]
- SPORTDiscus This link opens in a new windowSPORTDiscus offers comprehensive, bibliographic coverage of sport, fitness and related disciplines. This database contains over 650,000 records with journal and monograph coverage going back to 1800. The content also consists of multi-disciplinary, international references from journal and magazine articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings and more. SPORTDiscus is provided by the Sport Information Resource Centre.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new windowThis database provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. [Not compatible with Internet Explorer 9]