Why should I use research databases?
Research databases are particularly useful for helping you to find scholarly journal articles. They can also help you find other kinds of articles, too, like those in newspapers and magazines. Many research databases are subject-specific, and others cover a broader range of subject areas. These are not your only choices; if you need help identifying a database to use, ask us!
Online Historical Newspapers / Primary Source Collections
- Eight Centuries This link opens in a new windowA vast index to British and American periodicals, newspapers, books, and other sources documenting the 19th century. Dates of Coverage: 1300-1930
- AM-Explorer This link opens in a new window
Access millions of pages of primary source collections spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.
- America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
Full-text, searchable scans of source material of all types from the 17th and 18th centuries; an important resource for primary information about every aspect of life in 17th- and 18th-century America.
- America's Historical Newspapers (1690-1876) This link opens in a new windowCover-to-cover reproductions of hundreds of historic newspapers, providing more than one million pages as full text searchable scanned page images.
- American Periodicals (1740-1940) This link opens in a new windowScanned periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and more.
- Chronicling America: Historical American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
A collection of freely accessible historical American newspapers from all regions of the United States, developed by the Library of Congress. Dates of coverage: 1836-1922
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowUse this to search 19th Century Collections Online, 19th Century US Newspapers, Archives Unbound, and Archives of Sexuality & Gender.
- New York Times (1851 - 2018) This link opens in a new window
Search by keywords or browse images of full pages by date.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982) This link opens in a new window
Indexing of articles in historical American popular magazines of all types.
- Women and Social Movements in the United States 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Archival document collections covering women's activism throughout US history, including papers of prominent organizations and individuals.
- Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women WritersThese remarkable volumes bring to light the voices of an important segment of the African American literary tradition with their offerings of rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism.
Research Databases for Scholarly Articles
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
Index to research on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. Indexes articles and book reviews from more than 1,700 journals published in more than 40 languages. Dates of Coverage: 1964 to date
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowScholarly journal archive for the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences; current issues (usually the last 2-5 years) are not digitized by JSTOR and may be obtained elsewhere.