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Bibliographical Resources for the Study of American Literature:
Donna Campbell's American Literature Site, Gonzaga University
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature-A Research and Reference GuideExcerpts from Recent Scholarly Books:
The Archives of the New York Review of Books
The New York Times Books PageLibrary Catalogues:
American Antiquarian Society On-line Catalogue
The Hollis On-line Catalogue at Harvard
Library of Congress On-line Catalog
Primary Resources: Digitized Texts and Artifacts:
American Memory Collections of the Library of Congress
Bartleby.com Great Books On-line
Documenting the American South: University of North Carolina
Hypertexts @ The University of Virginia
Internet Public Library On-line Texts Collection,
Making of America Archive, Cornell and Making of America Archive, The University of Michigan
The On-Line Books Page, University of Pennsylvania
Project GutenbergReference Collections:
Bartleby.com--Reference
Spartacus Educational Internet EncylopediaRelated Web Resources:
Menu of Web Resources by Dr. Lucia Knoles
The E Pluribus Unum Project (co edited by Dr. John McClymer and Dr. Lucia Knoles)
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Includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, collections of quotations, and other works.
Bibliomania Reference Collection
Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and several reference books specifically related to literature including a biographical dictionary. (Not particularly user friendly.)
Biographies of Notable Women at About.Com
Biography.Com
Although this could hardly be described as an academic site, you can use the search engine on Biography.com to search through a database of over 25,000 entries try to locate a brief profile of a living person or historical figure.
Bulfinch's Mythology
Early American Fiction, Authors
Provides brief profiles of a select list of primarily 18th and 19th century American authors; includes, biographical information from such works as A Dictionary of American Authors and Duyckinck's Cyclopedia, and links to e-texts available on the web.
Encyclopedia Mythica: Mythology, Folklore and Legend
GIGA Quotes (and Biographies)
Great Books -- Texts and Fully Searchable Concordances
The search engine at this site enables you to search for a text or for the occurrences of a term in a text in this digitized collection. It also enables you to search for a term globally throughout the collection, and then view the occurrences within any work of your choice. Remarkable -- and useful.
Spartacus Educational Internet Encyclopedia
This U.K. site offers brief explanatory essays on key figures, events, and topics related to such issues as the following: The Medieval World; Encyclopedia of British History: 1700-1900; Encyclopedia of the First World War ; American Civil War Slavery: 1750-1870; Railways:1780-1900; Investigating the Vietnam War; The Emancipation of Women Parliamentary Reform; The Textile Industry Child Labour: 1750-1900; The Trade Union Movement; Religion and Society.
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Great Books Search Engine
Use the box above to locate electronic versions of particular works.
Results may be listed in a confusing fashion but may still yield what you are requesting.
4Literature.Net"The 4Literature archives include such things as the works of Shakespeare, religious and historical documents, children's fairy tales, Greek and Roman classics, and books by famous American authors of the 19th century."
Abacci Books"At Abacci Books we've taken two of the great literary resources on the net: Project Gutenberg and Amazon, to produce a unique combination - contemporary reviews alongside the world's best free literature."
About.Com: Classic Literature
This site offers online texts arranged by author and type (for example, "World Literature," "Egyptian Mythology," and "Banned Books"); links to relevant resources are also often included.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic TextsYou can search for specific English, American (and philosophy) texts by author, title, or date. You can view texts, search them by word, and/or download the entire file to your own computer.
American Literature - American Literary Classics LibraryA small collection of American classics from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
American Literature Anthology Writers' IndexThis link will take you to a page with a complete list of all writers whose works are available on the site. There are also separate alphabetical indexes for the writers of each period. A special feature of this site is its collection of images of authors.
Browse or key word search the remarkable collections of the Library of Congress collections and exhibitions.
American Verse ProjectA word-searchable poetry archive that makes it easy to locate even some fairly obscure poems as long as they are out of copyright.
Bartleby has an impressive, if eclectic, collection of reference works and nonfiction, fiction, and verse largely from the final years of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth. You can do a search or browse by author, title, or genre. Search for "Virginia Woolf," for example, and you will find a brief biography and on-line versions of the eight short stories published under the title, Monday and Tuesday. Do a keyword search for "beauty" in the verse collection and you will get 609 matches, with Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Rupert Brooks in the first ten.
Berkeley Digital Library SunSITEAllows you to search across a variety of collections, including an Oral Histories Collection (with resources on suffragettes, the free speech movement, and other topics), an on-line Medieval and Classical Library, the Literature SunSite (offering primarily late nineteenth and early twentieth century American texts -- and Jane Austen), LIBWEB (an engine that locates the home pages of specific libraries or libraries in particular locations).
BibliomaniaChoose "Read" to locate texts by genre and author. Choose "search" to locate texts which contain specific keywords.
BlackMask Online: A Provider of Internet Literature
BookRagsAnother source of classic texts.
A growing collection at the University of Pennsylvania browsable by title, name, or period. You can also contribute to an ongoing project by proofreading or contributing a chapter or book.
In addition to providing access to Cornell's amazing Making of America book collection, this page offers you entree to the Math Book Collection, the Historic Monograph Collection, the Ezra Cornell Papers, the New York State Historical Literature Collection, the NEH Agricultural Collection, The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture Digital Collection, Cornell University Image Collections, Icelandic Sagas, and Project Euclid. It seems likely that these collections will continue their rapid expansion in the months to come.
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library Duke UniversityIt is difficult to predict what, if anything, you will find if you search this site. You may find nothing for Thoreau except a mention of his name in a timeline, or you may find a typed page of a play by Faulkner and images from film versions of scripts he wrote. An interesting collection, but not the first place to look in most cases.
English ServerA collection of novels, short fiction, drama, poetry, and criticism primarily but not exclusively from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century UK and America. (However, it does include, for example, works by Aeschylus and Chaucer) The collection is indexed by genre and author but is not word searchable. To do a key word search, use E-Server Org at the University of Washington, which also simultaneously searches through a number of other collections.
The Electronic Texts Collection, The University of AdelaideA "great works" collection arranged by author that includes, for example, the Bible, Aristotle, Locke, Machiavelli, Mill, Montaigne, and Wolestonecraft, and Yeats.
Find ArticlesThe search engine here allows you to locate references to your topic in a range of popular and scholarly journals. "FindArticles.com is a vast archive of published articles that you can search for free. Constantly updated, it contains articles dating back to 1998 from more than 300 magazines and journals. You will find articles on a range of topics, including business, health, society, entertainment, sports and more. Unlike other online collections, each of the hundreds of thousands of articles in FindArticles can be read in its entirety and printed at no cost."
Great Books and Classics
The Humanities Text Initiative at the University of Michigan
An alphabetized list of e-texts available at the site. Includes a number of versions of the Bible, an e-text edition of the Koran, and the Book of Mormon, as well as a variety of traditional literary texts and resources from the medieval period to the present.
Although only listing a little more than fifty texts, UVA allows users to read books as text or to view the actual pages (including illustrations) as html files. The collection is also distinctive, because of the project's emphasis on three kinds of works: "Classic texts: Benchmark texts like DeTocqueville's Democracy in America, to which students of American Culture often refer; Lost Texts: Texts which were once powerful cultural objects or forces but which have been rendered invisible over time; Full Hypertexts: Texts which we have amplified, extended, or enriched by linking them to other materials (text, graphics, audio, and/or video) that either re-contextualize them -- place them back in the cultural context from which they originally rose -- or comment on them from a contemporary perspective." Consequently, you can visit this site to find Thornsten Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, Lewis and Clark's Journals, D. H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature, and Henry Nash Smith's Virgin Land.
The IPL on-line Texts Collection contains over 14,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal Classification. They can also be searched by author, title, dewey category, or keyword. (Broad collection not limited to literary and historical texts.)
JollyRoger.Com Great Books & Classics LibraryAn eclectic and somewhat limited collection, arranged alphabetically by author.
The Literature Network
MOA is simply one of the best places to find books and magazines from the 19th and early 20th century. You can view either the digitized pages or a text transcription. NOTE: Be sure to do your search twice, one at Cornell and the other time at Michigan as the two collections have different resources. Selected portions of the MOA resources can also be searched from the American Memory site at the Library of Congress, but if you do not find what you are looking for through the American Memory site be sure to try the searches again on the Michigan and Cornell sites as those may yield many more hits. If you are working at the Michigan site, you may find it very useful to take advantage of the engine that allows you to Search Multiple Collections there. By choosing to place items in your bookbag, you will be given the opportunity to email, download, or create direct links to the texts you have selected.
The Master Works of CivilizationYou can anticipate the texts you will and will not find at this site by considering the title of the collection. Arranged by date and then by author.
The Naked Word: Public Domain TextsPrimarily late nineteenth and early twentieth century works.
19th Century American Literary Figures & Literary Texts OnlineA list of resources arranged into categories including: Historic Figures; Authors & Texts; Documents; and Visual Culture.
NetLibrary. ComSet up an account and then read or download on-line books from a variety of sources including Project Gutenberg and the University of Virginia digitization project.
The New York Public Library Digitized CollectionsFrom this page you can move on to use specialized collections of texts or images, or you can search the catalogue of the New York Public Library. New projects are in progress; the most recent exhibit-- Treasures of the American Performing Arts, 1875-1923 -- treats such topics as the American circus, opera, and ballroom dancing.
New York Times: First Chapters of Books on Fiction Best Seller ListRecent works. Links to reviews also provided. (Sign in -- it's free -- and from that point on you will have access to a wonderful set of resources.)
New York Times: First Chapters of Books on Non-Fiction Best Seller ListHere you can find the opening chapters of a remarkable number of recent scholarly (and other) works; the linked reviews of those books can yield additional fodder for reading, research and thinking.
This is one of the best places to look for on-line texts. You can search or browse by author or title; you can also browse by subject.
The Oxford Text ArchiveThe OTA collects both English and American texts. Some texts are available to be downloaded; those texts are also searchable by word. Although a large number of additional texts are available, you must mail a printed request to gain permission to download.
Instead of allowing you to read or link to a text available at another person's or institution's website, Gutenberg alllows you to download text or zip files of complete works that you have located by searching by author, title, or subject.
Texts by or About Native Americans at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center
Hosted by the Indiana University Digital Library Program, the Wright American Fiction Project "is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. There are currently 1752 texts included (1602 unedited, 155 fully edited and encoded) by 845 authors."
UTEL-The University of Toronto English LibraryProvides links to e-texts, literary criticism, the history of English, and scholarly projects on Canadian Poetry, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies , Dictionary of Old English, EDICTA: The Early Dictionaries Project , Epistolarvm: The Evelyn Letters Project, The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, The Northrop Frye Centre, Records of Early English Drama, Renaissance electronic texts, and Representative Poetry On-line. (For a more detailed description of the last item, see listing below under "Collections of Resources on Specific Topics.")
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Speeches and Resources on Rhetoric
Speeches can be found in a number of collections listed under other categories. In particular, however, be sure also to review the resources available under Sound Files: Speakers Speaking, Writers Reading, and People Being Interviewed.When searching for speeches on the web or within a single collection , using a variety of key terms will probably yield the largest number of "hits." Consider trying the following: speech*; address*; oration*; sermon*; discourse*; talk*; debate*; remarks; message; tribute; and eulogy (and eulogies or eulog*). You can also locate speeches by using terms that refer to occasions which typically call for public speaking, for example: meeting; convention; conference; service*; exercise*. Similarly, you can locate texts that often include transcriptions of speeches by using terms such as: report*; proceeding*; notes; program* (and/or programme). While not all of your hits will lead you to texts of speeches, you may discover the names of speakers and/or addresses. As a final resort, you can also use verbs commonly connected to speaking, including deliver* or preach."
Before beginning your search, note whether the search engine you are using allows you to use an asterisk (*) as a "wildcard" to find related words (so that orat* could lead to "orator," "orators," "oratory," "oration," and orations." If asterisks do not function as wildcards, see if there are other options available, such as "find related terms" or "include plural versions." Using the "advanced search" option sometimes will enable you to broaden your search without retrieving irrelevant hits. However, if the engine is only able to search the term you have specified, be sure to do multiple searches to include related terms.
AFRO-American Almanac: AFRO-Voice
The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, by H.L. Mencken at Bartleby.Com (second edition, published 1921)Neither a speech not a study of public speaking, this work offers a commentary on the nature of American speech. According to Bartleby, "This classic was written to clarify the discrepancies between British and American English and to define the distinguishing characteristics of American English. Mencken’s groundbreaking study was undoubtedly the most scientific linguistic work on the American language to date and continues to serve as a definitive resource in the field."
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from WWI and the 1920 Election from American Memory
Causes of the Civil War: Index to DocumentsThis list includes a large number of speeches as well as editorials, party platforms, secession documents, and other print-based resources.
Northwestern University's "electronic archive of American oratory and related documents" is searchable by keyword or phrase and also indexed by speaker, chronology, title, and issue.
Famous Speeches and DocumentsThis site by University of Iowa Professor James M. Lindsay offers a small collection of recent and historic works on foreign policy issues.
The Gettysburg Address Exhibit at the Library of Congress
Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches From Around the World
This Sweet Briar College site features selected speeches dating from the mid-19th century to the present day. You can do a keyword search or view selections arranged chronologically or alphabetically by speaker.
This site generally seems to contain complete accounts or transcripts of speeches, which is all too rare, as well as complete bibliographical information for each text.
Great American Speeches: Great American Political Oratory--Speech ArchivesThis collection was assembled as a resource for the PBS Great American Speeches program and places each speech on a historical timeline. It also provides some background information on each text.
Great American Speeches, The Federal Observer
Historic Speeches from Multi-Cultural Pavilion: Resources and Dialogues for Equity in Education
Historical VoicesBecause this collection aims to "create a significant, fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century" it does not confine itself to speeches and instead includes recordings of interviews, meetings, conversations, and so forth. However, the broader scope of this collection may, in fact, make it an even more valuable resource for those interested in "speech" and not just "speeches" as part of American literature, history, and culture. Included here are projects such as Earliest American Voices from the Vincent Voice Library, History and Politics OUT LOUD, and Studs Terkel's Conversations with America.
History Channel's Speech Archive: Hear the Words that Changed the WorldThis collection is limited to speeches and other types of statements from the 1960's to the present.
The History Place Great Speeches Collection
Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States George Washington to George W. Bush at Bartleby.Com
Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents at Yale Law School's Avalon Project
Nobel Prize Laureates for Literature and Peace at the Nobel E-MuseumBy clicking on the laureate for a particular year, you will be able to see links to his/her Nobel Lecture, Acceptance Speech and/or Banquet Speech (when available).
Online Archive of California Free Speech Archives: Speeches
The Online Speech Bank"An index to and growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two." This site includes categories for the Top 100 American Speeches (according to their own ranking system), a section on The Rhetoric of 9/11 (complete with a collection of speeches), and a variety of pages on rhetoric.
In addition to speeches, this impressive site also offers a substantial introduction to rhetorical theory and even includes a set of Bibliographies in Rhetorical Theory and Criticism focusing on rhetorical theory and criticism, ancient theories of rhetoric, and American public discourse. Thus, topics range from Landmarks in Rhetorical Theory and Criticism, to Greek Orators, to Civil Rights and Jim Crow: A Rhetorical Bibliography From the Civil War to WWII. Please note that the bibliographies concentrate largely on print sources, while other parts of the site often link to online texts.
Rhetoric and Composition Resources on the E-Server
Rhetoric Resources at the Georgia Institute of Technology
Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric
"This online rhetoric, provided by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University, is a guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric. Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest (the big picture) of rhetoric because of the trees (the hundreds of Greek and Latin terms naming figures of speech, etc.) within rhetoric. This site is intended to help beginners, as well as experts, make sense of rhetoric, both on the small scale (definitions and examples of specific terms) and on the large scale (the purposes of rhetoric, the patterns into which it has fallen historically as it has been taught and practiced for 2000+ years). "
SpeechBotA remarkable search engine that enables you to locate and play audio and video clips from the past year on an assortment of websites, including those hosted by National Public Radio and other radio stations. White House Briefings are also archived on this site. Once you locate selections, you can read excerpts of transcripts and/or watch/listen to clips. (This is also listed on this page under "Search Engines."
The Victorian and Earlier Sermon: An Overview and The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written sermons in Nineteenth-Century BritainThese pages from the Victorian Web analyzing British preaching can offer valuable background information to the student of American rhetoric.
The World’s Famous Orations, 1906An anthology of speeches edited by noted orator William Jennings Bryan and published in 1906. Texts are and arranged by period and place and can now also be searched by keyword at Bartlleby.com.
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Resource Collections on Specific Topics
19th Century American Women Writers WebIncludes Lydia Maria Child's first piece of fiction in The Liberator; William and Ellen Craft's Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom; a biographical sketch and a bibliography of Rebecca Harding Davis; selections from Eliza Lee Follen's Little Songs for Boys and Girls; selected poems of Sarah Louisa Forten; selected poems of Hannah F. Gould; Sarah Josepha Hale's Three Hours or The Vigil of Love; Frances E. W. Harper's Sketches of Southern Life; link to Rebekah Hyneman website; Mrs. Edward Leigh'se Confessions of a Flirt; selections from the writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe; Sojourner Truth selections including "Address to the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association"; Mary Eliza Tucker Lambert's Autobiography; Harriet Wilson's Our Nig; Constance Fenimore Woolson's Rodman the Keeper, and Peter, the Parson; resolutions of The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society's 1835 Constitution; National Suffrage Convention Resolution and Ceclarations, 1848-1876, and a collection of 19th century women's poetry and bibliographical references.
19th Century Girls' SeriesE-texts of books for young women as well as supplementary resources including biographical and bibliographical commentaries.
19th Century Schoolbooks: A Demonstration Project by the Digital Research Library, University Library System, University of PittsburghHere you will find the complete texts of a substantial collection of schoolbooks and have the opportunity to see scanned images of their pages.
A growing collection at the University of Pennsylvania browsable by title, name, or period. You can also contribute to an ongoing project by proofreading or contributing a chapter or book.
The AdHoc Image and Text Database on the History of Christianity"A faculty-library initiative at Yale Divinity School that provides digital resources for teaching and research related to the history of Christianity."
African-American LiteratureIncludes links to bibliographies, background resources, theory, and e-texts.
African-American Women On-line Archival Collections, Special Collections Library of Duke UniversityA small but excellent collection of the memoirs and letters of four African-American women who spent their lives as slaves. The site offers digitized images and transcriptions of documents as well as commentaries and supplementary resources.
African-American Writers Online E-Texts
AFRO-American AlmanacUse this site to search for documents; texts of essays, poems,and speeches; biographies, and other materials related to African-American history.
AmDocs: Documents for the Study of American HistoryThis site is the work of two members of the University of Kansas faculty members who have gathered documents into chronological groupings beginning with the fifteenth century and ending (at this time) in the 1990's.
America Writes Home: Pre-1920 LettersStill under construction, this site invites you to search for letters on particular topics or from particular times and places. Also interesting are the exhibits on handwriting and currency.
A sizeable and searchable archive of documents tracing America's history from 1635 to the present.
Basic Readings in U.S. DemocracySpeeches, court decisions, and political documents that tell the story of America's development, collected and published by the United States Information Agency. Also available on this site is a list of Historical Documents and Speeches that includes, for example, The Magna Carta, Locke's "Concerning Civil Government," and The Federalist Papers.
BooknotesUse this site to read the first chapters of books by authors interviewed on C-Span's Booknotes and to find transcriptions of interviews.
Boondocks.NetJim Zwick has constructed an incredibly rich site that provides access to primary documents, graphics, and commentaries on issues in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century America, particularly those related to progressive issues such as anti-imperialism and the need for labor reform. Particularly notable -- and useful -- are the political cartoons, daguerrotypes and photographs provided here.
Christian Classics Etherealized LibraryIf you are looking for works by St. Augustine, Finney's revival sermons, or an online Bible, look no further. Although the keyword search engine generates results that may be confusing, there are good indexes by author, title, and genre.
Civil War Women
Letters, diaries, and documents of women from the Civil War era.
Database of African-American Poetry, 1760-1900Another wonderful, searchable collection at Cornell's Electronic Text Center.
Digital Schomberg: African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth CenturyThe index allows you to browse by author, title, or genre. Once you have selected a category, you can also do keyword searches of these online texts.
This impressive collection is searchable and includes texts arranged in the following categories: "First-Person Narratives of the American South; Library of Southern Literature; North American Slave Narratives; The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865; and The Church in the Southern Black Community." It is also indexed by subject, author, and title.
Domestic Goddesses a.k.a. Scribbling Mobs of Women"A moderated E-journal, devoted to women writers, beginning in the 19th century, who wrote domestic fiction." Includes biographies, bibliographies, and criticism on a select group of women authors.
Disabilities History MuseumThis site includes a library of documents and graphics documenting the representation of and response to Americans with disabilities throughout the nation's history. Doctor's letters, juvenile fiction, and asylum reports are only a few of the types of material represented in the collection.
Dime Novels and Penny DreadfulsThese inexpensive and sensational stories, highly popular in the mid-19th century, were aimed primarily at young working-class readers. This exhibit of resources from Standford's extensive collection offers a small sample of etexts and images.
"The Emory Women Writers Resource Project is a collection of edited and unedited texts by women writing in English from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century." Indexed by author; also word-searchable.
Epistemelinks.Com: Philosophy Sources on the Internet"A database of over 900 links to electronic texts by famous philosophers throughout history. . . currently searchable by . . . title keyword, philosopher, topic category." Topics of particular interest include: Political Philosophy (Locke, Mill, Paine and others); Philosophy of Economics; Philosophical Feminism; Philosophy of Education (Dewey, Locke, and Mead), and Philosophy of Religion. While by no means comprehensive, this site allows Americanists to develop a better understanding of some of the classical and European contexts of important American philosophies. The Home Page offers a number of different methods for accessing texts and information.
Ethnic Studies Historic Documents at USCA small text and document archive on African-American, Native American, and Asian-American history.
From Revolution to Reconstruction: A Hypertext on American HistoryThis site at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, provides a substantial list of primary resources for the study of American history. For outlines of American history and literature, essays on key topics, and biographical sketches, visit the project home page.
According to the introductory information provided on the project homepage, this Library of Congress online collection "presents 397 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and AbolitionA remarkable collection of resources from the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Be sure to take advantage of the collection of online documents, and the Amistad Page.
Godey's Lady's Book, 1850'sSelected volumes of Godey's Lady's Book are available at this site both under the listing for Godey's and under the listing for Alice B. Neal Haven. You can use the form in the bottom frame to do key word searches. Also available at this site are Narrative of a Tour Through The State of Vermont FROM APRIL 27 TO JUNE 12 1789 by The Rev'd Nathan Perkins of Hartford, and selected issues of the University of Vermont History Review.
Harpweek Presents the 19th CenturyAlthough you must be a subscriber to access the complete Harpers database, this site provides a remarkable collection of texts and illustrations which originally appeared in Harpers Magazine during the 19th century. This "preview" of the subscription site includes special exhibits on: American Political Prints: 1766-1876; Presidential Elections: 1860 - 1884; 19th Century Advertising History; The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson; A Sampler of Civil War Literature; HarpWeek in the Classroom; Immigrant and Ethnic America; The World of Thomas Nast; The American West; and Black America: 1857 - 1874.
The History of Jim Crow, at PBSIn Her Own Words: Women in American History by the Encylopedia Brittanica
A small collection of writing by (or occasionally about) American women from the colonial period through the early twentieth century.
LII: The Legal Information Institute's Supreme Court Collection"The LII collection of historic decisions of the US Supreme Court contains over 600 of the court's most important decisions through the whole period of its existence. The decisions can be accessed by party name, by topic, and by opinion author." More complete information is available regarding cases from 1990 to the present, and is searchable by keyword. You can use this site not only to study those cases that illustrate central debates or turning points in our history, but also to investigate how past decisions, events, and documents continue to influence the interpretation of our laws. (For example, Benjamin Franklin's 1731 "Apology for Printers" is cited in at least two recent cases relating to freedom of speech for advertisers.)
An impressive array of "classic books and other works on constitutional government" provided by The Constitution Society.
A Literary History of the American WestSponsored by the Western History Association, this online anthology of essays offers chapters focused on such topics as: genres (for example "The Oral Tradition), traditions of geographical areas ("The Southwest," "The Midwest," "The Rocky Mountains," etc.), the literatures of various ethnic groups, the work of individual authors, and much, much more. Take advantage of the book-like nature of this website and make use of its valuable index to find comments on particular topics or people.
Milestone Historic Events"Documents representing milestone events in 18th century America are presented here in their original formats as they actually appeared in the 1700s" made available by the Early American Review. (The entire site is searchable from the home page.)
The Model Editions Partnership Samples CollectionAlthough this site will eventually charge for use, it currently offers wonderful access to such collections as the papers of:: Frederick Douglass, Stanton and Anthony, the First Federal Congress, Margaret Sanger, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Nathanael Greene ,George C. Marshall, Henry Laurens, Slavery and the Constitution , Frederick Douglass , Joseph Henry, and Marcus Garvey ,
The Multicultural American WestIf you would like to locate resources on the West and/or are interested in finding out about Native Americans, African Americans, women, and other groups in the American West, this is one good place to start.
Nineteenth Century American Children and What They Read: A Selection of Works for Children from 1800 to 1872The transcriptions of books and magazine articles for nineteenth century children available at this site allows readers to become familiar with the popular juvenile literature of that time. The editor, Pat Pflieger, has special expertise and interest in Robert Merry's Museum but is also very responsive to requests for transcriptions of specific texts by other authors. Flieger's Voices from 19th-Century America site offers an eclectic mix of texts including recipes, John Dunn Hunter's 1824 Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America, and Bartlett's 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms.
Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (PBS)
This Nation: The LibraryThe links to the documents featured on this site are arranged into the following categories: Historical Documents; Executive Orders; War Messages; Foreign Policy Statements; Inaugural Addresses; Public Laws & Resolutions; Political Essays & Speeches; Oaths, Poems & Songs; E-Books; Supreme Court Decisions; Federal Court Rulings & Findings; Treaties, Pacts & Agreements; and Constitutions of Other Nations.
Nineteenth Century Documents Project (Furman University)"When completed this collection will include accurate transcriptions of many important and representative primary texts from nineteenth century American history, with special emphasis on those sources that shed light on sectional conflict and transformations in regional identity. Because of our location in South Carolina and the salient role of its natives in the era's history there will also be a number of materials relevant to South Carolina or South Carolinians."
Online Archive of CaliforniaA core component of the California Digital Library, the Online Archive of California (OAC) is a digital information resource that facilitates and provides access to materials . . . held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions across California. . . . The OAC includes a single, searchable database of "finding aids" to primary sources and their digital facsimiles. Primary sources include letters, diaries, manuscripts, legal and financial records, photographs and other pictorial items, maps, architectural and engineering records, artwork, scientific logbooks, electronic records, sound recordings, oral histories artifacts and ephemera. Special projects include: California Culture; California Heritage Collection; The Cased Photographs Project; The Free Speech Movement; The Japanese-American Relocation Digital Archives; Museums and Online Archives of California; and the OAC-LSTA SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT: Testing a Model For a Sustainable Online Archive of California.
Race and Place: An African-American Community in the Jim Crow SouthA project of the The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, Race and Place is "an archive about the racial segregation laws, or the 'Jim Crow' laws from the late 1880s until the mid-twentieth century" focusing primarily on the town of Charlottesville, Virginia. The collection includes newspapers, manuscripts, oral histories, maps, census records, exhibitions, and other resources.
Representative Poetry On-line
"Poetry edited by University of Toronto Department of English faculty from 1912 to 1967 and re-edited online from 1994 to the present by Ian Lancashire." This site devoted to the poetry of England, America, and Canada allows you to browse indexes arranged by: last name of the poet; by title of the poem; by first line of the poem, timeline, or even days of the year. You can also search by keyword. Supplementary resources available at Representative Poetry on-line include a poetry calendar arranged by day, a glossary of poetic terms and forms; and verse and prose criticism of poetry (dating back as far as 1589).
The Library of the University of Cornell offers digital access to this collection of materials related to the famous abolitionist, Samuel J. May. "Numbering over 10,000 titles, May's pamphlets and leaflets document the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels. Much of the May Anti-Slavery Collection was considered ephemeral or fugitive, and today these pamphlets are quite scarce. Sermons, position papers, offprints, local Anti-Slavery Society newsletters, poetry anthologies, freedmen's testimonies, broadsides, and Anti-Slavery Fair keepsakes all document the social and political implications of the abolitionist movement. "
Social Activism Sound Recording Project: The Free Speech Movement and Its Legacy from the University of California at Berkeley Library.Resources on the movement that began on the University of California at Berkley campus in the early 1960s.
Social Movements and Culture: A Resource SiteProduced by the American Studies program at the University of Washington, this site "consists of links to on-line articles, bibliographies, course syllabi, conferences, a glossary of terms for movement analysis, and sets of links to historically-oriented and contemporary sites categorized by movement type." Included are collections on: Abolition of Slavery, AIDS, Activism, American Indian, Anarchism, Anti-NuclearArt / Media Activism, Black Nationalism, Chicano/a Latino/Civil Rights Disability Rights, Environmental, Gay/Les/Bi/Queer, Globalization, Labor, Women's, and Multi-issue Sites.
The authors describe the Valley of the Shadow as "a hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period before, during, and after the Civil War for Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Those sources include newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, church records, population census, agricultural census, and military records."
The Virtual Religion Index at Rutgers University: American StudiesThis site should prove useful to those who wish to investigate religion in America (or elsewhere). It includes primary sources (for example, George Washington's prayer journal and the sermons of George Whitefield), as well as commentaries on the beliefs, practices, and religious movements of various periods of history. Perhaps the most notable feature of this site is its extensive collection of material on Native American religion.
Writings from the History of Abolitionism (Slavery and Tobacco) in the United States
This website offers sets of documents arranged around significant topics, for example "Lucretia Mott's Reform Networks, 1840-1860," "African-American Women and the Chicago World's Fair, 1893," and "Pacifism vs. Patriotism in Women's Organizations in the 1920s." The resources were acquired from microfilms of the papers of such women’s reform organizations as the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association of Colored Women, the National Consumers' League, Henry Street and Hull House settlements, the National Woman's Party, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. An extremely useful collection, rich in content and intelligently arranged.
Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society: Online Library of TextsIn addition to offering a small but useful collection of writing by Unitarian Universalist Women, this site also offers a long list of the names of other UU women authors under the Library as part of its effort "to reclaim, communicate, and celebrate the lives and accomplishments of Universalist and Unitarian women."
The Annenberg Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Pennsylvania has collected a body of archival material that "illuminates the private and professional lives of women, particularly in the United States and England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." They are in the process of creating digitized images of manuscript diaries and cookbooks, as well as related resources.
Women's Studies, University of Pennsylvania/Schomberg Cener for the Electronic Text and Image
Writing BlackKeele University in the UK hosts this page devoted to literature written by and about African-Amerians.
Writings from the History of Abolitionism
WWW Virtual Library Women's History(top)
A formidable exhibit at the Library of Congress on African-American history and life offering information and resources on topics such as Colonization, Abolition, African-American Migration, and the WPA. " The Mosaic is the first Library-wide resource guide to the institution's African- American collections. Covering the nearly 500 years of the black experience in the Western hemisphere, the Mosaic surveys the full range size, and variety of the Library's collections, including books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound."
A Library of Congress exhibit that provides an overview of the African-American experience from the period of slavery through the civil rights era. Like The African American Mosaic, it includes links to primary source materials, and even to collections at American Memory on related topics.
American Literature on the WebA widely-respected collection of "links to sites on the Internet dealing with American literature and its social, cultural contexts. It includes homepages and documents on over 300 authors and electronic texts of their works." Maintained by Akihito Ishikaway, Professor of English at the Nagasaki College of Foreign Languages. "
American Women's History: A Research Guide from the Middlestate Tennessee State University LibraryIn addition to providing bibliographies, this site also offers A Guide to Digital Primary Resources arranged by topic.
The American WestThere is plenty to interest the casual user here--the section on "Gunslingers and Outlaws" for example. But students of American history and culture will also find this site useful for its links and essays on topics such as "european immigration" and "westward expansion."
Antebellum American History: A Guide to Research and Resources on the WebThis list of links is organized into categories in a very practical fashion. Main topic headings are as follows: General Sources, Abolition & Slavery, Government, People, Railroads & The Industrial Revolution, War & Expansion.
The Archive: American Literature (at the University of Boulder)
The Crossroads Project American Studies WebThis voluminous listing is described as "the largest biliography of web-based resources in the field of American Studies," and it probably is. However, it can be difficult to use. In order to find what you need here, begin by choosing a subject from the long list of categories; you will probably then be offered a listing of more specialized topics within that general subject. Once you have selected a focused topic, you will be presented with a substantial list of annotated links to sites featuring e-texts, biographical and bibliographical information, and other materials.
A thoughtful and reliable web site from the National Humanities Center that brings together commentaries by leading scholars on religion in America. Included are overviews of specific topics, bibliographies, primary and secondary resources, and discussion questions.
Among the remarkably useful resources available at this site are a Brief Timeline of American Literature; pages on American Authors ("Each author page contains a picture [if available], a bibliography [if available], links to major sites about the author, and links to works on-line"); an explanation of a variety of Literary Movements, and an American Literature Selected Bibliographies. In addition to covering well-known literary movements such as Transcendentalism, Realism, and Local Color writing, Campbell also covers such areas as "Meditation Tradition," "Sermon Structure, "Captivity Narratives" and "Travel Narratives."
English Literature and Religion"This Web site offers a large bibliographical database about religious aspects and backgrounds of English literature, from the Middle Ages to the present century, with primary (though not exclusive) emphasis upon writers within the Anglican tradition. "
H-Net Content Search Page"H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Our edited lists and web sites publish peer reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for colleagues and the interested public." Use this search page to look for book reviews, web pages, and/or discussions of a wide range of topics in history and social sciences. Although you can never predict precisely what you will find, H-Net can be particularly helpful if you want to find out about the books available on a particular topic, or the types of questions debated by scholars with regard to a particular person, event, or subject.
The History ChannelUse the keyword search to find brief essays on issues, figures, and events in history; links to additional resources are also provided. This site can also be searched by period and features a timeline.
The History PlaceThis collection is generally thin but includes a few exhibits of interest, including an exhibit on the "Irish Famine" and another on Child Labor in America, 1908-1912 based on the Photographs of Lewis W. Hine.
IATH: The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of VirginiaA Google search done from IATH's homepage will allow you to locate references in humanities discussion groups, conference materials, and other kinds of professional communications. If you are looking for primary source materials on American Studies, Art, History, Literature, or other humanities topics, use the Related Readings Page instead.
The John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and CriticismAccording to its editors, "The Guide consists of 226 alphabetically arranged entries on individual critics and theorists, critical and theoretical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods. It also treats figures who did not explicitly deal with, but who still deeply affected, literature, literary theory, or literary criticism, as well as figures and kinds of inquiry from other fields that have been shaped by or have themselves shaped literary theory and criticism."
Literary History.Com"An index to free internet articles on topics in English and American literature. It is designed to be convenient and useful for students, scholars, writers, teachers, reading groups, and general readers. All links lead directly to articles, and articles must meet basic academic standards to be included."
Literary Resources on the NetThis collection of materials assembled by Jack Lynch from the Department of English of Rutgers, Newark, can be accessed by period or searched by keyword.
Longman Primary Resources On-LineLongman Publishers developed this site to support those using their textbooks, but the resources are freely available for use by all students and scholars of American literature and history. In addition to using these resources arranged in groupings that are simultaneously chronological and topical (for example, "American Antebellum Reform"), you can also use this site to find "visuals," "activities," and links.
The National Museum of American History (Smithsonian)The link above takes you to the home page which includes a list of exhibits and resources. On the other hand, you can go directly to the Search Page.
Modern American PoetryWhen the editors of the Oxford University Press completed their work on their Anthology of Modern American Poetry, they put together this supporting site that offers additional poems, information about historical contexts and source materials, criticism, and other supplementary materials. (For example, the page on Ginsberg includes pictures of all of his book covers.) As the editor, Cary Nelson, explains: The nature of each site depends on what makes sense for a particular author or group of authors. The Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams sites are so far largely devoted to readings of their poems, whereas the Kay Boyle, Angel Island, and Japanese American Concentration Camp sites are largely devoted to historical background."
Norton Websource to American LiteratureThis website designed as a supplement to the Norton American Literature texts offers timelines, brief biographies, author pages and annotated links as well as suggested topics for assignments. It provides the kind of basic background information that can provide a starting point for your thinking; because it has limited depth, it will rarely provide all of the material you need on a subject.
On-line Literary Criticism Section of the Internet Public Library. Also see their Literature Resources"The IPL on-line Literary Criticism Collection contains 3936 critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and literary period. "
The project of Paul P. Rueben, a member of the Department of English at the University of California, Stanislaus, PAL allows you to use a box on the home page to "search the 300 pages of this site by typing in key words: author names, literary periods, themes, topics, motifs, dates, places, and titles." Rueben offers reliable biographical profiles, analyses of periods, critical and bibliographical information, and links to related materials. This is an extremely valuable resource.
PBS Teacher ResourcesIncludes exhibits, documents, and even transcriptions of some programs. It is also searchable. The site representing The American Experience series can be particularly helpful on matters of history, literature, and culture as they often include collections of primary resources.
RefDesk.Com: Historical Information ResourcesA long list of useful links that is rendered even more useful by the site search engine on the top right of the page. Be sure to distinguish between the site search engine on the top right and the web search engine on the left.
Short Story Classics: The Best from the Masters of the Genre
Spotlight on Women's History from the U.S. Department of State's International Information Programs
Voice of the Shuttle Search PageThe mission of the Voice of the Shuttle is "to provide a structured and briefly annotated guide to on-line resources that at once respects the established humanities disciplines in their professional organization and points toward the transformation of those disciplines as they interact with the sciences and social sciences and with new digital media....VoS emphasizes both primary and secondary (or theoretical) resources..." If you do a search, be sure to click on the linked "line number" to go to the recommended resource.
Voices from the GapsThis site devoted to women writers of color offers online texts, biographical and bibliographical information, and links.
Libraries, Databases, and Journals
In this digital age, it can be too easy to rush to find online texts and resources and forget the libraries. Even those most dedicated to doing all their research online are well advised to take advantage of online library catalogues to locate authors or works related to their topic, or to use searches by subject, genre, or period to get some sense of the popularity of a particular subject at a given time, typical perspectives on that topic (read the titles!), or even how a topic or genre changed over time. For all these purposes, it is best to use the catalogues of libraries with extensive collections and/or the "library of record" known for its deep collection in a particular area. Three recommended resources are the catalogues of the Library of Congress, and Hollis at Harvard , and The American Antiquarian Society, a national research library of American History, Literature and Culture through 1876.Libraries will remain critical to learning and researching. First, it is impossible to imagine the time when all existing texts will be online. Texts that are still protected by copyright, for example, are generally not available. Most scholarly materials can only be accessed in a library (with the exception of those available via subscription services such as Project Muse or Harpers.) And in an age of the "virtual," much remains to be learned from books as physical artifacts.
"The library's collections document the life of America's people from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. Collections include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, manuscripts, music, children's literature, graphic arts, genealogy and local histories." Although the collections are not digitized, the extraordinary breadth of the library's holdings and the excellence of the cataloguing make it possible for a user to collect valuable information about the works published by an individual author or printer or the types of works published on a particular kind of topic. It is also useful for finding information on recent scholarship on topics related to American history, literature, and culture. To use the catalogue, log in as "guest" and the password "guest." For more information on the library, its programs and research fellowships, and instructions on how to use the catalogue, go to the AAS Homepage.
Assumption College Library--Assumption Voyager On-Line Catalogue, On-line Databases, Internet Resources, or List of ServicesFaculty, staff, and students at Assumption College can use these links , to locate books in the catalogue, to see whether specific books are currently on the shelves and available to be checked out, and to access databases of scholarly resources including the MLA index, First Search, EBSCO, and Wilson Web.
C/WMARS Libraries (including Worcester Public Library, Clark College, Holy Cross, and the Library of Congress)
The Early America Review"A Journal of Fact and Opinion On the People, Issues and Events Of 18th Century America"
The History CooperativeDo not log in if you are not a subscriber. Instead, use the resources listed at the bottom of the screen (including the search engine). This project which is the result of a collaboration between The American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians along with the University of Illinois Press and the National Press allows you to search for--and retrieve--full text articles from a variety of scholarly journals. It also highlights special exhibits, including the Booker T. Washington Papers.
Library of Congress On-line Catalog
Project Muse DatabaseAssumption College faculty, staff, and students are licensed to use Project Muse, a subscription program that allows licensed users to search and read the full text of scholarly journals published by John Hopkins University. Among those publications are included the following: American Quarterly, Eighteenth Century Life, Eighteenth-Century Studies, The Emily Dickinson Journal, Henry James Review, Human Rights Quarterly, Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Democracy, Literature and Medicine, Modern Fiction Studies, Modernism/Modernity, New Literary History, Philosophy and Literature, Postmodern Culture, Reviews in American Literature, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Studies in English Literature, and the Yale Journal of Criticism.
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Search Recent Newspapers, Periodicals, and Books
There are many ways of exploiting newspapers and periodicals in research. Some of the publications listed below have archives dating to the nineteenth century so that it is possible to read articles by the likes of Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass. Even recent publications, however, make it possible to read reviews of important publications, interviews with contemporary authors and people of note, and essays by modern writers, historians, and activists.
Perhaps one of the most rewarding ways of using these publications is to search for articles that reflect recent references to past people and events. A recent search for "Frederick Douglass" in the archives of The Washington Post, for example, yielded articles on a museum exhibit, a court case on the fight over affirmative action, plans for placing memorials in Washington neighborhoods, Republican interest in winning over Black voters, Black History Month, continuing controversies over Lincoln, Juneteenth, and calls to end slavery in the Sudan. Some of the "hits" reflected references to people receiving "Frederick Douglass Awards" or representing the "Frederick Douglass School," but that too demonstrates the ongoing cultural response to a great nineteenth-century American.
"A complete searchable index of the magazine's contents from 1963 to the present." Also allows you to locate and order copies of articles published before 1963.
The Atlantic was founded in 1857 by a group of American writers and thinkers that included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. (For additional comments on Longfellow's participation, see New & Noteworthy: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poems and Other Writings.") On the magazine's present website, you can read A History of The Atlantic Monthly, read works by Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and Whitter that appeared in the first issue, consult the Flashbacks index for thought-provoking collections of texts clustered by topic, read reviews of classic works of literature, browse back issues, or search the Atlantic Unbound for web-only materials. From November, 1995, to the present, the Atlantic's online text collection is essentially complete (with the exception of a few articles, the on-line rights to which are held exclusively by the authors). From November, 1857, to November, 1995, only selected articles are available (although the number is increasing constantly)."
The Christian Science Monitor
FindArticles. ComThis engine searches through a database of on-line resources from over 300 contemporary journals. You can use it to find book reviews, interviews, writing by contemporary authors, or comments on authors and texts of other periods. A quick search for material on "James Baldwin" yielded a piece written by Tony Morrison as well as articles from African-American Review, Commonweal, Ebony, Interview, and American Enterprise magazine. A search for "Mark Twain" turned up reviews of new editions of his books, reviews of plays and films based on his work, yet more arguments about whether Huck Finn should be taught, and selections from his work. Unexpectedly, this search also yielded an article in the British Medical Journal reprinting a column originally printed in that journal in 1899 reporting on Twain's experiences when he consulted a Christian Scientist (rather than a medical doctor) after "he fell over a cliff and 'broke some arms and legs and one thing and another.'"
First Chapters of Recent Books at Bookspot
The Internet Public Library: On-line Serials Collection and On-line Newspaper Collection
The eclectic nature of the serials collection makes it impossible to predict what, if anything, you will find when you use this collection. However, one virtue of the IPL serials collection is that it is possible to search 3,000 journals by simply typing a key word or phrase in the search box. The newspaper collection includes newspapers not only from all over the U.S. but also from all over the world. The searchbox does not seem to yield any results when you try a key term such as "election," but type in "London" and you will get links to on-line newspapers to New London, Connecticut and London, England. You will find search engines on many of the sites produced by individual papers, but so far there seems to be no way to search across publications.
LATimes.Com: First Chapters ArchivesThis site provides you with the first chapters of selected books. If you search the archives, articles that have appeared in the last 14 days are available for free. Others are available at a nominal cost.
The NationOnly recent issues of the magazine are searchable; institutions can subscribe to a service that provides access to issues from 1865 to the present. However, a few items of interest to students and scholars of literature, history, and culture can be found in the column on the right of the homepage. For example, The Voices of History for Black History Month includes articles published in The Nation since 1865 by such notable figures as W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, and Alice Walker.
Includes books reviews and author interviews dating to 1980. Usually the most useful way to use this site for academic purposes is to search directly for books and book reviews from the Books page. (You may need to sign-up as a reader before using the free book search service.) Immediately below you will find direct links to a select number of recent book reviews, courtesy of The New York Times and I-Syndicate.
The New York Times Learning NetworkThis site is intended for teachers and students from grades 3-12, however, it can be useful if you are searching for articles related to specific topics.
The New YorkerThis relatively new site has very little content at this point but is likely to grow.
SlateAs a relative newcomer to the journalistic scene, Slate cannot offer access to articles it published earlier periods of American life. However, you can use its articles to find contemporary commentaries on historical issues and on topics that are part of ongoing debates in American life.
Time.ComTime's archive allows you to search issues of the magazine from 1994 to the present.
USA Today BooksIn addition to feature stories and reviews, you can also find opening chapters of recent books and electronically published novellas by critically acclaimed authors.
The Washington Post Online: Reviews and First Chapters of Selected Recent BooksSearchable by title, author, or keyword.
The Washington TimesBe sure to note the button that allows access to the archives, which go back to 1990. While you can search for free, if you wish to see the full text of any piece that was published more than seven editions ago it will cost $1.95.
S.T.G. Site SearchThe Scholarly Technology Group works directly with academic projects designed to post scholarly resources on the web. This search engine provides access to the materials included in their projects. It is particularly useful for those wishing to locate materials on the Victorian period in British literature.
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Online Exhibitions
Anacostia Museum and Center for the Study of African American History and Culture: ExhibitionsPay particular attention to the "Online Exhibitions"; however, you will sometimes find useful material even in the short descriptions of other displays.
Andover-Harvard Theological MuseumOf the several exhibitions on display here, the ones entitled "Of the Incomparable Treasure of the Holy Scriptures: An Exhibit of Historic Bible-related Materials from the Collection of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library " and "Reflections of Public Ministry at Harvard Divinity School " may be of particular interest to students of American history, literature, and culture. The latter uses items from the manuscript collection to document the involvement of the clergy in reform movements.
The American Museum of PhotographyIncludes exhibits on daguerreotypes and on "The Face of Slavery And Other Early Images of African-Americans."
ArtSource Listing of Electronic Exhibitions
Connecticut Historical Society Graphics CollectionAlthough this is not, strictly speaking, an exhibit, the collections of graphics and notes on this page provide a small sample of several collections of drawings, paintings, photographs, and postcards. Follow the links to other parts of this site and you will discover other similar displays on historical topics.
Exhibits@BrownUniversity LibraryExhibits presently include the following: George Orwell Materials at Brown University; Leaves of an Hour: Developing Literary and Popular Culture Collections at Brown University Library; An exhibit from the Burning Deck Archives & the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays; Nineteenth Century Illustration Techniques & the Literature of Travel and Exploration, Selections from the Sidney P. Albert - George Bernard Shaw Collection; Imamu Amiri Baraka; Draner's Military Caricatures; Three For Three Million" Fireworks, Mexican History, Digital Reference Collections, The Night Before Christmas; Celebrating Harper; Of the Poison Brand; Two Centuries of Sources for The Study of Alcohol and Alcoholism, 1997. Dreams of the Past; 19th Century Color Lithographic Sheet Music Covers; She is More to be Pitied than Censured: Women, Sexuality and Murder in 19th century America; and Artists in Uniform: The World War II Experience, 1995
Library of Congress Exhibitions
The Museum of American StudiesAnother) gallery featuring selected projects from the good folks at the University of Virginia. You may also wish to visit the AS@UVA 1930s Project.
Museum of the City of New YorkEach exhibit spotlights one aspect of New York culture, history, and life. You can find an exhibit on the photographs of Bernice Abbott, or on Valentines, or on urban archeology.
National Women's History MuseumIf you are interested in the history of suffrage, visit Motherhood, Social Service, and Political Reform: Political Culture and Imagery of American Woman Suffrage.
The New York Public Library Online Exhibitions
UVa Library Exhibits
As usual when it comes to digital materials, the University of Virginia does it right. There is a wide assortment of exhibits available at this site, including Lift Every Voice: Music in American Life.
University of Pennsylvania Library and Schoenberg Center for the Electronic Text and ImageThe exhibits here are often feature substantive commentary along with well chosen images, . Current exhibitions include Cultural Readings: Colonization and Print i the Americas, The Illustrated Book, 1780-1830: selected from the collection of Harris N. Hollin, and Household Words: Women Write From and For the Kitchen.
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Bookstores
You will find that the search engines of major bookstore sites can help you to gather a considerable amount of useful information. If you know of a book that relates to your topic, you can find bibliographical information on the text, usually accompanied by brief reviews. However, you can also often find a list of the table of contents, recommendations about related sources, and sometimes even excerpts or the first chapter from the book.
This claims to be "the world's largest online marketplace for used, rare, and out-of-print books," and works by connecting buyers and sellers. A wonderful place to find used and even collectible books.
If you are searching for out-of-print, used, and collectible books, Alibris may be able to help you. If the title you are looking for is not presently available, you can arrange to have Alibris conduct a periodic search and contact you when a copy is on the market. (You can also do this by using the "Wishlist" option at Half.com.)
You can use Amazon's extensive catalogue as a way of locating recent books on a particular subject or works by a particular author, and you can use their subject indexes to explore ways of expanding your search. You may even be able to read an excerpt from the book if there is a "Look Inside this Book" link. Use Amazon's Rare & Used Book Search Page to locate that are secondhand and/or out of print books.
AntiQbookClaims to be Europe's premier antiquarian booksite. Prices quoted in several currencies, including US dollars. Some US booksellers included in searches.
Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of AmericaThe ABAA is a professional organization that allows you to search the inventories of its members when you are seeking a rare/collectible item. The site also information on book collecting, book fairs, and related topics.
Bibliofind.ComAccording to the home page, "Bibliofind has combined with Amazon.com to provide millions of rare, used, and out-of-print books through the world's No.1 online bookstore. Search for millions of hard-to-find titles from our trusted community of Bibliofind and Amazon.com booksellers."
Bookopoly. ComBuy and sell used and rare books. Very few graphics and minimal bibliographical information, but a very useful site for the book enthusiast.
Bookfinder.ComAccording to Bookfinder's home page, over 40 million new, used, rare, and out of print books are available.
Allows you to search simultaneously through the inventories of a number of stores; allow you to compare price and shipping costs.
Barnes and NobleIn addition to offering the usual assortment of new and used books, B&N allows you to search a network of rare book dealers and secondhand bookstores so that you can locate books that are out of print. It is even possible to put a book on your "wish list" and be notified when a copy becomes available.
DealtimeYou can search for most products here, but use the following link if you're looking for books
EBayEven if you don't wish to bid in an auction, you may still find it useful to use EBay as a research tool. By searching for titles by a particular author, you may have the opportunity to see pictures and descriptions of various editions of the same book. By using the title as a "key word or phrase" in your search, you may even find pictures of artifacts marketed in connection with the book. Sometimes you will come away from a "shopping" session with a new understanding of the significance that a text had within its culture. If you want to see how this can work, try searching for "Uncle Tom*"; you may be surprised by the results.
Looking for a book or video? TRY HERE FIRST. If you are trying to locate a reasonably priced copy of a new, used, or out-of-print book, try this site that serves as a meeting place for those who want to buy and sell books. If you search for a book by title, author, or keyword, you will be provided with a list of what is available, along with the price and description of the condition of each item.
Isbn.nuCompare the price of a new or out-of-print book by doing a simultaneous search of a number of bookstores.
My Simon Books/Movies/MusicUse this search engine to locate items and compare prices.
Price SearchAllows you to compare prices on books, cds, dvds, games & software. If you're looking for a book, go directly to Find low book prices.
Pricing Services, Discount Shopping, and Online Shopping/Comparison Shopping at About.Com.These pages offer you a variety of sites to use if you are shopping and want to locate items and compare prices.
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Art, Architecture, Images, and Multimedia
The list below includes various kinds of materials: images on particular topics (for example, religion or advertising), images in particular forms (for example photography), museum collections (which can usually be searched or browsed by period or artist), and search engines that explore the web to locate images that respond to your key words.
Choose the right site or search engine to use by deciding what you hope to locate through your search. For example, if you are looking for a photograph, you may wish to use one of the image search engines provided by the major search services such as Alta Vista, Dogpile, or Hotbot. On the other hand, if you hope to find art, you can use one of the resources mentioned above or go directly to a large museum or art database. If you are looking for images in a particular format or related to a particular topic, browse the list to see if any collection below focuses on your subject.
AdAccessAccording to the introduction provided on the site, "The Ad*Access Project . . . presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University."
Alta Vista: Image Search PageEnter a word in the search box and this engine will provide you with a contact sheet of images related to that term that have been posted at other websites. You can choose if you wish to narrow your search to photos or graphics, color or black and white. Not all "hits" will necessarily meet your needs, but this is a fairly simple way to find a picture of an author or an image related to "slavery," for example. If you find an interesting image, click on "more info" to find out about the graphic and the site where it is located. Note that once you have done a search, just below the search box you will find a list of "recommended searches" that allow you to narrow or broaden your inquiry.
America in Caricature 1765-1865This is a small, focused exhibit of political caricatures commenting on life in the Colony & Early Republic, 1765-1798; The War of 1812; and Abraham Lincoln, 1860-1865.
American Historical Images On File: The Native American ExperienceAccording to the home page for this site that was constructed by Professor Troy Johnson: "This collection of historical photographs is provided with the permission of Facts on File, Inc., and is a comprehensive collection of images of Native American people." It is part of a larger website produced by the American Indian Studies Program of California State University, Long Beach, on American Indian History and Related Issues
American History up to 1877: Images and American History since 1877 or Images since 1877 for History 2112 (David Rezelman)
Art History Resources on the WebAlthough it is not searchable, this listing of art websites is categorized by country and period.
American Religion Image LibraryVanderbilt Divinity Library has developed this pilot project that sorts pictures into particular classifications (for example "themes," "buildings," "documents," "event," "individuals," etc.) while also providing an engine for key-word searching. Although this collection is not extensive, each of the pages dedicated to each of the main categories provides a thought-provoking display of images.
American Writers Pictorial IndexThe title says it all.
Artcyclopedia"The Fine Art Search Engine" that allows you to search artists by name, artworks by title, art Museums by name and/or place. You can also browse their database of 7,500+ artists arranged "by Movement (e.g. Pop Art, Impressionism) by Medium (e.g. sculptors, illustrators) by Subject (e.g. landscape painters) by Nationality." A special listing of women artists is included.
Beineke Rare Book Library Digital ImagesYale's Rare Book and Manuscript department offers access to digital photos of some of their acquisitions and can be searched by keyword or phrase. It is useful to remember, too, that a search for a particular year as a "keyword" will yield a collection of items produced in that year. The Beineke provides a free service that allows users to create a "collection" of their favorite images for use in personal research.
Cartoons of the Gilded Age and Progressive EraA project produced at Ohio University featuring cartoons on Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, the Anti-Trust Movement, the Anti-Imperialist Movement, the 1900 Presidential Campaign. Samples of the cartoons published in Frank Beard's social-gospel magazine, The Ram's Horn, are also reproduced here.
A Digital Archive of American ArchitectureA searchable image base that also offers an index arranged by period, building type, architectural style, and architect. The site also includes a substantial number of images of buildings that were part of expositions and fairs from 1876 on.
The CGFA Virtual Art MuseumIndexed by artist, period, and nationality; it is also possible to do a key word search via the mirror site in Oregon.
Concordance of Images from the Library of Congress Rare Books and Manuscripts DivisionAlthough a small and highly specialized collection of graphics, this "concordance" offers a look at the handwritten and printed text as physical artifact and part of material culture.
Cornell University Image DatabaseAlthough this does not focus on American art and architecture, it does offer beautiful collection of ancient art and architecture, renaissance art, Icelandic and Faroese photographs, architectural photos, and the histories of Asian and American art.
Ditto
DogpileIf you want to search for images of a particular person or related to a particular topic, use Dogpile's search engine and select "images" rather than "web" as the focus of your search. (You can also choose to search for audio files.)
This stimulating project from the Education Department of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is designed to enable you to "discover the themes and worlds that emerged when creative and intellectual voices intersected during the Harlem Renaissance." The descriptions of writers, performers, artists, activists and others on this site include two distinctive and useful components. each profile includes a sound, graphic, or video file with a sample of his/her work and a links to information on other people connected to that individual. This site really DOES explore the intersections among people, places, and themes.
Fast Multimedia SearchAssists you in locating images and sounds for your webpages.
The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and FilmThe collection includes digital images of stereo views, lantern slides, photographs, films and works in other media both by famous and lesser-known figures in those fields.
An excellent search engine.
The History Project Image DatabaseHere you can find a collection of scanned images categorized to connect to major themes in American history and literature including, for example, Labor, Religion, Utopias, Social Unrest, and Advertising.
Historical Graphics GalleryThe remarkable Jim Zwick does it again, providing yet another rich resource. Exhibits here include: The Mark Twain Picture Gallery; The Political Art of Jim Beard; Advertisements from the Spanish-American & Philippine-American Wars; Stereoscopic Visions of War and Empire; Child Labor Photographs by Lewis W. Hine; and The Kodak vs. the King. He also has a collection of historical photographs and WWI Posters.
Image Base"A searchable image and text database of objects from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco."
ImageFinderBerkley's page of serach engines makes it possible to access a variety of collections including archives of architectural drawings and specialized photograph collections.
Images of American Political History
Lycos Multimedia Search
Masters of PhotographyPhotographs on this site are often accompanied by articles and other resources.
The Metropolitan Museum of ArtSearch for paintings related to your interests.
Michigan Writers Series"...Recognizes and highlights the literary work of important writers who live and work in Michigan." The Diane Wakoski page, for example, includes sound recordings of an interview, introduction, and three parts of a reading.
National Archives and Records Administration"NAIL contains more than 3,000 microfilm publications descriptions, 607,000 archival holdings descriptions, and 124,000 digital copies" of the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, with additional items being added to the online database on a regular basis. Here you can find digitized images of important documents and images in American history as well as a treasury of unfamiliar resources.
The National Gallery of Art
The New York Public Library Digitized Image CollectionAt the present time, this site offers photographs only on the following topics: Small-Town America- Stereoscopic views from the Robert Dennis Collection; Images of African Americans from the 19th Century; Berenice Abbott: Changing New York, 1935-1938; Lewis Wickes Hine: Construction of the Empire State Building, 1930 - 1931; and Lewis Wickes Hine: Work Portraits, 1920 - 1939. However, this is wonderful treasury if your interests coincide with one of these subjects.
New Yorker Cartoon BankYou can search for cartoons by keyword or artist and then e-mail the images for free or see what it costs to license them for use in a presentation or on a website. This may not prove highly useful for your research but is an excellent place to take a break.
Online Archive of California Image Search"A core component of the California Digital Library, the Online Archive of California (OAC) is a digital information resource that facilitates and provides access to materials such as manuscripts, photographs, and works of art held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions across California." By using Its image collection, you can access "access to tens of thousands of photographs, paintings, graphical materials and other types of images." In addition to allowing you to do keyword searches, OAC also enables you to browse images under topic headings such as: history; nature; people; place; society; and technology.
Photographs from 1922-1933 at American Memory and the Chicago Historical Society"This collection comprises over 55,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, then one of Chicago's leading newspapers. . . . Most of the photographs were taken in Chicago, Illinois, or in nearby towns, parks, or athletic fields. In addition to many Chicagoans, the images include politicians, actors, and other prominent people who stopped in Chicago during their travels and individual athletes and sports teams who came to Chicago. Also included are photographs illustrating the operations of the Chicago Daily News itself and pictures taken on occasional out-of-town trips by the Daily News's photographers to important events, such as the inauguration of presidents in Washington, D.C.
Picture History
Although you have to pay to use the images on this site, Picture History enables you to search a large collection for images by keyword and view the results. If you want to see a larger image or use it on a site and don't want to pay the costs involved, use your favorite search engine to see if you can find a work of the same name on a site that does not charge for the use of images.
Political Cartoons of Thomas Nast from the web site of the U.S. Senate
Political Cartoons and Cartoonists and also History of the 19th Century in Political CartoonsAnother excellent "chapter" in Jim Zwick's impressive
Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from WWII at the National Archives
PunchYou can use this site to read the History of Punch visit the Cartoon Galeries, or search for cartoons published in this famous British magazine during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Resource Library Magazine: America's Magazine for Representational ArtEssays and exhibits on art that offers not only a chronological index but also very useful listings by period and subject. Be sure to take advantage of the links from each item to the source and related resources.
Scour.NetA multi-media search engine.
Smithsonian American Art Museum's Digitized Collections, Online Exhibitions. and Search Smithsonian on-line's Digitized Images of Art and Artifacts."Over the past few years the Smithsonian has been digitizing its catalogues and has been appending images to these records. The On-Line Collections site is the portal through which these collections will ultimately be accessed. You will be able to use the portal site to search for topics or collections across the museums, allowing the user to locate and browse the Smithsonian’s treasures." This is searchable by text, artist/maker, department, and/or date, but can be very confusing to use.
The Tigertail Virtual MuseumThis "virtual" collection brings together digital images of art and artifacts representing all peoples and all places throughout human history. The American Collection can be browsed by period. An index of artists is also provided.
Valley of the Shadow Civil War Era Maps and ImagesMaps and images from Franklin Country, Pennsylvania, and Augusta County, Georgia. The section devoted to maps and images from the "Eve of the War Archive" includes such items as pictures of quilts and illustrations from Harpers of a tour through Virginia. The Image Database from the "War Years Archive" contains over 700 photographs and magazine illustrations documenting the Civil War and can be searched by battle, subject, name of soldier or person, and source of graphic (for example, Harpers). Images from the aftermath of the war will be appearing in the coming months.
The Worcester Art Museum on the WebIn addition to offering limited but significant access to its online gallery of general collections, the WAM site now features an excellent digital guide to its Early American Paintings Collection that includes "biographies of twenty artists, detailed entries on fifty-three paintings, and checklist information on twenty-four additional works" as well as a very helpful timeline.
World Wide Arts ResourcesAn engine that searches across the sites of museums, galleries, art historians, and artists to locate resources related to the title, name, or keyword you type in the search box.
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Soundfiles: Speakers Speaking, Writers Reading, People Being Interviewed
Civil Rights Documentation Project: Oral Histories and Transcripts, USM
Lost and Found Sound, NPRNational Public Radio's Quest for Sound Project put out "a call to listeners to send in their home recordings of the last one hundred years to be shaped into stories that capture the rituals and sounds of everyday life." Included in their archives are recorded eyewitness accounts of Lindberg's landing in Paris and the Gettysburg Address, interviews done by students in the 1960's on the subject of "hippies," Vietnam War recordings, early Edison recordings, and a collection of sound "artifacts" commemorating the New York World Trade Center.
Online Audio and Video Recordings: UC Berkeley Lectures and EventsThis is an eclectic collection that archives lectures and readings done by writers, poets, thinkers, activists, and politicians who have spoken at Berkeley, so don't expect to be able to find a particular work or person. However, there are some valuable resources here, including a wonderful assortment of readings by poets from Frost onwards.
Poetry Sound Files
The Academy of American Poets Listening Booth
An Audible Anthology -- Poems from the Atlantic Monthly read aloud.
Favorite Poem Project -- Americans reading their favorite poems
HarperAudio via the Internet Town Hall
The Internet Poetry Archive -- Work by Philip Levine, Seamus Heaney, Czelaw Milosz, Robert Pinsky, Yusef komunyakaa, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wilbur
Poet's Corner, ABC News
Readings in Contemporary Poetry Sound Archives -- Includes work by John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Louise Glück, Michael Palmer, Seamus Heaney, Frank Bidart, Robert Hass, Amy Clampitt
Salon Audio/MP3LIT -- Here you can find audio fiction, biography, poetry, and nonfiction as well as music.
Sonnet Central
Presidential Speeches (from the 20th Century) at DiscoverySchool.Com
SpeechBotA remarkable search engine that enables you to locate and play audio and video clips from the past year on an assortment of websites, including those hosted by National Public Radio and other radio stations. White House Briefings are also archived on this site. Once you locate selections, you can read excerpts of transcripts and/or watch/listen to clips.
Talking History"Talking History is a thirty-minute weekly radio program produced by the Organization of American Historians that separates fact from fiction and myth from reality through interviews with nationally recognized historians and writers. "
U.S. Presidents of the 20th Century, Vincent Voice Library"The MSU Vincent Voice Library is working to preserve over 100 years of historical spoken word recordings. . . ."
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Online Style Sheets:
Brief Guide to Parenthetical MLA (Modern Language Association) Documentation and Bibliographical Format, Assumption College English Department Professors Ady and Thoreen
PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide An Ongoing Online Project-- Appendix I: The Modern Language Association (MLA) Style
A Writer's Practical Guide To MLA Documentation
Writer's Workshop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
OWL Online Writing Lab at Purdue MLA Guidelines
Writing a Bibliography: MLA Style, HCC Library
MLA Style: Sample Bibliographic Entries (5th edition)
Frequently Asked Questions about MLA Style
NOTE: Essentially, most of the sites listed above offer the same material in different types of formats. You do not have to read or use all of these pages. Instead, find one that uses a format that makes it possible to find the information you need. Later, if you find yourself puzzled about how to handle a particular citation, consult additional resources.
Using Technology in Research, Teaching, and Learning
EdSITEment"EDSITEment is the product of a partnership. . . among the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Council of the Great City Schools, WorldCom Foundation and the National Trust for the Humanities. The purpose of EDSITEment is to offer a gateway for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies." To this end, EdSITEment offers a list of "the top humanities sites, peer-reviewed for outstanding intellectual quality, superior design, and educational impact" as well as a Reference Shelf with information on Tips for Better Browsing, Evaluating Online Resources, Electronic Citations, Analyzing Primary Sources, an Internet Glossary, and Websites Outlining Standards.
Crossroads Project: Technology and Learning"Links and information on teaching with technology and integrating multimedia and network technology into the classroom." This page includes material on faculty development, clasrroom resources, and curricula, collaborative projects, and case studies.
Georgetown University Library's Internet Resources PageAn impressive collection of information and advice for scholars, teachers, and students on finding, evaluating, and citing web resources.
Dr. Lucia Knoles' Web ResourcesThis link will take you to the list of the web resources I have constructed myself including syllabi, projects, statements on teaching with technology, and presentations on using technology to promote hands-on research in the classroom, and sample materials for class discussion. However, two additional resources are NOT included in the index. One is my Research Project FAQ:, brief answers to student questions such as "What is a research paper?,""Why do I need resources?,""What is the difference between a primary and secondary resource?," and "How do I find, evaluate, and use resources?" The other is a short pice of Advice for Assumption Students on Locating and Selecting Resources for Research Projects. However, you should note that because the advice was designed for my own students, it frequently directs students to the resources of the Assumption College Library.
