American Studies

19th century U.S. urban and regional newspapers. Fully searchable. Coverage: 1800-early 20th century.
Multidisciplinary database of journal articles (including peer reviewed), books, book chapters, reports, conference proceedings, etc. Coverage: 1887-present.
The J. Walter Thompson Company Archive documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.
Biographical information on African Americans. Includes Chadwyck-Healey's microform collection: Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790-1950, obituary files, slave narrative collections, photographs, and illustrations; and the index to that collection, Black biography, 1790-1950.
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
Broad coverage of African American history, culture, and daily life. Newspapers from over 35 states. Coverage: 1827-1998.
This new collection offers insight into how WWII changed American society, the economy and its lasting impact on individuals and families. Drawn from The National WWII Museum, New Orleans, and carefully curated by Adam Matthew’s team of editors and academic advisors, the collection includes a wealth of primary sources, from photos and notebooks to personal accounts and artefacts.
American history, literature, culture, and daily life. Choose this database to search the following as one file: American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900; Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1670-1800; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1652-1800. Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819; Supplement from the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) 1801-1819; Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) 1801-1819. Coverage: Varies.
Newspapers from all 50 states with eyewitness reporting, letters, advertisements, obituaries, etc. Includes access to Series I (1690-1876), Series II (1758-1900), Series III (1829-1922), Series IV (1756-1922), and Series V (1777-1922). Coverage: 1690-1922.
Provides full text coverage of the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes nearly 200 journals and 100 books, selective indexing for over 1,700 journals, and abstracts in English of foreign language articles.
Provides digital access to a highly comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1912. Subject coverage includes: advertising, health, women's issues, science, the history of slavery, industry and professions, religious issues, culture and the arts, and more. Produced by a partnership between EBSCO and the American Antiquarian Society (AAS).
Fully searchable facsimile images that capture daily life in America. Wide variety of items, including clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, theater and music programs, stock certificates, advertisements, menus, and social invitations. Coverage: 1760-1900.
The Film Scripts Online Series contains over 1,100 scripts and makes available, for the first time, accurate and authorized versions of copyrighted screenplays. Now film scholars can compare the writers vision with the producers and directors interpretations from page to screen. Most scripts in the series have never been published before and are available nowhere else.
People and events in American history and their presentation over time. Commercial and governmental newsreels, archival footage, public affairs footage, and important documentaries. Coverage: 1492-2000. **All films have public performance rights.**
A wide-ranging digital resource presenting a unique insight into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library's extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection. Includes manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books, photographs and newspapers. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
From historic pressings to contemporary periodicals, explore nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.
Music Online: American Music is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Complete poems, including any accompanying text (dedications, notes, etc.) written by the poet. Coverage: 1600-1900.
Original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material, and rare printed sources from the Graff Collection about the American West, including tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes, and outlaws, and the growth of urban centers and environmental impact of westward expansion and of life in the borderlands.
Anatomy of Protest in America delivers a unique opportunity to investigate through newspaper articles and editorials and books the people, places, events, organizations, and ideas, so important to Americans that they took action, exercised their rights, and stood up to protest. Newspapers: 1729-1922; Books: 1701-1928
All aspects of native North American culture, history, and life. Includes native peoples of Alaska, Canada, the US, and Mexico north of the northern boundary of Mesoamerica. Citations to books, essays, journal articles, and government documents of the US and Canada. Coverage: 16th century-present.
This collection searches a unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Black Thought and Culture contains 1,303 sources with 1,210 authors, covering the non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. Particular care has been taken to index this material so that it can be searched more thoroughly than ever before. Where possible the complete published non-fiction works are included, as well as interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters and other fugitive material.
Border and Migration Studies Online is a collection that explores and provides historical background on more than thirty key worldwide border areas, including: U.S. and Mexico; the European Union; Afghanistan; Israel; Turkey; The Congo; Argentina; China; Thailand; and others. Featuring at completion 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images.
This database allows you to search and view public domain newspaper pages (1690-1963) and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period. Access: Modules 1 - 5
Ebony Magazine Archive covers civil rights, education, entrepreneurship and other social topics with an African-American focus. It includes more than 800 issues providing a broad view of African-American culture from its first issue in 1945 through 2014.
Formerly 19th Century Masterfile. Covers scholarly sources from the 12th century to early 20th century. Includes Earl Gregg Swem's Virginia Historical Index; Poole's Index to Periodical Literature; Niles' Register; American Memory; links to images in ArtSTOR; plus many more. Citations to magazine articles, books, newspapers, patents, and US/UK government documents, and images. Coverage: 1106-1930 (varies by source).
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
This cross-curricular product covers today’s hottest social issues and supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes. Informed, differing views help learners develop critical thinking skills and draw their own conclusions. More than 20,000 pro/con viewpoints and 19,000+ reference articles are included.
Integrates literature resources from Gale into a single research environment. The following collections are available within this interface: Literature Resource Center, Literature Criticism Online, LitFinder,Scribner Writers Online, Twayne's Authors Online, MLA International Bibliography, and Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Allows a user to search across all Gale historical digital collections that the library owns or subscribes to: 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection -- 19th Century British Newspapers -- Eighteenth Century Collections Online -- Indigenous Peoples: North America -- Nineteenth Century Collections Online -- Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers -- Picture Post Historical Archive -- Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 -- The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003 -- The Making of the Modern World -- The Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985 -- Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, 1902-2012.
Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the US. Citations to articles, book reviews (through 2001), documents, original literary works, etc., appearing in social science and humanities journals published throughout the world. Coverage: 1970-present.
Researchers can access digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections. Includes multiple subcollections in broad subject areas like Civil Rights; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; International Relations and Military Conflicts; Women's Studies; and Workers and Labor Unions.
The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is an extensive online database of over 9,000 hours of full-text and video interviews with African-Americans distinguished in the fields of science, culture, politics, the arts, and public life. More content being added each week.
Literature & the literary arts, philosophy, the arts, history, culture, and creative thought. Journal articles, books, and other sources from around the world. Coverage: Varies by title.
A four-year project to digitize over one million pages from the magazines, journals, newsletters, and newspapers of the alternative press archives of participating libraries spanning the 1960's to the 1980's. Starting with collections by feminists and the GI press, the collection will grow to include small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, the minority press (Latino, Black and Native American) and the extreme right-wing press.
Multidisciplinary full-text journal articles from 1,500 major journals. Please note: In many cases, JSTOR does not include the most recent 3 to 5 years of these journals. Please use other databases to retrieve recent articles, especially for current events topics. Coverage: Varies by title. Access is available to 2007+ alumni; requires W&M userid and password.
Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. Some publications may contain explicit content. Coverage: 1954-2015.
Social history, industry& labor, government, sports, hobbies, etc. Publications of all 47 states, including city guides and original artwork. An Archives Unbound database. Coverage: 1933-1943.
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present.
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Coverage: 1841-1962.

19th century U.S. urban and regional newspapers. Fully searchable. Coverage: 1800-early 20th century.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Historiesincludes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives,
North American Women's Letters and Diariesincludes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Coverage: Colonial to 1950
This cross-curricular product covers today’s hottest social issues and supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes. Informed, differing views help learners develop critical thinking skills and draw their own conclusions. More than 20,000 pro/con viewpoints and 19,000+ reference articles are included.
Collection of databases devoted to disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. See titles of individual databases for further information. Coverage: Varies by database.
This is the largest single periodical resource available, bringing together complete databases across all major subject areas, including Business, Health and Medical, Social Sciences, Education, Science and Technology, and Humanities. Coverage: 1970-current.
While the world continues efforts to distance itself from the ravages of COVID 19, this experience is not as unique as we may have previously believed. Deadly epidemics have been challenging the populace since the earliest settlers came to American shores. You can research and read first-hand accounts of American infectious diseases using Accessible Archives’ latest collection: Quarantine and Infectious Disease Control in America Series. Newspapers: 1736-1922; Books: 1823-1928
RefWorks is an online tool that you can use to import, organize, annotate, and share research from databases, PDFs, and the web. The program automatically generates references for various citation styles, and the Write-N-Cite function lets you seamlessly incorporate both citations and references into your papers as you write them.
Provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, Roper iPoll is the largest collection of public opinion poll data with results from 1935 to the present. Roper iPoll contains nearly 800,000 questions and over 23,000 datasets from both U.S. and international polling firms. Surveys cover any number of topics including, social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs, science, the environment, and much more. When available, results charts, demographic crosstabs and full datasets are provided for immediate download.
Includes collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions. Part 1. Debates over slavery and abolition; Part 2. Slave trade in the Atlantic world; Part 3. The institution of slavery; Part 4. The age of emancipation.
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries, with 16 key areas of focus: slavery in the early Americas; African coast; the Middle Passage; slavery and agriculture; urban and domestic slavery; slave testimony; spiritualism and religion in slave communities; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement and the slavery debate; legislation and politics; freed slaves, freedmen and free black settlements; education; slavery and the Islamic world; varieties of slave experience; slavery today and the legacy of slavery. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Journal published in Richmond. Southern history, European history, military history, secessionism, states rights, and slavery issues. An Archives Unbound database. Coverage: 1834-1864.
This world history resource offers students and researchers a window to the past and transports them across continents. From the everyday to the extraordinary, these rare diaries and the supporting correspondence describe the travel experiences, destinations and desires of nineteenth and twentieth century American women.
Primary source database focusing on North American and European adult comic books and graphic novels. The collection includes original material from the 1960s to today along with interviews, commentary, theory, and criticism from journals, books, and magazines.
Open access database containing the scholarly output of the W&M community, including masters theses and dissertations from 1920 to today.
US history and US women's history. Primary documents, books, images, scholarly essays, book reviews, web site reviews, the biographical dictionary Notable American Women, and all publications of local, state, and national commissions on the status of women since 1963. Coverage: 1600-2000.
he Woman’s Tribune, with its motto in the masthead: “Equality Before The Law”, was launched by Clara Bewick Colby, from her home in Beatrice, Nebraska, in August 1883. For the next year, it was the official publication of the Nebraska Woman Suffrage Association. The Tribune and its publisher – also editor, typesetter, and correspondent — would become one of America’s most outspoken proponents of Women’s Suffrage and political rights.

American Studies Categories

Research Assistance