American Memory --A collection of photographs, posters, documents, films, sound recordings and other materials from American history. Areas covered include: American culture and folklife, African American history, women's history, Native American history, adverstising, war, religion and sports.

The NYPL Digital Project --520,000 images from primary sources and printed rarities including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs, illustrated books, and printed ephemera.

Yale University Library Digital Collections--Includes several digital collections. Especially interesting is the "Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Digital Images" which contains collections on "Picturing Literary Modernism," the James Baldwin papers, the Langston Hughes papers, and many more fascinating items.

American Cultural History - The Twentieth Century--well done web sites giving high points of the decade, with very handy links and with lots of facts. From Lone Star College, Kingwood Library.

Reference Titles

Oxford English Dictionary--Now available online. The OED is a historical dictionary of English, covering the language from the earliest times to the present day and showing the development of meanings through time.

Dictionary of American Regional English--similar to the OED but only for U.S. words and terms. Great fun--and helpful when reading literary works. Only through "Sk." Ref. PE 2843 .D52 1985

Encyclopedia of American Studies--best for finding brief entries on topics related to American Studies (e.g., Federal Arts projects, New Deal, NAACP, Jazz Age, Lost Generation, etc.). Includes articles on only selected people (Stieglitz, Hemingway--but no separate articles on Cather, etc.)

Chronology of American Literature--Terrific!--year by year of major works in drama and theater, fiction, literary criticism, nonfiction, poetry. Also lists bestsellers. Ref. PS 94 .C48 2004 [and online!]

--Dictionary of Literary Biography : great source for authoritative essays on literary authors. When using basic search, change "keyword" to "Named Author." Many authors have multiple essays about them--from various perspectives. For example, Sherwood Anderson has essays about him as a novelist, as a short story writer, as an American writer in Paris. Items from "documentary" volumes contain much primary source material--such as book reviews of a writer's works written when the work first appeared. All volumes also contain many photographs.

Articles on American Literature, 1900-1950--For some writers this can provide references to critical reviews of a literary work that appear near time of original publication. Ref. PS88.A1A7

--Reference works on individual authors
When searching a literary writer as a subject in the Library Catalog, check titles listed as "encyclopedias" or as "bibliography."

Cambridge Companions Online--includes volumes on the Harlem Renaissance, the African American novel, American modernism, modernist poetry, Faulkner, Hemingway, Eliot, Cather. Each volume is a collection of "critical essays."

Credo Reference--a collection of online reference titles. You can search the entire collection or a sub-set. It is also possible to look at reference works individually. A few of the potentially useful titles include:
The Reader's Companion to American History
The Chronology of American Literature
Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English

Contact Information

Library Instructor: Millie Merz, 241 KL, 248-370-2457, merz@oakland.edu

Course Instructor: Kathleen Pfeiffer

Databases/Periodical Indexes & E-Journal Collections

MLA Bibliography--This is the best index to find literary articles in journals and in books and to identify entire books on literary topics. Indexing goes all the way back to items published in 1926. There are few abstracts [only “enhanced” subject headings or descriptors, abstracts did not appear until 2008]], and OU will not own a number of the items indexed. Be sure to use the links!

America, History and Life--indexes journal articles, books, chapters in books, and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada.. Indexing began in 1964. Remember that you can "limit your results" by "historical period"--meaning that results will be about the period NOT written during the period. Also, you can use the "indexes" feature to check about subject headings. Be sure to use the links!

JSTOR--Online collection of many scholarly journals from volume 1 until 2 to 5 years ago. Full text of articles is searchable! Problem: JSTOR does not use subject headings. If you get too many results searching your terms in "full-text" try restricting them to "article title."

ProjectMuse--online collection of many university press journals from current issues back 5 to 10 years. Remember that you can search by subject headings here--and the same subject headings that work in the Library Catalog also work here. Full text of articles is searchable!

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature--Ref. AI3.R4--For the 1920-1950 period we only have index in hard copy. Indexes popular and news magazines.

International Index to Periodicals--Ref. AI3.R49--Covers 1907-1955. Indexes scholarly journals.

Book Review Digest--Ref. Z1219.C96--For the 1920-1950 time period we only have print access. Not all reviews will be indexed--works have to have received several reviews to be included.

Newspapers/Magazines from period

New York Times, Historical (1851-2006)--Note that you can restrict your search to a date range ("from" "to). This is a great source for obituaries of famous people, for articles on events, or even for searching topics such as segreation, jazz, atom bomb, etc. You can also just pick a date and look at ads for clothing, furniture, medicines, homes, etc. Try Sunday papers--just put in a specific date, then click on "page map" on one of your results. From there you can "browse" the entire day's paper.

JSTOR--Another great thing about JSTOR is that it includes many journals published during 1920-1950. Among them are: American Historical Review (1895-2002), American Journal of Psychology (1887-2004), American Journal of Sociology (1895-2002), American Literature (1929-1999), Journal of Negro History (1916-2001), PMLA (1889-2002), Political Science Quarterly (1886-2003), and many others. To limit to journals published from 1920 through 1950, use the "advanced search" and include these years in the "date range."

Modernists Journals Project--growing collection of fulltext journals aiming to cover the Modernist period, 1890-1922. Some journals have only a few issues, but Poetry (1912-1922), New Age (1907-1922), and Wheels (1916-1921) include issues from several years. There are also single issues of over 20 journals published "on or about December 10." Links on the page are hard to find--they are under the picture/masthead on the left.

Harper's Magazine--"hard copy" 1931-1976, 4th floor, Per. AP2.H3

Life--popular magazine that has great pictures and will give you a feel for the time. We have issues from 1936-1972. 4th floor: Per. AP2.L547

Time--"freely accessible" on the web from the first issue in 1923! There is a search box where you can search by topic (or person) and limit by date.

Vital Speeches of the Day--online from 1934 via Business Source Premier. You can search for topics/people and limit by time period.

Detroit News, 1890-2007--This might be a good source to consult for the Michigan take on things. Unfortunately it is available at OU only on microfilm (Microfilm AN 2 .D47 D49). There is no index until the 1970s, but you could determine dates of particular events and then go to that day's paper. At the Circulation Desk there is a microform reader that enables you to digitize articles!

Other titles just in microfilm for this period--Atlantic Monthly/Atlantic (1857-1953), New Republic (1914-1959), Newsweek (1933-1969), Nation (1865-1959), Poetry (1912-1962). Check the Library Catalog for call numbers. (Microfilm is 2d floor, North.

Other Info

Does the library have access to a journal online? Easiest way to find out is to check the "E-Journals A to Z " from the library's "Find Articles" page.

Where do you find lists of databases and other online resources available at OU? The easiest way to find these is to check "Databases by Subject" or "Databases A to Z" from the "Find Articles" page.

When you are using the library's databases, be sure to click on the blue link when the article you want does not have a full text link in the database. will then take you to the article from another source. If there is no online access for the article, you can click on the library catalog link to see if there are print holdings. If the libary has no print copy of the article, you can link to a form to request a copy of the article via interlibrary loan.

RefWorks - a reference management tool that allows you to create a personal database of references and automatically generate formatted bibliographies for your projects.

Created on 10/09/2008 by Millie Merz / Last updated on 9/10/09 by Millie Merz

Oakland University, Kresge Library
2200 N Squirrel Rd., Rochester, MI 48309
(248) 370 - 4426

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