Useful web sites for “primary” documents

1. 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.
2. Making of America --(Note: Items from this collection also have been cataloged in Voyager, Kresge Library's online catalog) - "A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction." [See #77 for info about MoA journals.]
3. The Avalon Project --Documents, including treaties and other legal materials from world history, 18th-20th centuries.
4. 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.
5. Douglass Archives of American Public Address --Douglass is an electronic archive of American oratory and related documents.
6. E-Resources of the G.W. Blunt Library of Mystic Seaport  --includes diaries, letters, logs, pictures, etc.
7. Plough Boy Journals of Lewis Monto and the Plough Boy Anthology --includes early 19th century books and periodicals on whaling.  This site has link to Thomas Beale’s The Natural History of the Sperm Whale.
8. Melville’s Marginalia   Includes digitized pages from two books owned and “marked” by Melville—Matthew Arnold’s New Poems and Beale’s The Natural History of the Sperm Whale.
9. The Life and Works of Herman Melville   Includes links to many of the novels, to Melville’s letters to Hawthorne, some of Melville’s obituaries, etc.

19th century Newspapers and Journals—at OU or available online at OU

10. Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts) 1831-1865 Microfilm E449.L69
11. Niles Weekly Register (Philadelphia, PA) 1811-1844 Microfilm JK1.N5
12. Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia, PA) 1728-1847, 4th floor Per. AN1.P5G3
13. United States Gazette (Philadelphia, PA) 1804-1847 Microfilm AN2.P35G3
14. New York Times: Historical Collection 1851-2003 Online  (link on library web site from “Find Articles” and then “databases by title.”
15. DeBow's 1846-1869 + 1952 index (3 series)  (in Making of America)
16. Ladies Repository 1841-1876 (3 series)  (in Making of America)
17. Princeton Review 1831-1882 (3 series)  (in Making of America)
18. Southern Literary Messenger 1835-1864 + 1936 Contributor index (in Making of America) 
19. Southern Quarterly Review 1842-1857 (3 series)  (in Making of America)
20. American Periodicals Series Online (trial through February 2 only) (requires password)-- This unique and valuable collection includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals that first began publishing between 1741 and 1900, with content spanning 200 years.

Still other primary sources at OU

21. Early American Imprints—microcards but can be scanned.  Series 1--every book, pamphlet, and broadside published in the American colonies or the United States between 1639 and 1800.  Series II covers 1801-1819.  To find relevant works search World Cat with “early American imprints” as “series title.” E-mail merz@oakland.edu for scanning instructions.
22. American State Papers-- contain the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838.  Some interesting items on whaling, exploration, New Bedford, etc.
23. U. S. Serial Set--began publication with the 15th Congress, 1st Session (1817) and contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports.  OU has early years in microcard.  Print index is in reference (Ref. J69.C57).
24. Slavery source materials : books and pamphlets written before the Civil War, by and about slavery and anti-slavery  Microfiche E441.S55.  List of titles is in reference (Ref. E441.S552)

Special Collections

25. Jane M. Bingham Collection of Historical Children's Literature—2d floor North—children’s books arranged by year first published.
26. Hicks Collection of Books by and about Women
27. James Collection

Library Catalog

28. Includes all titles in “Making of America”
29. Use Advanced search to find titles we have from the 1840s and 1850s—e.g., 184? “publication date”.
30. Sort results by date—thus grouping 19th century items together.
31. Search Melville as subject and note subdivisions as “books and reading,” “concordances,” “correspondence,”  “Moby Dick Sources,” “sources.”
32. Look for other primary sources by doing keyword searches such as the following (combined with a topic such as “whales or whaling”)—letters or memoir? or correspondence or journal? or diary or diaries or “personal narratives” or interviews or documentary
33. Placing holds and recalls on books that are “checked out.”

World Cat

34. Can serve as index to “Early American Imprints.”  See 13 above.
35. Can determine what libraries have a title (and sometimes include working URL for work)—and can confirm bibliographical data.
36. Can locate materials here and request via interlibrary loan
37. Can perform subject/keyword searches to discover new resources

Databases for secondary sources

38. MLA Bibliography —indexes journal articles, books, chapters in books, and dissertations on language, literature, and folklore.  Indexing began in 1926.  (“Find Articles” then “Databases by Title”)
39. America: History & 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.  (“Find Articles” then “Databases by Title”)

Contact Information

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

Course Instructor:

Jeff Insko, 520 Wilson, 248-370-2253 insko@oakland.edu

Relevant Reference Works

40. Oxford English Dictionary —find link in Library Catalog or by going to “Find Articles” and then databases by title.
41. Dictionary of American Regional English (only through Sk)  Ref. PE2843.D52 1985
42. Coffler, Gail H. Melville’s Classical Allusions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.  Ref. PS2388.G73 C63 1985
43. Herman Melville A to Z:  the Essential Reference to His Life and Work  Ref. PS 2386 .A24 2001
44. Herman Melville Encyclopedia  Ref. PS 2386 .G3 1995
45. Melville Sea Dictionary  Ref. PS 2388 .L33 G5 1982
46. Gross, Ernie.  The American Years:  a Chronology of United States History.  New York:  Charles Scribner’s, 1999.  Ref. E174.5.G753 1999
47. The Annals of America.  This is a collection of historic documents.  Volume 7 covers 1840-1849.  Ref. E173.A793 1968
48. Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism  Ref. PN81.A1J64 2005
49. A Handbook to Literature  Ref. PN41.H355 2006
50. Encyclopedia of American Studies—available soon online (link is in Library Catalog or on “Find Articles”—“databases by title) and in print  (Ref. E169.1. E625 2001)
51. American National Biography  Ref. E176.A68 1999  In v. 15 is “the most reliable ‘nutshell’ account of Melville’s life.
52. Dictionary of Literary Biography—Three different volumes have lengthy sections on Melville.  Ref. PS128.A5;  Ref. PS253.N7A58 2001;  Ref. PS374.S5A38

3rd floor Books Not on Reserve

53. Herman Melville’s whaling years  by Wilson Heflin  PS 2386 .H38 2004
54. A Companion to Melville studies /  PS 2386 .C66 1986
55. The critical response to Herman Melville's Moby-Dick  PS 2384 .M62 C76 1994
56. Stove by a whale: Owen Chase and the Essex / Thomas Farel Heffernan.  G545.C48 H43
57. Among whales / Roger Payne.  QL 737 .C4 P38 1995
58. In the heart of the sea : the tragedy of the whaleship Essex / Nathaniel Philbrick.  G 530 .E77 P45 2000
59. Narrative of the most extraordinary and distressing shipwreck of the whaleship Essex / Owen Chase.  G530 .E7 1963
60. An account of the Arctic regions with a history and description of the northern whale-fishery / William Scoresby  G742 .S42 1969
61. The sign of the cannibal: Melville and the making of a postcolonial reader / Geoffrey Sanborn.  PS 2388 .I45 S26 1998
62. Unpainted to the last : Moby-Dick and twentieth-century American art / Elizabeth A. Schultz.  PS 2384 .M62 S36 1995
63. Melville’s muse : literary creation & the forms of philosophical fiction / John Wenke.  PS 2388 .A35 W46 1995
64. Moby-Dick as doubloon; essays and extracts, 1851-1970. Edited by Hershel Parker [and] Harrison Hayford.  PS2384.M62 P3
65. Moby-Dick.  Volume 6 of the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Whitman’s works.  PS2380.F68 v.6
66. Correspondence / Herman Melville.  The Northwestern-Newberry edition.  PS2380.F68 v.14

Other web sites

67.  Repositories of Primary Sources  --collections/Other.Repositories.html--A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.
68. Kingwood College Library’s 19th Century Cultural History  --has lots of interesting links.
69. Primary Sources on the Web  This is a selected list of websites containing primary source materials.
70. Using Primary Sources on the Web   Finding, evaluating, and citing primary sources.

Miscellaneous

71. “Get It” links in our various databases can lead you to online articles when we have online access via other databases (such as OneFile), online packages (such as JSTOR), or online subscriptions.  If we do not have an article online, you can click on a link to the Library Catalog to determine if we have the title in print. 
72. ILLiad is the interlibrary loan software you use to request the library to borrow (or for articles actually get you copies) of materials we do not own.  The “Get It” link will take you to ILLiad (and will even fill out the item information for you) or you can go to an ILLiad form from the library’s web site (by clicking in “Library Information” and then on “Services”).
73. The Library’s New web site—http://library.oakland.edu.  Be sure to learn your way about the new site.
74. Moby Dick (the movie) with Gregory Peck.  On DVD.  Must be viewed in the library.  Faculty can check out for classroom viewing.  (DVD-0952)
75. NetLibrary-- Do a title search for Moby Dick. Select an edition ("view this e-book"). Then you can "search" for particular words in the text-it is like having an online concordance!
76. Instructions for scanning microcards--e-mail merz@oakland.edu
77. Making of America journals--There are two separate MoA journal collections, one at Cornell and one at the University of Michigan. Many of the journals include issues from the latter half of the 19th century. There are important titles such as the North American Review, Putnam's, Scribner's Monthly, Vanity Fair, etc. You can search or browse each collection.
78. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville--This is a part of the Cambridge Collections that is available online. After getting to the Cambridge Collections just do a quick search on "herman melville."

Contact me!Millie Merz, 241 KL, 248-370-2457, merz@oakland.edu

General Library Information

Ask a Librarian

Floor map of the Kresge Library

Interlibrary Loans via ILLIAD