American Studies
This research guide highlights the major print and online
resources used in American Studies research. This guide is arranged in
the following sections:
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Subject
Librarian: David Killian
Location: Gelman Library
E-mail: dkillian@gwu.edu
Phone: 202-242-6623
Updated:
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The URL for this page is http://www.gwu.edu/gelman/guides/social/american.html
- ABC-CLIO Companion to the 1960s Counterculture in America.
Neil A. Hamilton, 1997.
- Location: REF E 169.02 .H3515 1997 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
- American Architecture: An Illustrated Encyclopedia.
Cyril M. Harris, 1998
- Location: REF NA 705 .H36 1998 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
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American Decades. Richard Layman, ed. 9 vols., 1994.
- Location: Gale Virtual Reference Library (ALADIN); also REF E 169.12 .A419 1994
- American Folklore: an Encyclopedia. Jan Harold Brunvand,
1996.
- Location: REF GR 101 .A54 1996
- Buildings of the District of Columbia. Pamela Scott
and Antoinette J. Lee, 1993.
- Location: REF and SPECIAL COLLECTIONS NA 735 .W3 S36 1993
- Dictionary of American History. Stanley I. Kutler,
3rd ed., 2003.
- Location: REF E 174 .D52 2003 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
- Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists. Paul
Cummings, 6th ed., 1994.
- Location: REF N 6512 .C854 1994 (Mount Vernon Campus Reference has
1988 (5th) edition)
- Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History.
Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, 5 vols., 1996.
- Location: Gale Virtual Reference Library (ALADIN); also REF E 185 .E54 1996 and Mount Vernon Campus Reference
- Encyclopedia of American Social History. Mary Kupiec
Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, and Peter W. Williams, 3 vols., 1993.
- Location: REF HN 57 .E58 1993 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
- Encyclopedia of American Studies. George T. Kurian
et al, 4 vols., 2001
- Location: REF E 169.1 .E625 2001
- Encyclopedia of Urban America: the Cities and the Suburbs.
Neil Larry Shumsky, ed. 2 vols., 1998.
- Location: REF HT 123 .E5 1998
- Encyclopedia of Women’s History in America,
Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, 2nd ed., 2000.
- Location: REF HQ 1410 .C85 2000
- Greenwood Guide to American Popular Culture. M. Thomas
Inge and Dennis Hall, 2002.
- Location: REF E 169.1 .G7555 2002
- Historical Dictionary of Washington, D.C. Robert
Benedetto et al, 2003.
- Location: REF and SPECIAL COLLECTIONS F192 .B46 2003
To see a list of all databases available, go to the ALADIN Home page
and click on each alphabetical segment under “Databases by Title”
on the right side of the screen. Alternatively, if you know the name of
the database, enter it in the box labeled “Find Databases by Name/Category.”
ALADIN databases are available for use only by current GW students, staff,
and faculty. If you are using this page from off-campus, you will be prompted
to enter the barcode number from the back of your GWorld ID card before
you can access the database.
- America,
History and Life
- Location: ALADIN
- An index covering the history of US and Canada. Dates of publication:
from 1964 to the present. Earlier coverage (1954 – 1995) is available
in print, location: REF E 178 .A48.
- Art
Abstracts
- Location: ALADIN
- Covers a broad range of art topics such as advertising, archaeology,
crafts, folk art,
graphic arts, interior design, video, film, architecture and art history.
Coverage for this database: 1984 to the present.
- Avery
Index to Architectural Periodicals
- Location: ALADIN
- A comprehensive listing of journal articles published worldwide on
architecture and design, archaeology, city planning, interior design,
and historic preservation. Coverage is from the 1930s (with selective
coverage dating back to the 1860s) to the present.
- Gale
Literary Databases
- Location: ALADIN
- Full-text of articles from Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary
Criticism, and Dictionary of Literary Biography. Especially good for
locating biographical information on writers and scholarly studies of
contemporary writers.
- MLA
International Bibliography
- Location: ALADIN
- Indexes journal articles, books and dissertations focusing on language
and literature. Produced by the Modern Language Association, coverage
is from 1963 to the present.
- Periodical
Contents Index
- Location: ALADIN
- Indexes the contents pages of over 1200 humanities and social sciences
journals from 1770 to 1990/1991, searchable by keyword, title, author
and journal title.
- ProjectMuse
- Location: ALADIN
- Full-text articles from journals in the humanities and social sciences
published by university presses. Includes American Quarterly, the official
publication of the American Studies Association, from 1996 to the present.
- Sociological
Abstracts
- Location: ALADIN
- Abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and
related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Provides
abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews, as well
as abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference
papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth abstracts of journal
articles.
- American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American
Diaries and Journals. Laura Arksey, Nancy Pries, and Marcia
Reed, 2 vols., 1983-1987.
- Location: REF and SPECIAL COLLECTIONS CT 214 .A74 (Also at Mount Vernon
Campus Reference)
- American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography. Jack
Salzman, 3 vols., 1986, and suppl., 1990.
- Location: REF E 169.1 .A486 1986 and REF E 169.1 .A486 1986 suppl.
- Arts in America: a bibliography. Bernard Karpel,
editor, 1979.
- Location: REF NX 503 .A1 A75 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
- Blacks in the American West and Beyond - America, Canada,
and Mexico : a Selectively Annotated Bibliography. George H.
Junne, Jr.
- Location: REF E 185 .925 .B51 2000
- Handbook for Research in American History: a Guide to Bibliographies
and Other Reference Works. Francis Paul Prucha, 2nd ed., 1994
- Location: REF E 178 .P78 1994
- Sources for American Studies. Robert Harris Walker
and Jefferson B. Kellogg, 1983.
- Location: REF and STACKS E 175 .S58 1983 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus
Reference)
- United States History: a Selective Guide to Information Sources.
Ron Blazek and Anna H. Perrault 1994.
- Location: REF E 178 .B57 1994 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Reference)
- American Memory from
the Library of Congress
- Location: http://rs6.loc.gov/amhome.html
- American Memory provides access to primary source materials relating
to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more
than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.
- American Periodicals Series
- Originally on microfilm, and now available online, this series consists of the full text of over 1,100 American journals and magazines dating from 1741 up to World War II. (Note that the apparent end date of 1900 is misleading; coverage is up to 1941 on microfilm and online.)
- American
Periodicals Series Online, 1740-1900
- Location: ALADIN and on CD-ROM (Ask at Reference and Information Desk)
- Features over 1,100 periodicals spanning nearly 200 years, from colonial times to World War II. Note that the online collection is not yet complete as materials from the microfilm collection are still being added.
- American Periodicals, 1741-1900: An Index to the Microfilm
Collections
- Location: PERIODICALS DESK PN 4877 .H65 (3rd Floor)
- A cumulative index to the entire series, providing access by title, subject, editor and microfilm reel number.
- American Periodicals Series I and II on microfilm
- Location: MICROFORM ROOM (Microfilm drawers), 3rd Floor
- Check the detailed record to obtain the microfilm reel number in order to retrieve the document.
- Index to American Periodicals of the 1700's: Keyed to
University Microfilms APS I, 2 vols.
- Location: REF PN 4877 .I53 1989
- Arranged by APS and microfilm reel number, each volume with its own index.
- Index to American Periodicals of the 1800's: Keyed to
University Microfilms APS II, 17 vols. Sequence covers 1800 - 1830
- Location: REF PN 4877 .I532 1989
- Arranged by APS and microfilm reel number, each volume with its own index.
- Dime
Novels and Penny Dreadfuls
- Location: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/home.html
- Produced by Stanford University Library, this site documents the history of dime novels and story papers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Documenting the American
South
- Location: http://docsouth.unc.edu/
- Developed by the Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this database includes 1,235 books and manuscripts focusing on the personal accounts of ordinary Southerners, such as slaves, Civil War soldiers and plantation owners, from the Colonial Period through the early 20th century.
- HarpWeek
- Location: ALADIN
- Full-image of Harper's Weekly magazine for 1857-1865.
- Historic Documents
- Location: STACKS E 839.5 .H57 (Also at Mount Vernon Campus Stacks)
- Full-text of selected documents of national or international importance, including reports, speeches and court decisions, one volume per year, beginning in 1972 and continuing to the present.
- New
York Times (Historical)
- Location: ALADIN
- Offers full-text and full-image articles for the New York Times for 1851-1999. Includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue in downloadable PDF files.
- Washington
Post (Historical)
- Location: ALADIN
- Offers full-text and full-image articles for the Washington Post for 1877-1987. Includes digital reproductions of every page from every issue in downloadable PDF files.
- Historical
Maps of the United States
- Location: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histus.html
- Produced by the University of Texas, this site contains maps showing, among other features, early settlement, military history and historical maps of U.S. cities.
- Hypertexts
- Location: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/hypertex.html
- This is an ongoing hypertext project of the American Studies Program at the University of Virginia. The site provides key American Studies texts in their entirety.
- Library of American Civilization
- LAC is a collection of materials on microfiche relating to all aspects of American life and literature from their beginnings to the outbreak of World War I. Included in the collection are pamphlets, periodicals, documents, biographies and autobiographies, fictional works, poetry, collections of various kinds, materials of foreign origin relating to America, and many rare books not generally available.
- Library of American Civilization
- Location: MICROFORM ROOM, 3rd Floor
- Library of American Civilization: Biblioguide Index
- Location: REF E 178 .M52 1972 and STACKS and MICROFORM ROOM, 3rd floor.
- Access to the LAC by title, author, subject and specialized topic index.
- The Making of
America (MOA)
- Location: http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
- The Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection contains approximately 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
- New York Times Guide to the Arts of the Twentieth Century.
D. J. R. Bruckner, et al. 4 vols. 2002.
- Location: REF NX 456 .N52 2002
- Reviews, news articles, interviews and essays from the New York Times capturing 100 years of art, architecture, literature, music, dance, theater, film and television.
- Pamphlets in American History
- Pamphlets in American History, (Group 1) 1978.
- Location: MICROFORM ROOM, 3rd Floor (Fiche B 256),
- Part 1 of this series contains copies of 5,228 pamphlets on General Biography, Indians, the Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War Biography and Women.
- Pamphlets in American History: A Bibliographic Guide to
the Microform Collection, (Group 1) 1979.
- Location: REF E 178 .P2
- Wright
American Fiction
- Location: www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2
- This site collects fictional works published between 1851 and 1875. Based on a bibliography of American fiction compiled by Lyle H. Wright, the site has currently archived 2,887 volumes, including
To access databases with a location of "ALADIN", click on the title of
the database.
Collections with the location "ALADIN" are available for use
only by current GW students, staff, and faculty. If you are using this
page from off-campus, you will be prompted to enter the barcode number
from the back of your GWorld ID card beforeyou can access the database.
- ArchivesUSA
- Location: ALADIN
- This is a current directory of 5,500 repositories and 141,178 collections of primary source material across the United States. Researchers are able to read descriptions of a repository's holdings to determine whether a collection contains material useful to their work as well as find the information they need to contact the repository directly.
- Directory of Popular Culture Collections. Christopher
D. Geist et al eds. 1989.
- Location: REF E 169.1 .D54 1989
- National
Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, Library of Congress.
- Location: http://www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html
- WorldCat
- Location: ALADIN
- This database contains over 43 million records describing the holdings of more than 9,000 US and foreign libraries. Materials cataloged include: books, films and slides, journals, manuscripts, musical scores and sound recordings. This is an invaluable tool both for verifying information and for searching for and obtaining materials from beyond the WRLC network.
General Sites
- American
Studies Crossroads Project
- Location: http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/index.html
- The American Studies Crossroads Project site provides a comprehensive, integrated, information platform that contains a collection of resources serving the professional needs of the international American Studies community. Included are: resources and tools intended for the use of teachers, administrators, and prospective students; indexes to online courses and interactive syllabi, model assignments and course-based electronic projects; and online reference materials for the field of American studies.
- Institute
for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH)
- Location: http://www.iath.virginia.edu//readings/amstudies.html
- Useful selection of websites from IATH (at the University of Virginia)
- National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA)
- Location: http://www.archives.gov/
- The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent Federal agency that preserves U.S. history and oversees the management of all Federal records.
- Voice of the Shuttle
- Location: http://vos.ucsb.edu/
- This site provides a vast number of links to a wide range of humanities issues and categories.
Specialized Sites
Washington, DC
- DC
Community Web Pages: Museums and Cultural Institutions
- Location: http://www.dclibrary.org/community/museums-cult.html
- District
of Columbia Public Library: Washingtoniana Division
- Location: http://www.dclibrary.org/washingtoniana/index.html
- Historical Society of
Washington, DC
- Location: http://www.citymuseumdc.org
- National Museum of American
Art
- Location: http://www.nmaa.si.edu/
- National Museum of
American History
- Location: http://americanhistory.si.edu/
- National Register
of Historic Places: Washington, D.C.
- Location: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/
- Preservation
Organizations in Washington, D.C.
- Location: http://preservationdirectory.com/preservationorganizations_dc.html
Preservation
- National Trust for
Historic Preservation
- Location: http://www.nationaltrust.org
- Preservation Directory
- Location: http://preservationdirectory.com/
- Provides extensive directory information on sites and organizations across the nation.
There is information on online discussion lists at the American
Crossroads website (http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/lists2.html).
Some of the links, however, are not functioning. At the time of printing,
all the links below were working:
American Studies:
http://www.h-net.org/~amstdy/
African
American Literature: http://listserv.uic.edu/archives/afam-lit.html
Cultural
Studies: http://www.cas.usf.edu/communication/rodman/cultstud/
European Association of American
Studies: http://www.eaas.info/
Folklore:
http://FOLKLORE@listserv.tamu.edu/archives/folklore.html
For more information, call the Reference Desk at 202-994-6048 or use
the E-mail Reference Form. This
page is maintained by Sarah Mitchell.
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