douglass

Image from the New York
Historical Society

American History Before 1865

HIS 301

Dr. Haywood

Image from the New York
Historical Society

Finding Books	Finding Articles
Other Sources	Writing and Citing
Evaluating Web Sites	Off-Campus Access

Finding Books

Use Illinet Online to find books held in the Elmhurst College library as well as books owned by 56 other Illinois academic libraries.

An Any Word, Anywhere search offers a good way to start looking for books by topic in Illinet Online. Use the main words describing your topic. Use quotes to search multi-word term like "abraham lincoln" or "abolition movement ".

A more precise way of searching is to use controlled vocabulary or a Browse Subject search. Illinet Online's controlled vocabulary is known as Library of Congress Subject Headings (or LC subject headings). Unlike keywords, you can't simply make these up: you have to find out what the exact terms are and enter them in Illinet as a subject heading search. Some examples of established subject headings are:

Truth, Sojourner, d. 1883 Biography
Slavery -- Southern States -- History

Use a Guided Keyword Search to combine two subject terms or concepts into one search.

Inter-Library Loan ~ Illinet Online allows you to request books held by 56 academic libraries in Illinois.

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Finding Articles

JSTOR	Available from off-campus, please use Internet Explorer. JSTOR is an an electronic archive of titles, often going back to the first issue of a journal's existence. JSTOR does not include current issues of journals.
Harp Week	Available on campus only. This is a collection of the 19th century periodical, Harper's Weekly, covering the years from 1857-1877. It includes full page images of each issue, including cartoons, editorials, news, illustrations, and advertisements.
Proquest Historical New York Times	Available from Off-campus. This database includes the entire run of the New York Times dating back to the first issue in 1851 and ending in 1999.

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Other Resources

Books

Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. R 973.703 H465e
Encyclopedia of theUnited States in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1-3. R973.5kE56u.
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, Vol. 1-5. R973.0496073E56
Great Lives From History, American Series, Vol.1-5. R920.073G786.

Web Sites

The Papers of Frederick Douglass ~ An archival collection from the Library of Congress.
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site ~ the official website with a biography and details of his residence.

Africans in America: Frederick Douglass ~ A brief synopsis of Douglass's life, plus details on a few other notable figures of the era.

Biography.com ~ A website sponsored by A & E television, with over 25,000 biographies including historical figures.

Yahoo! Directory guide to 19th Century People ~ An alphabetical list of notable 19th century individualsm, with web links to specific pages. These sites vary with regard to authority. A good starting point.

Writing and Citing

Writing and Citation Tools- A library directory with many links to writing and citing tools and resources.

Duke University Writing Center ~ more citiation in this online resource.

Evaluating Web Sites

Sometimes in your research you may find information that comes from questionable or unclear sources. In these cases, you must decide whether the information is reliable enough to be used in your research. Here are some links to websites that can help evaluate your sources.

Accessing Resources from Off-Campus

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Created on 10 November, 2003, and updated on 14 November, 2003
by Jennifer Paliatka and Jacob Hill,
Assistant Reference Librarians, Elmhurst College