Guides: ENG 380.01/380.08 Antebellum American Literature (Mullins): Home

Databases for your Periodical Paper

These databases cover more than the antebellum period; be certain to check the dates of the issue(s) you select.

Accessible Archives This link opens in a new window
Once you have logged in to the database, click on "Collections" near the top, wait for the page to load, scroll down to the Collection List, and select a title of interest. Click on the periodical title scroll down to find the Browse and Search buttons
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Access to selected newspaper pages from 1836 to 1922. Use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.

Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).
Making of America (Cornell University Library) This link opens in a new window
The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. Additional journals and books are available at the Unive
America's Historical Newspapers (“Early American Newspapers, Series 1”) This link opens in a new window
Series I offers more than 700 historical American newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia printed between 1690 and 1876 and is based on Clarence S. Brigham's "History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820" and other authoritative bibliographies.

Databases for Literary Research

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
An index of journal articles, books, and dissertations, the electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to the 1920s and contains over 2.5 million citations from more than 5,000 journals and series and 1,200 book publishers. Coverage is international and subjects include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.

In addition, the MLA Directory of Periodicals and their proprietary thesaurus used to assign descriptors within the Bibliography are included.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Access the journal archives Arts & Sciences I, II, III, IV, VI, & VII and over 40,000 ebooks on the JSTOR platform; book chapters and journal articles are cross-searchable. JSTOR is an extensive archive of interdisciplinary journals and books, covering subject disciplines in Arts, Business & Economics, History, Humanities, Law, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Religion.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Look for peer-reviewed articles. Provides up-to-date biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 600+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.
American National Biography This link opens in a new window
Access to portraits of more than 18,700 men and women, updated quarterly with new and revised entries, features thousands of illustrations, more than 80,000 hyperlinked cross-references, links to select web sites, and powerful search capabilities. Includes over 900 articles from The Oxford Companion to United States History, providing historical and social context to the biographies.

Course Description

Antebellum American Literature examines some of the most significant cultural, literary, and intellectual movements of the 1830s through the 1860s, a period known as the "American Renaissance" and now referred to as the antebellum era. These decades saw many changes in American culture: debates over slavery, religious and ethical life, western expansion, women's sphere; immigration; and dramatic changes in publishing, readership, and authorship. We will focus on the development of a distinctly "American" literature through texts that explore questions of identity, the natural world, solitude, slavery, and racism, as well as the road toward the Civil War. Requirements: forum posts; presentations, research paper.