Guides: American Studies: Useful Resources

Library Databases

American National Biography
Access to portraits of more than 18,700 men and women, updated quarterly, features hyperlinked articles from The Oxford Companion to United States History.
ACLS Humanities E-Book
Foundational books in the humanities and social sciences, selected by scholars.
American Decades
Access to 20th century primary source materials including selected speeches, letters, legal decisions, government documents, lyrics, advertisements, literary scripts, recipes, scrapbooks, and cartoons. Continued in American Decades: 2000-2009.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Access to encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
American Men and Women of Science 31st ed.
Covers over 140,000 living scientists, providing birthdate; birthplace; field of specialty; education; honorary degrees; current position; professional and career information; awards; memberships; research information; and addresses.
Dissertations & Theses Global (ProQuest)
Doctoral dissertations and master's theses, from 1743 to the present. Full text for most dissertations since 1997.

American Studies Journals
a directory of worldwide resources : This website provides scholars with a one-stop shop for the latest research published in American studies journals throughout the world. Organized by the International Initiative of the American Studies Association and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this site is the outcome of a collaboration between numerous journal editors around the world.
American Studies Association
Chartered in 1951, the American Studies Association now has more than 5,000 members. They come from many fields: history, literature, religion, art, philosophy, music, science, folklore, ethnic studies, anthropology, material culture, museum studies, sociology, government, communications, education, library science, gender studies, popular culture, and others.
Encyclopedia Smithsonian: History & Culture
Explore topics from A to Z

American Memory Project
provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.

Poets.org
Site of the Academy of American Poets.
NINES: Nineteenth Century Studies Online
If you study 19th-century literature, check here! A peer-reviewed scholarly site bringing together a growing number of digital projects relating to nineteenth century literature.
National Archives and Records Administration
rich source for U.S. history, but only a small portion of the collection is available online.

Wright American Fiction Project (1837-1888)
This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. There are currently 2,887 volumes included (1,763 unedited, 1,124 fully edited and encoded) by 1,456 authors.

Project Gutenberg
Free full-text access to thousands of electronic books on a wide variety of topics. Includes books in English as well as many different foreign languages.
Life Photo Archive hosted by Google
millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today
Cambridge History of English and American Literature
"Considered the most important work of literary history and criticism ever published, the Cambridge History contains over 303 chapters and 11,000 pages, with essay topics ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and essays to history, theology and political writing." Arranged chronologically, and includes an index to the chapters in each volume, as well as an index to the bibliographies in each chapter.
Poetry Foundation
The publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in culture. Includes poems, articles and biographical information on poets.