Guides: HIST 481 Senior Seminar (Davenport): Specialized Databases

Other Primary Source Databases

Loeb Classical Library
A virtual library of more than 520 volumes of Greek and Latin texts with English translations. Works include Epic and lyric poetry; tragedy and comedy; history, travel, philosophy, and oratory; works from medical writers and mathematicians; and works from Church Fathers.
Digital National Security Archive
- This link opens in a new window
Provides a collection of primary documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. The resource now includes 31 subscribed collections consisting of over 43,000 meticulously indexed documents. Each of these collections, compiled by top scholars and experts, exhaustively covers the most critical world events, countries, and U.S. policy decisions from post-World War II through the 21st century. Visit ProQuest's guide for an overview of the collections.
HeinOnline
Online research product with more than 90 million pages of legal history available in an online, fully-searchable, image-based format. Visit HeinOnline LibGuides for tips on searching this database.
Early English Books Online (Includes TCP Phase I)
- This link opens in a new window
Access to page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. Primary sources such as prayer books, pamphlets, proclamations, almanacs. Includes first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the turmoil of the English Civil War. Featured authors: Malory, Bacon, More, Erasmus, Boyle, Newton, Galileo; musical exercises by Henry Purcell.

It contains over 100,000 of the 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgraves's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). The Text Creation Partnership (TCP), is in the process of creating SGML coding for the full text of 25,000 EEBO works, so users can search the full ASCII text of the documents and view both the text and the correspondin original page images.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans 1639-1800
- This link opens in a new window
Commonly called referred to as the Evans Collection, this resource is comprised of a vast range of publications, including advertisements, almanacs, bibles, broadsides, catalogs, charters and by-laws, contracts, cookbooks, elegies, eulogies, laws, maps, narratives, novels, operas, pamphlets, plays, poems, primers, sermons, songs, speeches, textbooks, tracts, travelogues, treaties and more. The imprints in Series I are expertly indexed and may be browsed by genre, subjects, author, history of printing, place of publication and language.
North American Immigrant Letters/Diaries
- This link opens in a new window
Access to personal narratives such as letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories, including several thousand indexed and searchable pages of Ellis Island Oral History interviews. Collection starts around 1840 and extend to the present, focusing heavily on the period from 1920 to 1980. Includes more recent waves of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Provides perspectives both on North America and on the immigrants' countries of origin.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment
- This link opens in a new window
Documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534-1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. The project brings coherence to a wide range of published and unpublished accounts, including narratives, diaries, journals, and letters.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
- This link opens in a new window
Spanning more than 300 years, the collection contains the personal experiences of some 1,325 women from colonial times to 1950. Includes approximately 150,000 pages of letters and diaries includes 6,000 pages of unpublished manuscripts, 300 biographies and 1,500 bibliographies. Including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings and represents all age groups and life stages, a wide range of ethnicities, and many geographic regions.
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

Foreign Relations of the United States
The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.

Historial Newspapers and Magazines

Los Angeles Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
- This link opens in a new window
Every issue from 1881-1990 includes the complete paper -cover-to-cover- with full-page and article images in downloadable PDF.
Readers' Guide Retrospective 1890-1982
- This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing of over three million articles from more than 550 leading magazines, including full coverage of the original print volumes of Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature™. This important resource offers a wide range of researchers access to information about history, culture and seminal developments across nearly a century.
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.
British Periodicals
- This link opens in a new window
Provides page images and searchable full text for approximately 500 British periodicals published from the 17th through the early 20th centuries (1681-1920). Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences and the fine arts: music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture. The collection includes over 5 million pages.
Times Digital Archive (1785 - 1985)
- This link opens in a new window
Search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching. The Gale News Vault provides an alternate format for searching.
Illustrated London News
- This link opens in a new window
The Illustrated London News was the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper. The publication presented a vivid picture of British and world events - including news of war, disasters, royalty, social affairs, the arts and science. Containing over 260,000 full colour pages, fully searchable and browseable, the ILN Historical Archive 1842-2003 provides users with access to the entire run of this unique historical record.
Accessible Archives
- This link opens in a new window
Accessible Archives provides full text searchable databases of primary source material from 18th and 19th Century publications including historical periodicals and books; eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records are available in an online environment.
New York Times (NYTimes.com) Registration Link
**Register using your Pepperdine email address, do not click "Continue with Google"** For more information, visit our Guide. With NYTimes.com Passes, you have full access to the extensive breaking news, world news, and multimedia of The New York Times without needing your own subscription. Enjoy full access to NYTimes.com, INYT.com and NYT mobile apps from any device.
LexisNexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic)
Good resource for famous cases and law reviews which provide analysis of legal issues.
Los Angeles Sentinel (ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers)
Includes full-text of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper from 1934 to 2005.
New York Times (NYTimes.com)
**Access requires logging in with a NYTimes.com account. Register using your Pepperdine email address here. (Do not click "Continue with Google"). For more information, visit our Guide. ** With NYTimes.com Passes, you have full access to the extensive breaking news, world news, and multimedia of The New York Times without needing your own subscription. Enjoy full access to NYTimes.com, INYT.com and NYT mobile apps from any device. Articles printed prior to 1980 are available by searching NYTimes.com.
Latin American Newspapers: Series I
Latin American Newspapers provides more than 35 fully searchable newspapers published in the 19th and 20th centuries from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and elsewhere. Latin American Newspapers offers unprecedented coverage of the people, issues, and events that shaped this vital region between 1805 and 1922.

Specialized Secondary Sources

LexisNexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic)
Provides full-text coverage of approximately 15,000 national and regional newspapers, broadcast transcripts, magazines, wire services, federal and state court opinions, federal and state statutes, federal regulations and SEC filings such as 10-K's and 10-Q's. It provides access to company profiles, industry and market research information and trade journals. This product also provides access to the renowned Shepard's Citations® service for all federal and states court cases back to 1789. This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff. For an overview of how to use Nexis Uni, visit this page.
Film Literature Index
Annually indexes 150 film and television periodicals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 200 other periodicals selectively for articles on film and television. The periodicals range from the scholarly to the popular. More than 2,000 subject headings provide detailed analysis of the articles.
International Index to Music Periodicals
Indexes 425 international music periodicals from over 20 countries, with full text for 140 journals. Articles examine the full spectrum of subjects and all aspects of music, including music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theatre, theory, popular music forms, and composition.

IIMP covers a comprehensive range of subject areas in both scholarly and popular music journals ranging from International Journal of Music Education, Ethnomusicology, Jazz Education Journal and Musical Times to Rock and Rap Confidential, and Rolling Stone. The database currently includes over 770,000 records, the majority of which index the most recent years of publication. More than 200,000 records in IIMP are from the backfile (up to 1995) and much of this coverage commences at the first issue of the journal run, some starting as early as 1874. Over 30 titles are indexed from first issue to last. IIMP is a dynamic database, with records added on a monthly basis.
ERIC
Provides access to education literature and resources. The database provides access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. The database contains more than 1.6 million records and links to more than 337,000 full-text documents dating back to 1966.