History 335: Women in Early America
Background Information and Bibliographies
American National Biography. 1999. 24 vols.
The major national biography covering persons important in the history of the United States.
Ref. CT213 .A68 1999
The American Heritage Encyclopedia of American History.
Ref. E174 .A535 1998
Dictionary of American History. 10 vols.
Ref. [q.]E174 .D52 2003
The Oxford Companion to United States History.
Ref. E174 .O94 2001
Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia.
Ref. [q.] E628 .H37 2004
Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 vols.
Ref. HN57 .E58 1993
Women, Race, and Ethnicity : A Bibliography.
Ref. HQ1233 .W65 1991
Encyclopedia of Women's History in America.
Ref. [q.] HQ1410 .C85 2000
The Oxford English Dictionary. 20 vols.
Ref. [q.] PE1625 .O87 1989 and online for the Lawrence campus
The Pen Is Ours : A Listing of Writings By and About
African-American Women Before 1910.
PS153.N5 Y45
American Diaries : An Annotated Bibliography of Published
American Diaries and Journals. 2 vols.
Ref. Z5305.U5 A74 1983
Women's Studies : A Guide to Information Sources.
Ref. Z7961 .C37 1990
The Female Experience in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century
America : A Guide to the Study of the History of American Women.
Ref. Z7961 .C64 1982
Introduction to Library Research in Women's Studies.
Ref. Z7961 .S42 1985
Women in American History : A Bibliography.
Ref. [q.] Z7962 .H37
Women's Diaries, Journals, and Letters: An Annotated Bibliography.
Ref. Z7963.B6 C55 1989
You may also want to see the guide on Biographical Information, or some of the other guides available from the library's Research Guides page.
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Searching for Primary Source Material: Books in LUCIA
Generally, primary source materials are considered to be those things--speeches, articles, diaries, news reports, movies, music, and other media--produced at the time of the events you are investigating. The Library of Congress has a quick lesson on Types of Primary Sources that may be helpful. The material produced after the fact to explain or explore an event is generally referred to as secondary source material. Remember though that something that you might generally consider a secondary source can be a primary source depending on how you approach it.
The primary materials in our library are of generally three types; original items published at the time you are studying, reprints or facsimiles of items published during the time you are studying (like the items in the Evans collections), and transcriptions of items published during the time you are studying.
After performing a search in LUCIA, you can use the Narrow Search link at the top of the list of titles to limit your results to year(s)of publication. Using the Guided Search you can set date limits at the beginning of your search. In either case you can specify a single year or a range of years.
Another way to locate primary source materials is to use the Guided Search and include any of the following terms using the Subject Keywords option. Try some of these:
-
autobiograph*
correspondence
diaries
documents
letters
memoirs
personal narratives
sources
To locate even more, try a Subject Keywords search for any of the terms above and add bibliography to your search, for example, sources and bibliography. This will help you find book-length bibliographies listing primary sources in and beyond our collections.
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Primary Material from Other Sources
American Civil War: Letters & Diaries
Includes "2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs" dating from 1861-1865.
North American Women's Letters & Diaries
" . . . includes the immediate experiences of 1,017 women, as revealed in approximately 120,000 pages of diaries and letters. . . . . When complete, the collection will include
more than 150,000 pages of primary materials
spanning more than 300 years."
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Web Resources
AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History
A substantial list from the University of Kansas.
American Memory
Sources from the Library of Congress.
Doing History: A Guide to Historical Research
From the Lawrence History Department. Includes links to several sites for historical exploration of primary texts.
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
Displays and collections include history of advertising, historic American sheet music, and more.
Internet Resources for History
From the librarians of the Seeley G. Mudd Library. This list includes some of the specific sites mentioned here and more.
Library Research Using Primary Sources
A useful guide from the librarians at UC-Berkeley. Includes definitions of primary sources as well as links to primary source sites.
Finding More
Digital Librarian
"A librarian's choice of the best of the Web."
INFOMINE for History
From the University of California. You may want to look at the general INFOMINE categories or the
resources for Social Sciences & Humanities.
Librarians' Internet Index
From the California State Libraries.
The Scout Report Archives
Sources selected and organized by the Internet Scout Project. The Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to assist in the advancement of resource discovery on the Internet.
Primary sources on the web may be transcripts or reproductions of original documents. It's as important to evaluate primary sources on the web as secondary ones. You should be sure the documents you find have been made available by a reputable source. There should be some statement about the source of the original document, a description of the process used post it, and the name or names of the person, institution, or organization responsible for making the document available. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources from the Lawrence library, this guide to Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources from UCLA, or this bibliography on Evaluation of Information Sources. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.
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Style Manuals
Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.
The Chicago Manual of Style.
A standard source for bibliographic format.
RRef. Z253 .U69 2003
Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
The guide for any academic papers written in the literatures and languages.
RRef. LB2369 .G53 2003
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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:
Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready reference, shelves behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and M class scores; at end of classes in other collections
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