History 479: Travel in American History
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 National Biography is also available on the web.
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
Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 vols.
Ref. HN57 .E58 1993
The Oxford English Dictionary. 20 vols.
Ref. [q.] PE1625 .O87 1989 and online for the Lawrence campus
American Diaries : An Annotated Bibliography of Published
American Diaries and Journals. 2 vols.
Ref. Z5305.U5 A74 1983
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:
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autobiograph*
correspondence
diaries
documents
letters
memoirs
personal narratives
sources
travel literature
The phrase description and travel is often a part of the subject heading for material in LUCIA, as in United States -- description and travel. You can look for particular states and regions with this subheading, as in Hawaii -- description and travel or Great Lakes -- description and travel. These may also be subdivided for time periods, as in United States -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800.
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.
Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.
Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.
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Searching for Primary Source Material: Articles
JSTOR
JSTOR includes full-text of over 320 journals. Although JSTOR does not include the most recent years of any given title, it does have all issues back to the first volume, in many cases going back into the 1800's.
New York Times. 1851-current.
Considered to be the American paper of record. The New York Times
is on microfilm and on the web.
New York Times Index Reference Indexes/Microform Area
New York Times (1851-2004)
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1907) and
Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. 1900-1994.
Indexes articles from popular magazines.
Reference Indexes
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Primary Material from Other Sources
American Broadsides and Ephemera
Pamphlets, flyers, and more printed between 1760 and 1900.
American Civil War: Letters & Diaries
Includes "2,009 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs" dating from 1861-1865.
Archive of Americana
Provides access to American Broadsides, Early American Newspapers, American State Papers 1789-1838, Early American Imprints, and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980.
Early American Newspapers
Provides full-page images of newspapers dating from 1690 to the early 20th century.
Early American Imprints Series I: Evans (1639-1800) and Early American Imprints Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819)
Includes indexing and images for more than 36,000 works published in North America from 1639 to the early 1800's. Use the Guide to Evans Digital for help.
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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. You may particularly be interested in American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920.
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.
WWW-VL: History: United States
WWW-VL is the World Wide Web Virtual Library. The larger site for the entire WWWVL-History catalog might be of interest as well.
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, or the library's Web Wise Guide to Searching. 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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