Research Guides: Social History of U.S. Public Health: Primary Sources

HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS

ProQuest Historical Newspapers - (date range varies by title, from mid 18th to early 21st century)
Full-text and full-image, dating back to their first issues, for more than thirty newspapers from major US cities plus selected major newspapers from Britain, Ireland, India, and France. To view a list of the titles that you are searching, select "Change Databases" from the top menu bar and scroll down to ProQuest Historical Newspapers. There you may see the titles included by default in your search and you may uncheck any title that you don't wish to search.
Historical Black Newspapers (ProQuest) (date range varies by title, from late 19th to early 21st century)
A subset of Proquest Historical Newspapers (see listing above). Full-text and full-image access to nine newspapers, including: Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003); Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988); Chicago Defender (1909-1975); Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005); and New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993). As a default, all Historical Black Newspapers are included in any search of Proquest Historical Newspapers.
Independent Voices : An Open Access Collection of an Alternative Press (Reveal Digital / JSTOR)
An "open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century."
Access World News (Newsbank) (date range varies by title, from 1989 to today)
Provides access to over 13,000 current news sources from around the world. More than 7,900 of these sources are from the US. Coverage varies by title, extending back as far as 1989 for many titles. Includes 230 new full color PDF image editions, for titles such as The New York Post, Newark Star-Ledger, San Francisco Chronicle, London Times, Jerusalem Post, and many more. For the select titles available in image editions, each day’s edition feeds into the database in full color, with all the pictures, ads, graphs, etc. Select "A-Z Source List" to browse titles and date ranges; and to choose from available online formats.
Black Life in America : the experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media, 1976 to present (Newsbank)
This database is a subset of Access world news. It's contents have been derived by running an algorithm designed to identify articles related to Black life in America from that more general database.
America’s Historical Newspapers (Readex) (date range varies by title, from late 17th to late 20th century; most content published prior to 1923)
If needed, the proximity operator is NEAR, for example.: infanticide NEAR20 trial will find "infanticide" within 20 words of "trial" in either direction
By default America's Historical Newspapers includes the following; but each of the following may also be searched separately through links below:
- African American newspapers series 1, 1827-1998
  African American newspapers series 2, 1835-1956
- Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1989
19th century U.S. newspapers (Gale)
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society (Gale)
Provides digital access to an extensive collection of American periodicals published between 1681 and 1940. Topics encompass a broad spectrum including agriculture, anthropology, art, archaeology, education, family life, fashion, industrialization, literature, medicine, music, photography, politics, religion, science, sport, and temperance. Over six million pages are presented in searchable digital facsimile.
American Periodicals (1740-1940) (ProQuest)
Provides digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days through the early 20th century. Includes literary, scientific, medical, labor, trade, and general-interest periodicals.
Magazine Archives (Ebsco)
Each archive provides indexing, abstracting, full text, and page images for the magazine listed. Coverage begins with the first issue and extends up at least as far as 2000. Some of the key titles are:
Architectural Digest Magazine Archive (1922 to 2011)
Bloomberg Businessweek Archive (1929 to 2000)
Ebony (1945-2014)
Esquire (1933-2014)
Forbes Magazine Archive (1917 to 2000)
Fortune Magazine Archive (1930 to 2000)
Life Magazine Archive (1936 to 2000)
The New Republic Archive (1914-2020)
Sports Illustrated Magazine Archive (1954 to 2000)
Time Magazine Archive (1923 to 2000)
NOTE: In order to search any of these magazines in combination with one or more of the others: go to EbscoHost Research Databases; select "Choose Databases"; deselect all; then choose the desired Archive titles.
Women’s Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
Full text database (including advertisements) of popular women’s magazines. Includes Cosmopolitan (1886-2005), Essence (1970-2005), Good Housekeeping (1885-2005), Ladies Home Journal (1885-2005), Parents (1926-2005), Seventeen (1944-2005) and others. The Vogue Archive can be searched separately.
LGBT Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
Includes the Advocate (1969-2015, AIDS weekly (1988-2015) and other US and European LGBTQ periodicals.
Quarantine and Infectious Disease Control Series in Accessible Archives
Scroll down Publication Title list and select either:
Quarantine and Infectious Disease Control Series (to search Books and Newspapers together)
or
Quarantine and Infectious Disease Control Series: Books, 1823-1928
which allows users access to monographs and county histories and the wealth
of details these resources can provide on many aspects of public health and contagious
diseases. Searches will retrieve results from books published in the 19th century through 1928.
or
Quarantine and Infectious Disease Control Series: Newspapers, 1736-1922
which gives researchers an unparalleled look at
administrative and community responses to diseases devastating to public health as found in
the press from colonial America through 1922.
Barnard AMST guide has many additional historical newspaper databases as well: https://guides.library.barnard.edu/AMST/news
For additional resources, see: American History and American Studies: Articles from the 17th through 20th Centuries

TEXT COLLECTIONS (BOOKS, ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS. PAMPHLETS, EPHEMERA)

Public Health Archives : Public Health in Modern America, 1890-1970 (Gale)
Documents the rise of the twentieth-century public health system in the United States through correspondence, reports, pamphlets, ephemera, and more. Provides access to primary sources that record the evolution and impact of public health legislation, policies, and campaigns at the local, national, and federal levels, opening for researchers a new window on the roles played by key organizations and individuals to advance public health practices and outcomes.
Narcotic Addiction and Mental Health: The Clinical Papers of Lawrence Kolb Sr. (Gale)
Provides information about the workings of the public service procedures employed to scrutinize immigrants applying to enter the United States, the development of a medical approach to the problems of addiction, and the treatment of war-caused neuroses after WWI.
HathiTrust
Provides extensive full-text access to books, pamphlets, and journals published in the US before 1924, and for most government-published information (nutritional guidelines, public health pamphlets, etc) regardless of date.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 (Adam Matthew)
Includes marketing research for contraceptives, the pharmaceutical industry, tobacco, and many other industries.
The New York Academy of Sciences (available through Wiley Digital Archives)
Includes correspondence, fieldwork, photographs, personal papers, etc. It also includes trigger warnings as some content is sensitive, particularly in a 21st-century context.
NAACP Papers (ProQuest History Vault)
Records of the NAACP.
Immigration: Records of the INS, 1880-1930. (ProQuest History Vault)
The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930, and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS's regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online (Alexander Street)
Provides access to thousands of private writings and personal narratives. Includes cross-searchable access to the following collections, each of which may also be searched on its own, under the links below:
North American Women’s Letters & Diaries: database of published diaries (through 1950).
North American Immigrant letters, diaries, and oral histories - 1800-1950.
American Civil War Letters and Diaries
Gale Primary Sources (Gale)
Allows you to search across more than thirty databases providing access to primary sources from and/or relating to America, Britain, and countries around the globe. The majority of the documents date from a timespan that begins with the fifteenth and extends through the early 21st century. Databases here that are of high relevance to America include: Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926; Indigenous Peoples of North America; American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society; Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers; Archives Unbound; and Public Health Archives: Public Health in Modern America, 1890-1970.
Archives of Sexuality & Gender (Gale)
Comprises more than 50 digitized archival collections, including:
- ACT-UP (the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) Records from New York Public Library
- In Response to the AIDS Crisis: Records of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 1983-1994 from the NLM.
- Bush Administration and the AIDS Crisis -
- As well as many LGBTQ publications and organizational records
Women’s Studies Archive: Issues & Identities (Gale)
- Committee of Fifteen Records (1900-1901) manuscript records of vice investigators in New York.
- Women’s Trade Union League and its Leaders (1930-1950) - includes considerable material on industrial safety
- Planned Parenthood Federation Records (1918-1974)
- National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses Records, 1908-1951
- Historical Nursing Journals
Women's Studies Manuscript Collections from the Schlesinger Library: Series 3 Sexuality, Sex Education, & Reproductive Rights (ProQuest History Vault)
- Part A. Family Planning Oral History Project
- part B: The Papers of Mary Ware Dennett and the Voluntary Parenthood League
Sex and Sexuality (Adam Matthew)
Provides unprecedented access to a wealth of essential primary sources collated by prominent sex researchers and sexologists, community activists, official organizations, social reformers, and individuals. This resource aims to provide an insight into the wide-ranging breadth and experience of human sexuality from all angles, for example scientific, historical attitudes, sexuality, and sexual behaviours. Includes two cross-searchable modules: "Research Collections from The Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections" and "Self-Expression, Community and Identity."
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900 (Adam Matthew)
Features rare books, advertising ephemera, trade publications, and pamphlets.
Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Sex, Gender, and the Family (Alexander Street)
Medical Services and Warfare. (Adam Matthew)
A wealth of documents covering medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927. Multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments are covered from a range of perspectives. Key areas include systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment. The three conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War.
Service Newspapers of World War Two (Adam Matthew)
Collection of newspapers produced by and/or for service members during and immediately after World War II (1939-1948), featuring titles from the major theatres, for both Allied and Axis forces. Titles include: Stars and Stripes London Edition, Fauji Akhbar, Springbok (in both English and Afrikaans), Die Wehrmacht, 13 editions of the Union Jack, The Land Girl, Parade, Yank, American and Australian editions of Guinea Gold, Blighty, and Ceylon Review. Includes reports of injuries and treatment; try, for example, a keyword search for “gangrene” in this database.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

ProQuest Congressional
An excellent resource for public health issues that came to the attention of the US Congress. Content Types that tend to be highly useful include: Hearings, and CRS [Congressional Research Service] Reports. Coverage is Current, and extends back through the 18^th Century. Please note that House and Senate Hearings are comprehensively covered up through 2013 only in this database. For Congressional hearings 2014 to present use govinfo.

IMAGE COLLECTIONS

Community Society Photographs
This collection of 1400 photographs from the Community Service Society offers representations of urban poverty, unsafe tenement housing, inadequate hygiene in public areas, and other pressing social issues in late-19th- and early-20th-century New York. The images range from the 1880s through the 1950s.
NYPL Digital Collections
Includes photographs, manuscripts, etchings