American History and American Studies: Articles from the 17th through 20th Centuries

Indexes are designed to help researchers identify where articles meeting certain criteria (subject, author, title, etc.) have been published in periodicals and/or newspapers.  With so many full-text resources available (as listed in box above), why would you want to use an index? Sometimes indexes can help you find things that you were overlooking in a full-text resource. Or sometimes they might cover titles that are not included in a full-text resource. They are one more tool that an inventive researcher will want to explore. It is also the case that many databases that have traditionally been understood as indexes have increasingly been providing access to full text of articles through the e-Link feature.

• Writings on American History, 1902-1989/90.
  Location: BUTLER STACKS
  Call Number: Z1236 .L331
  Lists books and articles on American history. Useful for its coverage of the years 1902 - 1954, before America: History and Life begins its coverage.

For a fuller listing and discussion of periodical and newspaper guides and/or indexes, see:

• Balay, Robert. Early periodical indexes : bibliographies and indexes of literature published in periodicals before 1900. (Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2000)
  Butler Reference R016.05 B18
• Prucha, Francis Paul. Handbook for Research in American History, 2nd. ed (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1994), 50-61, 73-80.
  Butler Reference Desk R016.973 P951

Bibliographies and histories can provide you with varying degrees of information about specific periodicals or newspapers and/or about the periodical press as a whole in a given time period. Some major examples of such works would be:

• Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 5 vols. (New York, London, D. Appleton 1930-1968)
  BUTLER STACKS PN4877 .M63 1930
  BUTLER REFERENCE DESK R070.973 M851

Many specialized bibliographies, which list and describe certain types of periodical publications, are also available. Some examples are listed below. Note that the base call number they share--R016.051--identifies a good area of Butler Reference (Room 310, Alcove 5) to browse for similar resources.

• Humphreys, Nancy K. American women's magazines : an annotated historical guide (New York: Garland, 1989)
  BUTLER REFERENCE R016.051 H88
• Lora, Ronald and William Henry Longton, eds. The conservative press in eighteenth-and nineteenth-century America (New York: Greenwood Press, 1999)
  BUTLER REFERENCE R016.051 C76

A. More databases:
Here is a full and current list of databases in CLIO that include the word “newspapers” in their title or description.
Here is a full and current list of databases in CLIO that include the word “periodical* OR "magazine” in their title.
Note: Although most of the databases listed through CLIO search links above are likely to be full text, a few may not be.

B. Information about Periodicals and Newspapers
Books and other information resources about periodicals and newspapers can be searched in CLIO using the appropriate subject headings.

Select "Subject" from the pull-down "Search" box menu in the Basic Searching screen of CLIO.

Based on your interests, you could enter a search for: american periodicals
or a search for: american newspapers

We will use "american periodicals" as our example. Once you have done your subject search in CLIO, you can open some of the CLIO records, look  at the Subject field, and start to find some of the more specific refinements of the basic subject heading "american periodicals."

Here are some examples of subject headings that have been expanded out from the base heading "american periodicals."
American periodicals > Bibliography.
American periodicals > Directories.
American periodicals > History.
American periodicals > Indexes.

You will also find subject headings relevant to American Periodicals that do not begin with the base heading "american periodicals." For example:

Children's periodicals, American.
Women's periodicals, American > History.