Research Guides: American Studies: Finding Articles

Historical Databases for American Studies Research

Accessible Archives: 18th & 19th Century Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search several historic American newspaper and periodical databases, including archives of the Liberator (1831-1865), Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1885), the Pennsylvania Gazette (1728-1800), and many more.
America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
This database is the definitive index of scholarship covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, with an index of 1,700 journals and a breadth from prehistory to present. From EBSCO.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Includes 2,009 authors, approximately 100,000 pages of diaries, letters and memoirs, and 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive bibliography of the sources in the database.
Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
A landmark collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1770-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
19th Century U.S. Newspapers provides access to approximately 1.7 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories This link opens in a new window
Includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, providing a personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Reader's Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Find citations to articles published between 1890 and 1982 in popular general-interest U.S. periodicals. From EBSCO.
Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
Women and Social Movements in the United States is a database resource for students of U.S. women's history. The collection has a vast array of primary documents from over 2,300 authors, including multimedia and full-text archives.

American Presidency Project
Archival collection of over 97,000 documents related to the study of the Presidency.
Voices of Democracy
The Voices of Democracy project is designed to promote the study of great speeches and public debates. The emphasis of the project is on the actual words of those who, throughout American history, have defined the country’s guiding principles, debated the great social and political controversies of the nation’s history, and shaped the identity and character of the American people.

Literature Databases for American Studies Research

Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Full-text biographies, bibliographies and critical analysis of novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers.
Women Writers Online This link opens in a new window
Women Writers Online is the database of the Women Writers Project (WWP). It contains full-text editions of more than 100 texts by English and American women published between 1500 and 1830, and includes introductory essays written by contemporary scholars.

Find more policy research

Center for the Study of Social Policy
Policy research on children and families. 1979-Current.
CLASP Center for Law and Social Policy
"CLASP seeks to improve the lives of low-income people. [They] develop and advocate for federal, state and local policies to strengthen families and create pathways to education and work."
RAND Corporation
Economic and social policy with a historical focus on military research.
Southern Poverty Law Center
"The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society."
Urban Institute
"At Urban, we believe that data and evidence are essential to shaping a more inclusive, equitable, and just society."
Institute for Research on Poverty
IRP researches the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in the United States. We bring together social scientists from across research disciplines such as economics, sociology, social work, and demography. The result is a well-rounded understanding of poverty issues.
The Brookings Institute

Open Access American Studies Journals

Some open access publications may not be included in the article databases listed on this page. Searching for American Studies in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access journals) can lead you to these open access resources. A few are listed below.