Encyclopedias and Handbooks

American Studies is broad, and the Schaffer Library Reference Collection contains a considerable number of titles that might prove useful to the American Studies Program.  A selection of them is listed below, and to keep the list to a reasonable length annotations are minimized.  (Fortunately most titles are self-explanatory.)  Note the remarks about ranges of the Reference Collection that might be useful to browse.

American Art Analog.  Compiled by Michael David Zellman.  New York, N.Y. : Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.

Histories, reproductions, and prices for over 800 American painters from 1688 to 1930.  Scanning the Reference Collection shelves in the Ref N 6500s will reveal many other titles on art and artists in the United States, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref N6505 .A56

American Immigrant Culture: Builders of a Nation.  Edited by David Levinson, Melvin Ember.  New York : Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997.

Scanning the Reference Collection shelves at Ref E 184 will reveal many other titles on immigrants and subcultures in the United States, as well as this one.  Especially respected is Stephen Thernstrom's Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) shelved at Ref E184.A1 H35.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E184.A1 A63448  

American National Biography. General Eds., John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1999

The successor title to the great Dictionary of American Biography (below), Union also has a subscription to the Web version of the American National Biography.

CALL NUMBER: Ref CT213 .A68

The Asian American Encyclopedia.  Editor, Franklin Ng.  New York : Marshall Cavendish, 1995.

Scanning the Reference Collection shelves at Ref E 184 will reveal many other titles on Asian-Americans, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E184.O6 A827
 

Dictionary of American Biography.  Under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies.  New York: Scribner's Sons.

The canonical source on the lives of American leaders in all fields.  Now succeeded by the American National Biography (above).

CALL NUMBER: Ref E176 .D56

Dictionary of American History. Stanley I. Kutler, editor-in-chief.  New York: Scribner's Sons, 2003.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E174 .D52

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. Edited By Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, Cornel West.  New York : Macmillan Library Reference, 1996.
(Supplement, 2001)

Scanning the Reference Collection shelves at Ref E 185 will reveal many other titles on African-Americans, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E185 .E54

Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Peter W. Williams, editors. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001.

CALL NUMBER: E169.1 .E624 

Encyclopedia of American History. Gary B. Nash, general editor. New York : Facts on File, 2003.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E174 .E53 

Encyclopedia of American Social History. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, Peter W. Williams, editors. New York : Scribner's, 1993.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HN57 .E58

Encyclopedia of the American Civil War.  David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, editors. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, 2000.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E468 .E53

Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies. Editor-in-chief, Jacob Ernest Cooke. New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1993.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E45 .E53

Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century. Editor-in-chief, Paul Finkelman. New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 2001.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E169.1 .E626

Encyclopedia of the United States in the 20th Century. Editor-in-chief, Stanley I Kutler. New York : C. Scribner's Sons, 1996.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E740.7 .E53

Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Edited by Sharon Malinowski ... [et al.]. Detroit : Gale, 1998.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E77 .G15

Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Edited by Frederick Webb Hodge. Washington : Government Printing Office, 1907-1910.

The two volumes of this title constitute valued early ethnography of the Native American.  Scanning the shelves of Reference at the number Ref E77 will lead one to numerous titles on Native American history and culture, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E77 .H68

The Latino Encyclopedia. Editors, Richard Chabrán and Rafael Chabrán.  New York : Marshall Cavendish, 1996.

Scanning the Reference Collection shelves at Ref E 184 will reveal many other titles on Hispanic-Americans, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E184.S75 L357

West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Minneapolis/St. Paul : West Publishing, 1998 and supplements.

Scanning the Reference Collection shelves at Ref KF will reveal many other titles on American law, as well as this one.

CALL NUMBER: Ref KF154 .W47

Further suggestion: Visit the shelves from Ref HQ - Ref HX.  Titles there convey information on such arenas of applied sociology as women's studies, aging, adolescence, criminology, disability, sexuality, the Left, intentional communities, substance abuse, homelessness, etc.

Sources of Statistics

IMPORTANT: For a categorized listing of MANY more titles, some in the Library's Reference Collection and some available on the Internet, please visit the Library's Statistical Data page.

Drawn from that page are some highlights of special use for American Studies:

Black Americans: a Statistical Sourcebook. Boulder, Colo. : Numbers & Concepts, 1990- .

CALL NUMBER: Ref E185.5 .B5238 

Handbook of Labor Statistics. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Washington, D.C. : The Bureau, 1941-  ; Continued by Bernan Press, 1997-

CALL NUMBER: Ref HD8051 .A62 

Hispanic Americans: a Statistical Sourcebook. Boulder, Colo. : Numbers & Concepts, 1991- .

CALL NUMBER: Ref E184.S75 H5655

Historical Statistics of the United States; Colonial Times to 1970. Washington : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HA202 .A385

How Much Is That In Real Money?: a Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States.  John J. McCusker. Worcester, Massachusetts : American Antiquarian Society, 1992.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HB235.U6 M350

Population of the United States:  Historical Trends and Future Projections.  Donald J. Bogue. New York : Free Press, 1985.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HB3505 .B63

Statistical Abstract of the United States. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1919- ;  Current and selected previous issues are available online through the Census Bureau.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HA202 .S680

For further titles, examine the Reference Collection's shelves between the numbers Ref HA 202 and Ref HA 544.

 
Need more? ... The library subscribes to the "statistical" component of Lexis-Nexis, accessed through the Library's Databases and Indexes page.  That resource gives Union users access online to three large databases of data: the American Statistics Index, the Statistical Reference Index, and the Index to International Statistics. These contain, respectively, data of the U.S. federal government, of states and commercial bodies, and of international organizations. 

Much--not all--of what Lexis-Nexis cites is available in full text online.  For the rest, Schaffer Library also subscribes to microfiche copies of all the statistics cited in the above (with certain exceptions).

Assistance with data retrieval is available at the Library's Reference Desk.

Directories

Directories serve many purposes, such as identifying relevant professionals, institutions, organizations, and associations.  For American Studies, we refer users to the Web-site of the American Studies Association and to others for locating American Studies programs and scholars at universities and colleges.

American Studies Association--the Web-site of the chief professional association for the field. [http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asainfo.html]

American Studies Electronic Crossroads--Curriculum. Georgetown University.

Contains links to the homepages of American Studies academic programs as well as the American Studies Association's Guide to Graduate Programs in American Studies. [http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/curriculum.html]

Barron's Profiles of American Colleges. Hauppauge, N.Y. : Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 2004.

Use the "Index of College Majors" in the front matter (blue pages, in the print edition) to identify and locate undergraduate programs in American Studies.

Ref L901 .B37 (at Reference Desk, as a book and a CD-ROM)

College Source Online. San Diego : Career Guidance Foundation.

Using "Advanced Search", choose the "Catalog Full Text" option for searching and input "American Studies" in quotation marks.  That search generates a list of institutional catalogs and Web-sites where American Studies is taught.  Add "and bachelor's" or "and master's" or "and phd" to the search to limit by level of degree granted. [http://www.collegesource.org/home.asp]

Peterson's Graduate & Professional Programs. Princeton, N.J. : Peterson's, 2004.

In Book 2 of this series, entitled Graduate Programs in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, American Studies graduate programs are listed in the section entitled "Area and Cultural Studies."

CALL NUMBER: Ref L901 .P443 (at Reference Desk)

Bibliographies

Complementing the Databases and Indexes listed elsewhere on this page are published bibliographies.  Like online databases, bibliographies may prove useful to those seeking references in American Studies and its several allied fields.  Their publication dates limit what they can include, but when well designed they can lead researchers to time-tested, indispensable "classics" in the literature.  Here are selected suggestions:

American Economic and Business History Information Sources; an Annotated Bibliography of Recent Works Pertaining to Economic, Business, Agricultural, and Labor History and the History of Science and Technology for the United States and Canada.  Robert W. Lovett. Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1971.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog HC101 .L66    

American Economic History Before 1860.  Compiled By George Rogers Taylor.  New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog HC105 .T37

American Economic History Since 1860. Compiled By Edward C. Kirkland.  New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog HC101 .K53

American Social History Before 1860. Compiled by Gerald N. Grob.  New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog E162 .G860 1970
 

American Social History Since 1860. Compiled by Robert H. Bremner. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog E162 .B7    

Footnotes to American History : a Bibliographic Source Book.  Harold S. Sharp.  Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1977.

The virtue of Footnotes to American History is its capsule summaries of famous minutiae, together with bibliographical references.  Browsing through its pages is a delight: examples of coverage are the shootout at the OK Corral, the Cardiff Giant hoax, the disappearance of Judge Crater, the Black Sox scandal, and hundreds more.

CALL NUMBER: Ref E179 .S480 1977    

The Harvard Guide to African-American History.  Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, editor-in-chief.  Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2001.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog E185 .H326 2001 

Harvard Guide to American History. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1974.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog Z1236 .F77 1974

Literary History of the United States. Editors: Robert E. Spiller [and others].  New York, Macmillan, 1974.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog PS88 .L522 1974    

A Retrospective Bibliography of American Demographic History from Colonial Times to 1983.  Compiled by David R. Gerhan and Robert V. Wells.  New York, Greenwood Press, 1989. 

(Also, its companion volume: Bibliography of American Demographic History : the Literature from 1984 to 1994 .  Compiled by David R. Gerhan. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1995.)

CALL NUMBERS: Ref Bibliog HB3505 .G43 1989 and
Ref Bibliog HB3505 .G438 1995    

Sociology of America : a Guide to Information Sources. Charles Mark. Detroit : Gale Research Co., 1976.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog HN59 .M37 

U.S. Cultural History : a Guide to Information Sources. Philip I. Mitterling.  Detroit : Gale Research Co., 1980.

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog E169.1 .M57    

Citation Guides and Style Manuals

Style manuals and citations guides illustrate how to cite book, journal, and other research sources, including materials found in online databases and on the Web, according to the conventional format of a particular discipline. Subject specific citation guides are listed below, and a complete listing appears at Reference Sites: Citation Guides and Style Manuals.

Chicago Manual of Style. ; Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Considered a classic for citation of academic literature, especially in the humanities, the "Chicago Manual" is both a reference book (see below) and an online source.  Click above or open:
[http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite7.html]

CALL NUMBER: Ref Z253 .C57 (kept at the Reference Desk)

Columbia Guide to Online Style, edited by Janice R. Walker.  New York, Columbia University Press, 1998.

This volume is a leader in establishing standard methods of citing electronic sources.

CALL NUMBER: Ref PN171.F56 W35 1998 (kept at the Reference Desk)

Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources.  Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger.
[http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/]

Publication Manual of the APA. Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association, 2001.

Sets the standard for much social-science writing; also available online through Citation Guides and Style Manuals.

CALL NUMBER: Ref BF76.7 .P83 2001  (kept at the Reference Desk)

Books in Schaffer Library are arranged by Library of Congress Class number. Class numbers are searchable in the Web Catalog and browseable in the Stacks and Reference Collection.  Here are sample call number ranges for American Studies:

BL 2500s	American Religions
E	American History
F 1 - F 975	U.S. Local and State History
HC 102 - HC 109	Economic History (U.S.)
HN 50 - HN 99	Sociology (U.S.)
JK	Political Institutions and Public Administration (U.S.)
KF	Law (U.S.)
LA 201 - LA 398	History of Education (U.S.)
ML 200	American Music
PS	American Literature

The New Acquisitions List  (residing on the Library Catalogs page) is generated on the 10th of each month and includes items added to the library's collections for the previous calendar month. 

New Acquisitions List: Use any of the above classification numbers to browse the new books and other materials that have arrived in those subject areas.

These sets and series are held in various formats and locations throughout the Library.  They are worthy of attention here because sheer longevity has transformed them into primary sources for the student of varied aspects of U.S. culture.  Factual and statistical data, chronologies, biographies represent just some of the types of historical documentation to be found here, with the only limit being the researcher's imagination.

CQ Weekly and Congressional Quarterly Almanac. (Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly)

Union has holdings of the first title since 1964 and the second since 1951.  Paper issues ceased in 2000, after which these titles continue online at CQ Weekly. Together they constitute a half-century record of federal politics.  

CALL NUMBER:  Ref JK1 .C670 and Ref JK1 .C663 

 

Current Biography.  Bronx, New York, H. W. Wilson Co.

Held since 1940, this title's 60+ years of biographical articles on individual Americans represent a considerable file of information on the famous.

CALL NUMBER: Ref CT100 .C8

 

Facts on File.  New York, Facts on File, inc.

From 1941, this title has chronicled news events and stands as a record of more than 60 years of American life.

CALL NUMBER: Ref D410 .F3

Gallup Opinion Index and The Gallup Poll. Princeton, N.J. : The Gallup Poll.

The first, under several titles, has published Gallup Poll results monthly since 1965, as well as annually since 1992.  Currently, the title of the ongoing version is Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, which is shelved as a periodical. 
The second title, above, is a cumulated, retrospective edition of the Gallup Poll soundings, 1935-1977. Together the two titles constitute a wealth of information on American public opinion.

CALL NUMBER: Ref HM261 .A1 G34 and Ref HM261 .A1 G340  

World Almanac and Book of Facts. New York, Newspaper Enterprise Association [etc.]

Schaffer Library holds more than a century's worth of the World Almanac in its Reference Collection, an impressive run of primary source data for American cultural analysis.  The newsprint-quality paper has grown brittle, and readers are asked to use care in handling this treasure.

CALL NUMBER: Ref AY67.N5 .W7

Selected Primary Source Materials (Mostly) Beyond the Reference Collection:

American State Papers : Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. Washington : Gales and Seaton, 1832-61.  

This set contains the legislative and executive documents of Congress during the period 1789 to 1838.

CALL NUMBER: Special collections, Rare Books, [f] J33 .A48

Full text of the American State Papers is found online at the
Library of Congress's American Memory Web-site.

Checklist of Primary Sources for Early American History (c. 1492-1815) in Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, NY. Compiled by Robert V. Wells, Department of History, 2002. (Available: http://www.union.edu/PUBLIC/
HSTDEPT/HST116/Wells/colsoc/ (Accessed 2 June 2004)

This invaluable finding list identifies primary-source holdings of Schaffer Library and records them in call number order.  "Not all oversized items or those in Special Collections have been noted as such.  Where collected works are available, not all individual titles have been noted.  The William and Mary Quarterly frequently includes documents in its issues. Completeness not guaranteed. Manuscript collections in Special Collections may not be included here as they do not appear in the catalog." (Preface)

Congressional Record. U.S. Congress. Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office.  1873-

The Congressional Record publishes floor remarks of senators and representatives, as well as what they choose to "read into the record".  The predecessor titles for the Congressional Record (1873-present) were the Congressional Globe, Debates and Proceedings, and the Register of Debates and Proceedings (together appearing from 1833 to 1872), also in Union's collection as follows.

CALL NUMBER: The full Congressional Record including the predecessor titles
is held on microfiche, filed by title U.S. Congress.

The Congressional Record is available online in full-text
through the U.S. government's Web-site GPO Access
for volumes covering 1994-present.

 Full-text, online access for volumes covering 1833-1875
is available at the Library of Congress's
American Memory Web-site.

Congressional Record Index. U.S. Congress. Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office.

Print indexes to the Record are shelved in the Reference Collection at the number below, and they are very slow to come out, currently covering 1920-1996 (eight years ago, at this writing!). 

CALL NUMBER: Ref Bibliog KF35 .C660 Index

Indexes of the Record are available online
covering 1983-present.

Foreign Relations of the United States. U.S. Department of State. Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office.

This series, in existence--and held at Schaffer Library--since 1861, comprises "the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity," as the State Department itself describes it.

CALL NUMBER: JX233 .A3 

Selected volumes, from the Truman to the
Ford administrations, are available
in full-text online from the State Department's Web-site.

Hearings of House and Senate Committees. U.S. Congress. Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office.

Schaffer Library benefits from a long-lived collection of hearings held by the major committees of Congress, thanks to our depository library status. 
Hearings since 1970 are best accessed by subject searches in CIS Index, found online in Lexis-Nexis (see the Congressional category), accessed through the Library's Databases and Indexes page.  CIS Index is held in paper format as well, shelved at Ref Bibliog KF49 .C62.

That coverage is complemented by an index to the hearings of 1965-1969, published by CIS and shelved at Ref Bibliog KF49 .C650. 

Earlier hearings are harder to identify, but some success for 1937 through 1969 (prior to CIS Index) may come through the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, shelved at Ref Bibliog Z1223 .A18.

LOCATION: Paper copies of the actual hearings are
in the Government Documents Collection.
Some hearings are available in full-text through Lexis-Nexis as
described above. In most cases, consulting a reference librarian is advisable.

Journals, Magazines, Newspapers, and Periodicals
These may of course be browsed productively, but searching for specific subjects may be more effective through using an index.  Several forms of indexing are available, such as the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, the Nineteenth-Century Reader's Guide, Poole's Index (all in paper in the Reference Collection), PCI Full-text (online through our Databases and Indexes page), and others. Access and coverage vary, so please ask at the Reference Desk for us to assist you.

Atlantic Monthly
For this seminal source of American opinion and reportage, Schaffer Library has microfilm holdings for 1857-1932, 1971-1978;
paper holdings for 1979-1981, 1992-present (with certain gaps);
and online full-text access for 1857-1901 and for 1995-present.

Harper's (Monthly)
A long-lived popular periodical, Harper's Monthly can be accessed at Schaffer Library in paper for the years 1850-present (with certain gaps);
on microfilm for the years 1953-1969;
and online full-text from 1850-1899, as well as from 1850-1964 in PCI Full-Text and from 1992-present in EBSCOhost's Academic Search Elite database, both of which are found at our Databases and Indexes page.

Harper's Weekly
Online, full-text access is available for the years 1857-1912.

Living Age (also known as Littell's Living Age)
Schaffer Library offers full-text online access for the years 1844-1900.
Paper holdings for 1900-1941 (with certain gaps) are also available.

Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review
Print copies are held for the years 1839-1860.

(The) Nation
For this important record of liberal journalism and commentary, Schaffer Library has microfilm holdings for 1865-1996;
paper holdings for 1866-1997 (with certain gaps),
and online access since 1986 through EBSCOhost's Academic Search Elite database, found at our Databases and Indexes page.

New York Times
This nearly century-and-a-half collection of what is arguably the U.S.A.'s flagship newspaper is a rich resource for all sorts of research.

Current issues are found in the Newspaper Reading Area.
Microfilm for all previous issues, 1857 onwards, is in the Microforms Area.
Full-text, online access available via Lexis-Nexis (1980-) and Proquest (1999- ) may be accessed through the Library's Databases and Indexes page.

North American Review
Schaffer Library offers full-text online access for the years 1815-1940, as well as microfilm for the same period.

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Washington : Federal Register Division, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration.

The Library's collection of the Public Papers of the Presidents... volumes covers every presidency since (and including) Herbert Hoover's, with the exception of the FDR years.  Each volume includes the year's public words, written or spoken, of the President of the U.S. 

CALL NUMBER: J80 .A283 

Full-text, online access is available through the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to the public papers of every administration since Herbert Hoover, with the exception of most of the Jimmy Carter and all of the Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations.

Full-text, online access to the public papers of the Ronald Reagan presidency is in part available through the President Ronald W. Reagan Library.

Full-text, online access is also available through the U.S. government's
Web-site GPO Access for the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush years, from 1992 and onwards.

Serial Set.

The Serial Set is the traditional name for that collection of Congressional reports and documents that have long illuminated the histories of specific pieces of legislation moving through the House and the Senate. 

Identifying and locating them requires an index, and one option is CIS's U.S. Serial Set Index (shelved at Ref Bibliog Z1223.Z9 C65), which covers the years from 1789 to 1969. 

Indexing from 1970 is provided in CIS Index, found online in Lexis-Nexis (see the "Congressional" category), accessed through the Library's Databases and Indexes page.  CIS Index is held in paper format as well, shelved at Ref Bibliog KF49 .C62.

Because of its anomalous numbering system, potential users are strongly encouraged to consult a reference librarian!

LOCATION: Volumes from 1937 onwards reside in the U.S. Government Document Depository Collection; only scattered earlier volumes are held.

Full-text, online access is available through the U.S. government's
Web-site GPO Access for volumes from the
104th Congress, 1995-1996, and onwards.

Full-text, online access for selected volumes, 1833-1917 is
available at the Library of Congress's American Memory Web-site.
 

United States Statutes at Large, Containing the Laws and Concurrent Resolutions .... Washington : U.S. Govt. Printing Office.

The paper version of the texts of all laws passed by Congress since 1849 is found at:

CALL NUMBER: Ref KF50 .U580

Full-text, online access is available through the U.S. government's
Web-site GPO Access for volumes from the
104th Congress, 1995-1996, and onwards.

Retrospective full-text, online access for 1789-1875 is
available at the Library of Congress's American Memory Web-site.
 

United States Supreme Court Reports. Rochester, NY : Lawyers Cooperative Publishing.

The opinions of justices regarding cases argued and decided before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as commentary on precedental and other matters, appear in this collection.  (Another edition, listed below as shelved in the U.S. Government Documents Depository Collection, contains the opinions but lacks the critical commentary.)

CALL NUMBER: Ref KF101 .U5840 (Covers the U.S. Supreme
Court from the outset and selected colonial courts from 1754)

Govt Docs Ju 6.8: (Covers 1936 and onwards,
as well as scattered earlier years)

Full-text, online access is available through the U.S. government's
Web-site GPO Access for 1992 onwards and for 1937-1975.

The most recent opinions are available on
the Supreme Court's own Web-site.

Other Primary Sources in Full Electronic Form:

Accessible Archives.

Offers full-text searches of
Godey's Lady's Book, 1830-1880,
Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1800,
Civil War newspapers from Charleston, New York City, and Richmond, African American Newspapers, 19th Century,
American County Histories to 1900,
Pennsylvania genealogical catalog, and
a Pennsylvania historical newspaper record.

Alexander Street Press

Enter separately any of these databases:
American Film Scripts Online,
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries,
Black Drama--1850 to Present,
Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from
       Colonial Times to the Present,
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories,
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the
      Environment,
North American Women's Letters and Diaries--Colonial to 1950,
and Asian American Drama

Here are several scholarly journals whose central role is the publication of research in the field of American Studies.  Many other journals, in social and cultural history, literature, etc., carry such articles among their other offerings.  Journal browsing can lead to results, and so can subject searching.  Please ask at the Reference Desk for us to assist you.

American Quarterly
Schaffer Library holds print issues for 1949-1954 in storage, 1955-1961 on microfilm, 1962-1996 in storage, and 1997-present in the Library itself.  Issues for 1949-2003 are online in full-text  in the JSTOR database, and issues for 1996-present are online in full-text in the Project Muse database, both found at our Databases and Indexes page.

American Studies
Schaffer Library holds print issues for 1975-1980 and 1991-present.

American Studies International
Schaffer Library holds print issues for 1975-present (with certain gaps).  From October, 1998- present, online full-text access is available at ASI Online.

Canadian Review of American Studies
Schaffer Library holds print issues for 1975-present. Issues for 2004-present are online in full-text in the Project Muse database, found at our Databases and Indexes page.

Journal of American Studies
Schaffer Library holds print issues for 1967-present.  Issues for 1997-present are online in full-text in the EBSCOhost database Academic Search Elite, found at our Databases and Indexes page.

The links below produce lists of Union College senior honors theses held in Schaffer Library.  Some of the resulting departmental lists of theses are quite long; however, they can be narrowed to specific topics, authors, or years by using the "Modify Search" button at the top of the results screen.

Microfiche copies of Senior honors theses are held in the Library. After using the catalog through the links below, please bring the call number of any thesis you would like to read to the Reference Desk for access. 

For details on the Library's theses holdings, formats, access, photocopying restrictions, and searching for a thesis in the online catalog, see the Thesis Search Page.

Research Guides supplement the broader Research by Subject pages (such as this one) by focusing on the print and electronic resources that are most useful for a course-specific research assignment. For faculty, the Research Guides provide structured access to the Library and Internet resources relevant to their own work or in advising students on their research projects. For students working independently, they serve as a reminder of services and materials offered within the Library, while at the same time providing a gateway for information available from remote sites.

Relevant guides for American Studies:

U.S. History to the Civil War The U.S. Progressive Era Civil War and Reconstruction Union College The U.S. in the Era of World War One Religion and Politics

Faculty using Blackboard are encouraged to incorporate links to Library resources—and specifically the Research by Subject pages and the appropriate course-related Research Guides—into the Blackboard course pages. Your Departmental Liaison or Bibliographic Instruction Contacts can assist you.

Schaffer Library provides a range of general and subject-specific electronic databases—some offering full-text access to articles or library holdings information. Click below for the databases and indexes most relevant to American Studies.

Databases and Indexes > American Studies

American Memory; Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
This rich and varied archive sponsored by the Library of Congress contains, for example, daguerreotype photos, early animation clips, sheet music, railroad maps, advertising flyers, and many other sound and visual images from more than 100 historical collections. [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html]

American Studies Crossroads Project
This site aims to equip teachers of American Studies with curricular support and online access to collections of primary texts and archives, all under the aegis of Georgetown University and Washington State University. [http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/]

American Studies Recommendations
Richard Horwitz, Professor of American Studies at the University of Iowa, brings to the Web this wide-ranging page with links to primary sources in history, literature, popular culture, demography, material culture, the arts, religion, government, and society. [http://myweb.uiowa.edu/rhorwitz/]

Humbul Humanities Web: American Studies
"Humbul," hosted at Oxford University, is dedicated to "discovering, evaluating, and cataloguing" online resources in several fields of the humanities, and this link leads to its American Studies component. [http://www.humbul.ac.uk/american/]

New American Studies Web
This gateway to American Studies-related links in nearly 30 categories is a feature of the American Studies Crossroads Project (listed above). [http://cfdev.georgetown.edu/cndls/asw/]

Departmental Liaison For information on resources, services, collections, and book ordering for your department.
Bibliographic Instruction Contact For information on scheduling a course-related instruction session or a faculty training session.
American Studies Program
Blackboard
Created by: Professor David Gerhan, Head of Public Services and of Reference, Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308
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