Yale University Library Research Guides: ENGL 182 / AFAM 182 / AMST 286 / HUM 241: James Baldwin's American Scene: Home

Main search portals

Yale Library Catalog (Orbis)
Searches the books, e-books, journals, government documents, and other physical and digital items owned by the library. Individual journal articles are not retrieved by the search. Can be used to find both primary and secondary sources.
Quicksearch
A combined search of the library's books, journal articles, databases, and more. Searches Orbis as well as the Law Library catalog, Morris. Consider this a Google-like search of a vast amount of resources, but keep in mind some library materials are not indexed by the search. The search refinements and availability of multiple search fields are key to limiting the usually large number of results and finding the most relevant sources.
Archives at Yale
The search portal for finding archival materials at Yale. Look for the Scope & Contents notes, inventories, and PDF Finding Aids to assess the relevance of materials to your research project.
Borrow Direct
Services currently suspended due to COVID-19: Use the Borrow Direct platform to find and borrow books from partner libraries when our copy is checked out or we do not own the item.
WorldCat
WorldCat is a database of catalog records from approximately 10,000 libraries around the world. It contains records for millions of volumes and can be used to find primary and/or secondary source materials that can be requested via Interlibrary Loan for use at Yale.

Finding Archives Beyond Yale

Archive Grid

Archive Grid contains records for finding aids from over 1000 archival institutions. Start here when you are seeking to discover if there are any relevant archival collections for your research beyond Yale. The "Summary View" option is a good way to filter your search results after running a search. This is an open access resource/no login required.

America: History and Life

America: History and Life

Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada and indexes over 2000 historical journals. This is a key resource if you are searching for historical scholarship related to your research project.

Historical Newspapers and Periodicals

ProQuest News and Newspapers
A key resource that includes ProQuest Historical Newspapers, with digitized reproductions of long runs of newspapers. Includes titles from the mainstream white press, such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, as well as the following titles from the Black press: Atlanta Daily World, The Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Cleveland Call and Post, Los Angeles Sentinel, Michigan Chronicle, New York Amsterdam News, Norfolk Journal and Guide, Philadelphia Tribune, and The Pittsburgh Courier.
*Scroll down the homepage of ProQuest News and Newspapers to find the historical newspapers. A full list of all of the historical newspaper titles is included on another page of this guide.
African American Newspapers, Series 1 (1827-1998)
Part of America's Historical Newspapers, which is made up of 21 series that can also be searched all at the same time -- most of the coverage is from the colonial era to the early 20th c.
African American Newspapers, Series 2 (1835-1956)
Part of America's Historical Newspapers, which is made up of 21 series that can also be searched all at the same time -- most of the coverage is from the colonial era to the early 20th c.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Esquire
Temporary online access to Esquire is available via the Hathi Trust Digital Library. You can use your Yale netID and password to log in. More information on accessing materials through the Hathi Trust's Emergency Temporary Access Services (ETAS) can be found elsewhere on this page in the "Hathi Trust" box.
Opinion Archives
Provides full-text searchable archives for journals of opinion, such as American Spectator, Commentary, Dissent, Harper's Magazine, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Weekly Standard.
Phylon
Founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Available via JSTOR. The link here goes to the catalog record for 1960-2020, but under the "Title History" within JSTOR, you can select earlier years to browse/search. The JSTOR search box at the top of the page will allow you to search all years if you select "In This Journal" rather than "All Content" from the drop-down menu.
Freedomways
A literary-political journal of the Civil Rights Movement and international Black freedom struggle, Freedomways was founded by Shirley Graham Du Bois and Esther Jackson and ran from 1961 to 1985.
Reader's Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982
Indexes 550 periodicals from 1890 to 1982.
Women's Magazine Archive
A collection of women's interest magazines including Essence, a periodical for Black women, from volume 1 (1970) to volume 36 (2005). Click on the "Publications" link to find and browse/search the individual titles in this collection: Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents, Redbook, Seventeen, Town & Country, Women's International Network News, and Woman's Day.
20th-Century American Newspapers, Series 1 [1923-forward]
Part of America's Historical Newspapers, which is made up of 21 series that can also be searched all at the same time -- most of the coverage is from the colonial era to the early 20th c.
20th-Century American Newspapers, Series 2 [1923-forward]
Part of America's Historical Newspapers, which is made up of 21 series that can also be searched all at the same time -- most of the coverage is from the colonial era to the early 20th c.
20th-Century American Newspapers, Series 3 [1923-forward]
Part of America's Historical Newspapers, which is made up of 21 series that can also be searched all at the same time -- most of the coverage is from the colonial era to the early 20th c.

MLA International Bibliography

MLA International Bibliography

The MLA (Modern Language Association) Bibliography is the major index for literary studies; it's udated several times throughout the year. Subjects covered are:

Modern literatures
Literary theory and criticism
Linguistics
Teaching of language
Film, television and theater
Rhetoric and composition
History of the book
Folklore

A helpful way to search the MLA Bibliography is by using the Advanced search interface to run a "Primary Subject Author" and "Primary Subject Work" search.

Reference

Background or "reference" sources are a great place to start your research. Reference works include bibliographies, scholarly encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, and other sources that provide overviews of topics and suggestions for further reading.

Oxford African American Studies Center
Comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with precise search and browse capabilities.
Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Bibliographies offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics across varied subject areas. Each of these features an introduction to the topic. Bibliographies can be browsed by subject area and searched by keyword.