Yale University Library Research Guides: PLSC 522 / SOCY 503 Archival Methods and Historical Approaches in the Social Sciences: Reference and Primary Electronic Resources

Reference Works

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 Research Encyclopedias

The Oxford Research Encyclopedias offer long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars.

Cambridge Core

Link to the general collections of Cambridge University Press, including the Cambridge Histories and Cambridge Companions.

Oxford Bibliographies
An extensive collection of annotated bibliographies often pointing to both primary and secondary sources. You can browse by subject areas or keyword search for relevant articles. Sometimes not quite as up-to-date as the Oxford Research Encyclopedias, but still a very good resource.

Oxford Handbooks Online
Lengthy chapters in the Oxford Handbooks usually provide helpful overviews of scholarly topics and historical literature, along with suggestions for further reading. A number of the handbooks may be helpful depending on your research topic.

Wiley Online Library

A large collection of resources. The Wiley Companions are often very useful. Navigate to "Humanities" and then "History" in order to find a detailed listing of titles by subfield.

Government Information and Legal Resources

Hathi Trust Digital Library
Hein Online
A key resource for legal research and government information. Among its many collections are the most comprehensive available library of law journals, U.S. Supreme Court Library, U.S. Statutes at Large, and U.S. Presidential Library.
The Making of Modern Law. American Civil Liberties Union Papers. Part I, 1912-1990
The link here goes to the catalog record for part one, but the "Online database" link goes to the home page for all three parts of the collection to which Yale researchers have access:
"Southern Regional Office Files [1945-1990]"
"The Roger Baldwin Years, 1912-1950"
"Years of Expansion,1950-1990"
The Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records and Briefs of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 1950-1980
The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978
Nexis Uni
U.S. and international news, business information, legal materials including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790 are all part of this massive database. * Guided Search (rather than searching "All Nexis Uni") will help to narrow down your search results.
ProQuest Congressional Publications
The starting point for finding Congressional documents, such as the Congressional Record, Hearings, House and Senate Documents and Reports (i.e., U.S. Congressional Serial Set), and more.

Newspapers and Magazines

Access World News
Full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources at the local, regional, national and international level. Coverage from ca. 1982 to present.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Approximately 170 periodicals. Click here for title list.
African Newspapers
African Newspapers, Series 1 and 2, 1800-1925, offers coverage of the people, issues and events that shaped the continent during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Featuring titles from Algeria to Angola, Zambia to Zimbabwe, this resource chronicles the evolution of Africa through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, obituaries and other items.
America's Historical Newspapers
This database covers the colonial period to the late 20th c. Most of the content is pre-20th century, but several collections cover the 20th c. and include:
- 20th Century American Newspapers, Series 1-3
- African American Newspapers, Series 1 (1827-1998) and 2 (1835-1956)
- Ethnic American Newspapers, 1799-1971
- Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980
* Please note: a link to the new "America's Historical Newspapers" interface is available at the top of the page -- this interface provides an overview of all of the collections in the database and allows you to select multiple databases to search at the same time.
American Indian Newspapers
Independent Voices
A collection of digitized magazines, journals, newsletters, and newspapers of the alternative press spanning the 1960's to the 1980's.
Moscow News Digital Archive
Can be found alphabetically on the home page of publisher East View.
Newspapers.com Library Edition
Historical newspaper archive providing online access to thousands of historical newspapers, dating from the early 1700s into the early 2000s.
Opinion Archives
A quirky and too often faulty search interface, but the only online access points for such journals of opinion as American Spectator, Commentary, Dissent, Harper's Magazine, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Weekly Standard.
Press Reader
Provides interactive, digital access to nearly 7,000 newspapers and magazines globally. Coverage generally for the last 90 days.
ProQuest News and Newspapers
A key resource for 20th c. newspaper research, especially for North America. Among the 80+ collections are approximately 50 collections of historical newspapers.
World Newspaper Archive
Includes newspapers published in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Selected History Primary Source Databases

Africa and the New Imperialism: European Borders on the African Continent, 1870-1914
Africa and the New Imperialism documents the period of rapid colonial expansion by European powers across the African continent during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Archives Unbound
Provides access to 205 digitized manuscript collections. Click on the "Collections" link for an overview, and then filter by "Topics," e.g. African American Studies; American Studies; Cultural Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies; Law, Politics, and Radical Studies; Native American Studies; etc. Please note: The materials in this database are often presented out of their original order, and it's frequently a challenging resource to use. Please reach out for assistance if any of the collections are of interest or relevant to your research.
Area Studies: India
This collection consists of rare printed works of colonial literature, by both Britons in the Indian subcontinent and Indian visitors to Britain; collected reports from Indian newspapers, 1868-1942; and two collections of private papers on India, by Lord Curzon and Michael Pakenham Edgeworth.
Confidential Print: Africa
Brings together documents relating to events in Africa generated by the British Foreign and Colonial Offices from 1834 to 1966. It includes files, letters, telegrams, treaties, and other texts on most countries and territories of Africa.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences.
Empire Studies
This collection offers a rich array of sources for the study of the British Empire. It features material on British colonial policy and government; perspectives on life in British colonies; the relationship between gender and empire, race, and class.
ProQuest History Vault
A large database of manuscript collections relating to 19th and 20th c. U.S. history, including extensive labor records, the papers of the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, and other Civil Rights and Black Power organizations, and files regarding a wide variety of domestic affairs as well as foreign policy under the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.
Race Relations in America
Contains records of speeches, reports, surveys, and analyses produced by Fisk University's Race Relations Department from 1943-1970. The Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association. The original records are housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans. The materials range from interviews and statistics to educational pamphlets and administrative correspondence produced by the Department's staff, to photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes where participants included Charles S. Johnson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice
Slavery, Abolition and Social justice features documents and collections that treat slavery, its legacy and continued existence, and social justice issues related to its legacy. Coverage is from 1490 to 2008, and materials include original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps, and images.
Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda
Collection of films produced primarily in the communist world from the early 20th c. to the 1980s and re-edited for Western audiences.
Women's Studies Archive
Archival materials documenting the evolution of feminism throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and women’s political activism in areas such as suffrage, birth control, pacifism, civil rights, and socialism. Click on the "Collections" link for an overview of 15 collections.
Women and Social Movements, International: 1840-Present
Online archive of published and manuscript primary sources focusing on women's international activism since the mid-nineteenth century. The archive includes proceedings of women's international conferences, books, pamphlets, articles from newspapers and journals, as well as correspondence, diary entries, and memoirs.

PLSC 522 / SOCY 503 Archival Methods and Historical Approaches in the Social Sciences: Reference and Primary Electronic Resources

Reference Works

Government Information and Legal Resources

Newspapers and Magazines

Selected History Primary Source Databases

Site Navigation

Yale's Libraries