Research Guides: HIST 215: Victorianizing America and Its Challengers: Primary Sources

Recommended Sources

Historical Magazines

Godey's Lady's Book (1830-1896)
Women's interest periodical published from 1830-1878; created to entertain, inform, and educate American women.
Articles on “hearth and home,” dating and marriage, fashion, entertainment, recipes, health and hygiene, remedies, morality, jewelry, handcrafts, education, suffrage, African American and immigrant women, the role of women in foreign countries, brief biographies of leading personalities, literature, recipes and remedies, and more. Includes full color plates as they originally appeared.Over time, the periodical matured into a literary magazine, with book reviews, essays, poetry, and short stories by celebrated 19th century authors.
Harper's Bazaar Archive (1867 - current)
America's first fashion magazine
Detailed Guide to this resource.
National Geographic Magazine Archive (1888-1984)
Archives of the monthly American magazine primarily concerning science, geography, history, and world culture.

Historical Magazine Databases

Children’s Magazine Archive, 1866-2020
Backfiles of a variety of 20th-century US & UK magazines covering many aspects of children's lives and interests. Many titles focus on education, entertainment / literature, news, and religion / moral development.
Included titles: 3-2-1 Contact; The Boy's Own Paper; The Children's Newspaper; Electric Company Magazine; Kid City; Look and Learn; Sesame Street Magazine; Stone Soup.
American Periodicals (1740-1940)
American magazines, newspapers, and journals in digitized page image format, published between 1740 and 1940.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals
American periodicals published 1684-1912, covering US history, society, and culture. Specialized collections include African American studies, advertising, arts and culture, women's issues, health, science, industry, and religious topics.
Accessible Archives
Primary sources from 18th & 19th century American newspapers, magazines, and books. Includes eyewitness accounts of historical events, descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, advertisements, and genealogical records.

Specialty Collections

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (1880 - 2000)
US and UK trade magazines covering the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000.
Detailed Guide to this resource.
Music Periodicals of the 19th Century
Periodicals on American musical life from 1838 to the early 1900s; includes local and international news, reviews, editorials, sheet music, and advertisements.
Women's Magazine Archive
Archives of consumer magazines published for a female audience, including Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal. These magazines cover family life, home economics, health, careers, fashion, and culture, and provide canonical records of evolving assumptions about gender roles and cultural mores. Each magazine contains volume 1, issue 1 through 2005. Publications are in high-resolution color.
Men’s Magazine Archive (1845 - 2015)
Men’s interest magazines for research in men’s studies/history; also provides additional perspectives for women’s studies.
It includes some of the earliest publications of this type – National Police Gazette and Argosy – and covers key topics such as fashion, sports, health, and arts/entertainment.
Religious Magazine Archive (1845 - 2015)
Archival collections of 18 historical magazines devoted to religious topics.
Detailed Guide to this resource.

Find Historical Newspapers

Historical Newspapers
Full-text content from U.S. & international newspapers from the 19th century to the late 20th century. In addition to news stories, includes editorials, cartoons, classifieds, and obituaries.
See title list of over 400 historical newspapers.

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Digitized American newspapers, 1789 - 1963. From the Library of Congress.

African American Historical Newspapers (1893 - 2003)
African American published newspapers from the late 19th century through the 21st century. Click "more" to see titles and dates.
Afro-American, Baltimore; Apr 29, 1893 - Feb 06, 1988, some exceptions
Atlanta World; Dec 2, 1931 - Mar 17, 1932
Atlanta Daily World; Mar 18, 1932 - Dec 25, 2003, some exceptions
Cleveland Call and Post, Cleveland; Jan 6, 1934 - May 12, 1962
Call and Post, City edition, Cleveland ; May 19, 1962 - Jul 31, 1982
Call and Post, Cleveland; Aug 7, 1982 - Dec 26, 1991
The Chicago Defender (National edition); Apr 2, 1921 - Dec 23, 1967
The Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Jul 31, 1909 - Mar 26, 1921
Daily Defender, (Daily Edition), Chicago; Feb 6, 1956 - Nov 7, 1960
Chicago Daily Defender (Daily Edition); Nov 8, 1960 - Feb 15, 1973
Chicago Daily Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Jan 6, 1968 - Feb 17, 1973
Chicago Defender (Daily Edition); Feb 19, 1973 - Dec 31, 1975
Chicago Defender (Big Weekend Edition); Feb 24, 1973 - Dec 27, 1975
New Journal and Guide, Norfolk, VA.; Sep 30, 1916 - Dec 30, 2003, some exceptions
The New York Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Nov 29, 1922 - Aug 27, 1938, some exceptions
New York Amsterdam News, City edition, New York, N.Y.; Sep 3, 1938 - Jan 4, 1941
New York Star & Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Jan 11, 1941 - Feb 1, 1941
New York Amsterdam Star-News, New York, N.Y.; Feb 8, 1941 - Mar 27, 1943
New York Amsterdam News, City edition, New York, N.Y.; Apr 3, 1943 - Dec 30, 1961
New York Amsterdam News, New York, N.Y.; Jan 6, 1962 - Dec 25, 1993
Philadelphia Tribune; Jan 6, 1912 - Dec 30, 2001, some exceptions
Courier, City Edition, Pittsburgh; Aug 19, 1950 - Dec 25, 1954
Pittsburgh Courier, City Edition; Jan 1, 1955 - Oct 29, 1966
New Pittsburgh Courier, City Edition; Nov 5, 1966 - Jun 27, 1981
New Pittsburgh Courier; Jul 4, 1981 - Dec 28, 2002
Kalamazoo Gazette Collection (1837-1922 and 2005-Present)
Search the Kalamazoo Gazette, local newspaper.
Kalamazoo Gazette from 2005 through today, including full text, web-only content, and full-color image edition. Also includes historical content from 1837-1922.

Gilded Age

Gilded Age (1870-1900)
Primary sources and documentary essays covering American life from end of the Civil War to the election of Theodore Roosevelt. Covers immigration and migration, racism and civil rights, labor and industry, women and universal suffrage, treatment of Native Americans, and the environment. Includes songs, letters, photographs, cartoons, government documents, and ephemera.

African American

Black Abolitionist Papers (1830-1865)
Primary sources, writings, and publications by African American activists involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States, between 1830 and 1865.
Detailed Guide to this resource.

African American Perspectives: from the Library of Congress Rare Book Collection
Sources on African American history and culture from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries; most materials were published between 1875 and 1900. From the Library of Congress.
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
Biographical stories of the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.

Native Americans

North American Indian Thought and Culture
Collection of Native American autobiographies, biographies, publications, oral histories, personal writings, photographs, drawings, and audio files.
Detailed explanation of this resource.
American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971
Primary sources on the interaction between Native Americans and the U.S. government in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Includes first-hand accounts on westward migration and Indian wars, and materials from the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Major Council Meetings of American Indian Tribes.

Disability

Disability in the Modern World
Interdisciplinary focus on disability scholarship, including primary sources, supporting materials, video, and archives. Mass media and activism are covered.

Feminism

Gerritsen Women's History Collection
Books, periodicals, and pamphlets on women's history and the evolution of feminism. Covers four centuries and 15 languages, with publications from the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and continental Europe.
Two collections in this database:
The Periodical Series: This segment represents about 25 percent of the material in the database. It comprises 265 titles, including The Suffragist (1913-21) and The Women's Protest Against Woman Suffrage (1912-18).
Monograph Language Series: These 4,471 monographs and pamphlets make up about 75 percent of the collection. Included are 2,336 titles tracing suffragism in the English-speaking world. The collection will soon include 929 German titles that document the history of organized movements in Germany and Switzerland, and 734 French titles that cover women's issues from Gallic times through World War II.
Women and Social Movements in the United States since 1600
Primary sources documenting women's movements and women activists in the US, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include women and antislavery, women's suffrage, the Feminist movement, Equal Rights movement, and women's role in Civil Rights .
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Includes 19th Century primary sources collections covering Europe and Africa, Mapping the World, Photography, and Women.
Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest
Monographs, manuscripts, and newspapers covering key issues of economics, world politics, and international strategy.

Mapping the World: Maps and Travel Literature
Selections from map repositories of the British Library and the National Archives at Kew representing the nineteenth century.

Photography: The World Through the Lens
Collections of photographs, photograph albums, photographically-illustrated books and texts on the early history of photography from libraries and archives from across the globe. Some images are well-known while many have rarely been viewed.

Women: Transnational Networks
Focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th century, through a transnational perspective. The collection contains sources on European and North American movements and collections from other regions.

Food

Food Studies Online
Primary sources and secondary works covering food and food systems. Archival materials include pamphlets, ephemera, images, and documentaries.

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
Thousands of advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States. From Duke University.

Alexander Street Collection
African American history, women's history, social & cultural history, sociology, psychology & counseling, religion, music, drama & theatre, film, performing arts. Sources include texts, images, music & audio tracks, films & documentaries, theatre productions, and playlists. Searches ALL Alexander Street databases.

Digital Public Library of America
Millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the content provider’s website.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Prints, photographs, manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, illustrated books, printed ephemera, streaming video, and more from the New York Public Library Collections.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Primary sources from the Library of Congress covering all aspects of American life and history.
Internet Archive
Open and permanent access to historical collections in digital format for researchers and the public.
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“Books in this collection may be borrowed by logged in patrons for a period of two weeks. You may read the books online in your browser, or download them into Adobe Digital Editions, a free piece of software used for managing loans.”
Duke University Digitized Collections
Primary sources collections covering American History.

Library

HIST 215: Victorianizing America and Its Challengers

Primary Sources Guide

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Recommended Sources

Historical Magazines

Historical Magazine Databases

Specialty Collections

Find Historical Newspapers

Gilded Age

African American

Native Americans

Disability

Feminism

Food

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