Research Guide for HI 480:
Colonial North America

Online Databases Websites Reference Books Circulating Books

Here is a guide to finding information for research in for the Winter 2007-08 History Senior Seminar.  Your main resources are online periodical databases, websites, and books at the Thomas Tredway Library.

Online Databases
The following databases are a great place to start to find secondary sources relating to the Civil War that have been published in scholarly journals and books. 

America: History & Life
An index to articles, books, other scholarly materials relating to the history of the United States. Published since 1954 this database comprises over half a million entries. 

American Periodical Series Online
Over 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals. 

North American Women's Letters and Diaries, Colonial Period -- 1950
When complete, North American Women's Letters and Diaries will be the largest collection of women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, it will bring the personal experiences of 1,500 women to researchers, students, and general readers.

JSTOR Journal Archive
This resource stores hundreds of scholarly journals in full text format, including many of the history journals in our collection.  Journals can be searched individually of in groups.  Articles from volume one up to between two and five years form the current date are available.

Websites
The following websites offer access to primary sources relating to the Colonial North America.

French America

English America

University of Memphis: Web Resources for Colonial American History
http://history.memphis.edu/mcrouse/colonial.html
A thorough list of digital archives relating to colonial North America.

American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
http://www.americanjourneys.org/
Contains "more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD 1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later." Includes full-text documents and manuscripts. Funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services and by private donors, American Journeys is a collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day.

Early Americas Digital Archive
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/eada/
Published and supported by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, this website offers a collection of electronic texts originally written in or about the Americas from 1492 to approximately 1820.

Maryland Early State Records Online
http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/html/index.html
The digital edition of the Archives of Maryland is published by the Maryland State Archives. The Early State Records Series is the starting point for documents of the original legislative, executive, and judicial records through ca. 1830.

The Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606-1827
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/
The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes. The collection is organized into ten series or groupings, ranging in date from 1606 to 1827.

The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799
http://etext.virginia.edu/washington/fitzpatrick/
Maintained by the University of Virginia, this is an online, searchable collection of Washington's papers, which were compiled and edited by John C. Fitzpatrick.

Religion and the Founding of the Early American Republic
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/
From the Library of Congress, this is a brief history and collection of documents relating to the history of religion in the American Colonies.

Spanish America

University of Washington Libraries: Latin American History Sources
http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/tm/latin.html
This website provides links to digitized historical documents.

Yale University Library: Latin American Collection
http://www.library.yale.edu/latinamerica/internet.html
The "History Resources" and "Archival and Manuscript Materials" sections are most useful, as they contain several links to online historical documents.

Reference Books

Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies
REF E 45 .E53 1993 (three volumes)
More a collection of historical essays than an encyclopedia, this resource provides background and bibliographic information to a wide range of topics concerning daily life in the French, English, and Spanish colonies.  These topics include: Church & State, Schools & Schooling, the Arts, Sexual Mores and Behavior, Medical Practices, etc.

Atlas of Ancient America
REF E 61 .C66 1986
Although dated, this atlas provides plenty of color photographs and maps that offer an introduction to the study of pre-colonial North and South America.

French America

Dictionary of Canadian Biography
REF F 1005 .D49 (multi-volume)
Each volume is time-specific and contains a complete A-to-Z collection of biographies of notable individuals.  The first three volumes will be most useful.

Historical Atlas of Canada
REF F 1005 .H57 1987 (three volumes)
An incredibly detailed, full-color atlas of colonial Canada, this resource provides street-level information regarding the demographic, economic, and political development of the region. 

English America

The Annals of America
REF E 173 .A793
A multi-volume reference work that contains primary documents from throughout American history.  Volume 1 is especially useful for this seminar, as it contains over 110 letters, speeches, articles, and other documents from 1493-1754. 

The Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America
REF E 188 .E63 1990
The resource contains illustrations, articles, and bibliographies of a full range of topics regarding colonial English/British America.

The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War
REF E 208 .E64 2006 (five volumes)
A new resource that includes maps, articles, and historical documents from the period up to and during the American Revolution.  The fifth volume, dedicated entirely to reprinted documents, contains texts of British Parliamentary Acts affecting the colonies, personal letters and reports, journal entries, and more.

Spanish America

Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: AN Encyclopedia
REF F 1218.6 .A73 2001
A single-volume encyclopedia containing articles regarding the Aztecs, Mayans, and Spanish conquests.

An Atlas and Survey of Latin American History
REF F 1406 .L37 2007
As this covers Latin American History through the present, it is the first seven chapters of this atlas that will be of most use.  Dozens of black-and-white maps provide geographic information about the development of colonial Spanish America.

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture
REF F 1406 .E53 1996 (three volumes)
The resource contains illustrations, articles, and bibliographies of a full range of topics regarding colonial Latin America.

Circulating Books

ALiCat
Thomas Tredway Library's online book catalog.  For this assignment, search for materials by either using "Boolean Search" (using and, or, not; putting phrases in quotes), or "Browse Subject."

I-Share Libraries (combined catalogs of 71 Illinois academic libraries)
A direct link to the combined catalogs of Augustana and other academic libraries in Illinois.  The I-Share catalog allows for members of the Augustana community to locate and borrow from millions of books and other items from academic libraries across the state.

Last updated December 10, 2007.
Compiled by Brent Etzel, Reference Librarian.