U.S. History

The Duke University Libraries offer hundreds of periodical and newspapers indexes, both in print and electronic format.  Below is a selected list of online databases which can be useful for historical research. For additional online resources, consult the subject listing of U.S. history databases.

Journal Articles

America: History and Life (1954 to present) The first database you should consult to identify secondary literature in the field of U.S. history. It abstracts articles and provides bibliographic citations to reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the US and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.

Web of Science indexes thousands of academic journals.  The hallmark of this database is its cited reference searching.  This allows the user to identify other authors that have cited a particular journal article or book.  Date coverage for social sciences titles is 1956 to present; humanities titles are indexed from 1975 to present.

JSTOR provides full-text access to thousands of articles from archived academic journals.  Date coverage varies by individual journal title, but a typical coverage range is from the beginning of the journal until 5 years ago.

Humanities Abstracts (1984 to present) indexes around 500 English language journals in such fields as history, philosophy, literature, and archaeology.

Newspaper Articles

America's Historical Newspapers (1690 to 1922) provides access to scanned images from newspapers from all 50 U.S. states.

Ethnic Newswatch (1960 to present) contains the full text of articles, editorials, and reviews published in nearly 200 ethnic and minority newspapers, magazines, and journals published in the United States.

New York Times (1851 to 3 years ago; full-text)

Los Angeles Times (1881 to present; full-text)

Wall Street Journal (1889 to 1989; full-text)

Washington Post (1877 to present; full-text)