George Bellows, My Family, 1916, National Gallery of Art

Barnard College Library Research Guide BC3998 Senior Seminar : The Family in Turn-of-the-Century American Fiction Professor Kassanoff

This guide is intended as a starting point in your research; the databases and reference tools listed here are a
selective list. Always remember that you can ask for assistance at the Barnard Reference Desk at any point in
your research, and you can always request a consultation.

Finding Primary Sources | Useful Web sites | Request a Consultation

Current Columbia faculty, staff and students only.

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources can give you background information to help you choose your topic and to give an overview of the subject.  They can also provide useful bibliographies.

Reference Books

Encyclopedia of American Social History        
BARNARD REF. HN57 .E58 1993
Excellent overview essays with bibliographies to secondary resources. Use to gain a quick understanding of your topic and some background to the time period you are researching.

The AHA’s Guide to Historical Literature 
BARNARD REF. D20 .A55 1995g
Points to secondary sources. Use if you want one or two historical overviews about your topic or time period.

American Decades
BARNARD REF. E169.12 .A4192 
This is a series going back to 1900. The Barnard Reference Department has it from the 1910-1920 edition up to current editions. Each title in American Decades is devoted to a 10-year period. A fun way to find out about political, social, cultural and scientific events that happened during the time period you are investigating.

Chronology of World History
BARNARD REF. D11 .M39 1999
What else was happening in the world?

The Reader's Companion to American History
BARNARD REF. E174 .R43 1991
Use for quick facts. Answers the who, what, when, where questions that may crop up as you read primary source material.

Indexes and Databases
Use periodical indexes to identify journal articles about specific topics; secondary articles' footnotes and bibliographies may point you to primary resources.
For example:
America: History and Life
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/amer-hist-life.html
A major periodical index to scholarly journals containing articles on all aspects of American history. This index is useful for finding articles about topics, but it can also lead to primary material. Check the Documentation Field (available by viewing the full citation) to see if the article has footnotes, is based on primary material, etc.

 Primary Sources

Indexes
These indexes (some are online and some are in print) cite articles and essays  written during the time period you are interested in.

Essay and General Literature Index.
BARNARD REF. AI3 .E752 (Library has: 1900 - 1994)
Use to find essays published in anthologies (books). Remember that terminology has changed. For example, if you look under "African American" you won’t find anything, nor under "Afro-American" or "Blacks." You have to use "Negroes." Try CLIO first to find which library owns the book; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the card catalog at Butler Library.

International Index; a Guide to Periodical Literature in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R49 (1907 - 1974)
Covers early 20^th Century scholarly journals that are not in the Readers Guide, which covers more popular magazines. When you find a citation for an article, the title of the journal is abbreviated. Look at the front to find out what the abbreviations stand for. Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical. If the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials to see whether Columbia used to subscribe to the journal. If Columbia stopped subscribing many years ago, it would not show up in CLIO.

The New York Times Index.
BARNARD REF. Index Table (1933 - present) and BUTLER REF. R070 N481 (1851 - present).
The New York Times Index for 1851-1923 is also available online as:
Historical Newspapers Online
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/historical-news.html
This is an electronic form of the print index (not the full-text of the newspaper); some people may find the paper copy of the index easier to use.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers contains the full-text of the New York Times (1851-1999) and the Wall Street Journal (1889-1985). The entire contents of the papers are being added over time; the entire contents of each paper may not be fully loaded yet.

Nineteenth Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature.
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R496  (1890 - 1899, 2 volumes)
Index to about 60 periodicals including Atlantic Monthly, Edinburgh Review, Political Science Quarterly, Popular Science Monthly, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Scientific American, etc. These are primarily magazines written for the general public, but some are more scholarly. Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials.

PCI Periodicals Contents Index
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/period-cont-ind.html
An international, interdisciplinary index especially useful for finding articles published in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Use CLIO first to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials.

Poole's Index To Periodical Literature.
BARNARD REF. AI3 .P7 1938g(1802 - 1881)
Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials.
Poole's is also available online:
Poole's Plus
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/pooles-plus.html
Includes several 19th-century periodical indexes: Poole's Index to Periodical Literature (1802-1906), Stead's Index to Periodicals (1890-1906), Cumulative Index to Selected List of Periodicals (1896-1899), New York Daily Tribune Index (1875-1906), New York Times Index (1863-1905), Harper's Magazine Index (1850-1892), Library Journal Index (1876-1897).

Readers' Guide To Periodical Literature.
BARNARD REF. AI3 .R48 (1900 - 1997)
Use CLIO to find which library owns the periodical; if the title does not appear in CLIO, check the Union List of Serials.

Journals and Newspapers (online full-text and checklists)

American Newspapers in the Columbia University Libraries
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/us-newspapers-c.html
A checklist of U.S. newspapers owned by the Columbia University Libraries, dating from 1704 to the present, arranged by state and city of publication. 
See also ProQuest Historical Newspapers for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

HarpWeek
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/harpweek.html
Page images of Harper's Weekly, the popular illustrated American magazine, covering the years 1857 to
1876, a rich record of all aspects of life during those years. Contents may be accessed by any of four
detailed indexes.

JSTOR
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/jstor.html
Full-text articles from more than 60 scholarly journals, some of which go back to the 1890s.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers contains the full-text of the New York Times(1851-1999) and Wall Street Journal (1889-1985). The entire contents of the papers are being added over time; the entire contents of each paper may not be fully loaded yet.

Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada (ULS)
Printed guide.  BARNARD REF. Z6945 .U45 1965
This multi-volume set is arranged alphabetically by the title of the publication and indicates which periodicals major libraries subscribed to up until 1965. The code for Columbia is NNC; the code for the New York Public Research Libraries is NN.  If  ULS indicates that Columbia had a subscription to a title, you must still check Butler Reference's Serials Catalog to find the call number and whether Columbia has the volume you need. Using ULS will give you a good idea of what's available at Columbia before trying to use the Serials Catalog.

Women's Journals in the Columbia and Barnard Libraries
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/subjects/womenstudies/fmjnls2.html
A checklist of women's magazines and journals held by the Columbia/Barnard Libraries. You can display the titles alphabetically by title, or by date.

Diaries:

American diaries : an annotated bibliography of published American diaries and journals. (1983)
BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 A74 1983

The published diaries and letters of American women : an annotated bibliography. (1987)
BARNARD REFERENCE Z5305.U5 G66 1987

Other:

United States government documents on women, 1800-1990 : a comprehensive bibliography. (1993)
BARNARD REFERENCE HQ1410 H85 1993g

Using CLIO or the card catalog:
When doing a subject search in CLIO or the card catalog look for the subdivision "sources".

For example:
s=women--united states--social conditions--sources
s=united states--history--1865 1921--sources

Looking for books published during a specific span of years:
REMEMBER that CLIO does not list everything owned by the Columbia University Libraries. Use the card catalogs in Butler Reference by finding an appropriate subject heading (use the Library of Congress Subject Headings books located in the Barnard or Butler Reference Departments); once you've found a useful subject heading look through the card catalog for items published in the years you are interested in. Subject headings have changed over time, so you may need to check earlier editions of the Library of Congress Subject Headings; check in Butler Reference for the LCSH books that cover your time period.

Women's Studies : Microform Collections
Guide to some of the microform sets available at Columbia University, for example: 
Americans for Democratic Action Papers, 1932-1965.
Black workers in the era of the great migration, 1916-1929.
Committee of Fifteen Records, 1900-1901
Japanese Camp Papers, 1942-1945.

Electronic Resources with Primary Source Material

Barnard College Library Subject Guide : History – Documents and Primary Sources
http://www.barnard.edu/library/websubj/historyresources.htm#usadocs
Recommended web sites (from the Barnard College Library) that contain historical documents and writings.

Other large collections:

African-American Studies (History Universe)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/afr-am-st-hist.html
Provides access to the full-text of selected primary sources (including autobiographies, speeches,
legislation, Supreme Court decisions) and secondary sources (articles from reference books and scholarly
journals). Includes prints and photographs. Contains material from colonial times up to the recent past.

American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
From the Library of Congress, with over 80 collections online (texts, music, photographs, films).

The Gerritsen Collection: Women's History Online, 1543-1945
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/gerritsen.html
Full-text collection of books and periodicals, the bulk of the collection dates from 1880-1920.

Making of America
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/
A digital library currently containing approximately 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indexes/na-womens-ld.html
Diaries, journals, and letters written by women visiting or living in North America. Release I, February 2001
includes the letters and diaries of 69 women.

Updated April 05, 2002
Cynthia A. Johnson