American Studies

On the Web and In the Library

American Studies is a broad field that makes use of the scholarship and bibliography of many disciplines. Browse the list of Research Guides for additional resources related to your particular subject. For checklists of resources you can access over the Web, click on Electronic Resources by Subject. This guide is a selective list of electronic and print resources intended to aid researchers in Boston University's American and New England Studies Program.

Web

Archives and Manuscripts || Boston University American and New England Studies Program || Directories || Evaluating and Citing Web Sites || Historic Preservation || Electronic Indexes to Articles in Journals and Newspapers || Selected Special Sites

Directories

American Studies Crossroads Project
Hosted by Georgetown University. Sponsored by the American Studies Association. A comprehensive site covering all aspects of American Studies with emphasis on Web resources. Includes historical and archival resources. Provides links to primary texts, dissertations 1986-1995, image locaters, new site reviews, course syllabi, etc.  

American Studies Web, a Crosswords Project.  Bibliography of online resources searchable by keyword and browsable by broad category, e.g., community studies, visual culture.

Boston University American & New Studies Program: Resources

Intute: Arts and Humanities : American Studies
Created by a network of UK universities and partners. Evaluated, annotated, and catalogued database of web sites. Keyword searchable; subject browsable.  Also browsable by resource type (blogs, case studies, conference papers, primary sources, etc.) and time period.

Voice of the Shuttle: American Studies
Alan Liu, English Department, University of California, Santa Barbara. A multidisciplinary site providing links to sites grouped by broad disciplines from anthropology to women's studies.

 

Selected Special Sites

Ad*Access and Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920
J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection, John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History. Ad*Access "... presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955...in five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II." The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 contains over 9,000 images organized into eleven categories such as "Advertising Ephemera Collection," "Broadsides Collection," etc.

Advertising Resources
University of Iowa, Department of Communication Studies. List of links to contemporary and historical sites.

American Cultural History: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Reference librarians, Kingwood College Library, TX. Arranged by decade through the 1990's. Covers art, architecture, fashion, music, and historic events.

American Memory: Historical Collections in the National Digital Library
Library of Congress. An ongoing project digitizing photos and prints, documents, motion pictures, and sound recordings in the collections of the Library of Congress. The Map Collections: 1597-1988 home page is organized in seven categories: Cities and Towns, Conservation and Environment, Discovery and Exploration, Immigration and Settlement, Military Battles and Campaigns, and Transportation and Communication. These digitized maps, generally in the public domain, are only a small portion of the 4.5 million items in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. Of special interest is the Panoramic Maps Collection (1847-1920). American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 is a collection of 2,800 lantern slides representing the work of Harvard faculty, such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., Bremer W. Pond, and James Sturgis Pray.

AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive BU
Selections from the Associated Press's archive of over 700,000 photos, mostly made since late 1995.

Archive of Early American Images
John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.  Primary sources from 1492 to ca. 1825. "The vast majority of these images come from relatively obscure books printed in Europe in the early modern period [prior to 1825] that have in them material related to the Americas. Many of these pictures have never before been reproduced in any form."

Arts & Crafts Society
Arts & Crafts Society, Ann Arbor, MI. This site provides links to information about the Arts & Crafts Movement (1890-1929). Especially useful for researchers is the Archives section, "a searchable bibliography of Arts & Crafts related resources including sources (both original & contemporary), annotations and images." Categories include Companies, Exhibitions, History, Images, People, Places, Publications, and Societies. The Companies database covers Ceramics; Furniture; Glass; Home Plans, Kits, and Parts; Metalwork; Periodicals; and Textiles.

Boston (Mass.) and Its Neighborhoods
(boston.html)
Donald Altschiller and Ruth Thomas, Boston University Libraries. Comprehensive site including demographics, images, libraries, maps, current and historical newspapers, and other information.

Cumulus Image Database. Art History Department, Boston University.  BU

Historical Maps of the United States
The Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin. Maps are organized into six groups: Early Inhabitants, Exploration and Settlement, U.S. Territorial Growth, The U.S. in 1906, Maps of National Historic Sites, and Historical Maps of U.S. Cities. The maps in the first three groups are from the U.S. National Atlas, 1970 and those in the fourth group are from the U.S. Geological Survey 1906. This site also provides links to Historical Maps at Other Web Sites, including a section on the Americas, and to Map-Related Web Sites, including geography, gazetteers, NASA, railroads, US Census.

Index of American Design
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Consists of "approximately 18,000 watercolor renderings of American decorative arts objects from the colonial period through the nineteenth century". Among the object types are costume, furniture, metalwork, pottery, textiles, and woodcarving.

Making of America (MOA)
University of Michigan and Cornell University. "Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection contains approximately 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints."

National Heritage Museum
Changing exhibitions on American history and culture. Lexington, MA.

Picturing the Century: One Hundred Years of Photography from the National Archives
Galleries are  "A New Century," "The Great War and the New Era," "The Great Depression and the New Deal," "A World in Flames," "Postwar America," and "Century's End."

Visual Information Access
VIA "is a union catalog of visual resources at Harvard and Radcliffe. It includes information about slides, photographs, objects and artifacts in the university's libraries, museums and archives. To date only portions of each repository's holdings are described in the online catalog." VIA indexes and provides digitized images of trade cards from Baker Library's Historical Collection. There also are some digitized images from other collections.

William Morris Home Page
William Morris Society and the Robinson Center for Graphic Arts and Communication Design of the City University of New York. Comprehensive site on Morris and links to related sites included the Arts and Crafts Movement in America.

Archives and Manuscripts

Baker Library Historical Collections
Harvard University Business School Library. In addition to manuscript material, the collection has over 30,000 photographs and engraved images documenting U.S. industrial history. A selection of finding aids is available on the Internet: Business Manuscripts Collection Short Finding Aids: Industry/Subject Index. Some of these selected materials pertain to Boston and New England businesses.

Online Archive for California
University of California, Berkeley. This site permits browsing the inventories, registers, indexes, or guides to archives and manuscript repositories at Berkeley and at other institutions, primarily in California, but including Duke University and the University of Virginia. Berkeley also is collaborating with Stanford, Duke, and the University of Virginia in The American Heritage Virtual Archive Project, a shared database of finding aids of collections documenting American history and culture. Included here are Harvard/Radcliffe, Iowa Women's Archives, Library of Congress, and Yale University Finding Aids. Most of these require Softquad's Panorama, an SGML viewer.

Manuscript Reading Room, The Library of Congress
Library of Congress. Provides online access to catalog records of manuscripts in the Library of Congress pertaining to American history and culture. The site provides instruction on how to search the full text of finding aids. There are links to special online exhibits and digitized historical material.

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
Provides access to historical records of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government in paper and multimedia collections, including film, maps, sound and video recordings, aerial photographs, still pictures, and computer data sets. Access to Archival Databases provides searching and browsing by category. Also available are current government information publications such as the Today's Federal Register.

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
Library of Congress. Identifies and briefly describes archives and manuscript repositories throughout the United States and provides searching instructions.

Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS)
Five SIRIS Catalogs--Library Catalog, Art Inventories Catalog, Archives & Manuscripts Catalog, Research/Bibliographies Catalog, and the Smithsonian Chronology Catalog--are searchable. SIRIS currently is adding multimedia digital formats, e.g., transcripts, photographs, video clips, to selected catalog records.

Historic Preservation

Built in America
Historic American Buildings Survey(HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record(HAER), National Park Service and Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, 1933--. Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), National Park Service and Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, 1933--. Links to Heritage Documentation Programs databases of over 32,000 historic structures and sites and to American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library: Architecture, Landscape-- primary sources and archival materials relating to American culture and history. Links to Nineteenth Century Periodicals.


Historic Preservation Planning Program
National Park Service. Alphabetical list by state of titles of the statewide historic preservation plans that have been approved by the National Park Service. Some plans are available full text on the Web.

National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
National Park Service. Information on materials research, training and education, information management, grants and funding, jobs, and conferences.

National Council for Preservation Education
Thomas Visser, University of Vermont. Information on undergraduate, graduate, and allied graduate programs in historic preservation.

National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended

National Register of Historic Places
National Register Information System, National Park Service. Official database containing information on more than 80,000 properties. Searchable index.

National Park Service--ParkNet

National Trust for Historic Preservation
Web site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chartered by Congress in 1949, as a private, nonprofit organization, with thousands of local community groups.

Preserve/Net - Historic Preservation Links
Robert Pick, Preserve/Net Law Service. Resources list by subject, e.g., African-American History, Cultural Studies, GIS, International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Internet Resources, Legislation, National Park Service Resources, and Urban Planning.

Evaluating and Citing Web Sites

MLA Style
Bedford/St. Martin's.

Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources
Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library. Checklist of points to consider when evaluating quality of Web sites.

ANESP

Boston University American and New England Studies Program
Faculty, program, courses, resources.

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Library

Most of the resources listed here are works specifically referencing areas of research within the context of American culture. The Library of Congress Subject Heading is 'United States--Civilization.' The titles are available at Mugar Memorial Library or its branches.

Archives and Manuscripts || Atlases, Gazetteer, Maps || Bibliographies || Biographical Sources || Book Reviews || Electronic and Print Indexes to Articles in Journals and Newspapers || Magazines and Newspapers || Reference Works

Bibliographies

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XZ
1361
C6
A436
1986
and
1990
American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography,
3 vols, ed. Jack Salzman. Provides brief descriptions and author, title, subject access to over 6,000 books published in the United States between 1900 and 1983. Arranged by broad disciplines--anthropology and folklore, art and architecture, etc. Vol. 3 provides Author, Title, and Subject Indexes.

______,1984-1988. Adds 3,500 books to the original bibliography. Includes a section on media.

XZ
1236
M37
American Studies: Guide to Information Sources,
by David W. Marcell, 1982. An overview volume to the American Studies Information Guide series of annotated bibliographies on various subjects, e.g., Afro-American Literature, Woman in America, Technology and Values in American Civilization. Author, Title, and Subject Indexes.
XE
169.1
H2643
1989
Handbook of American Popular Culture,
3 vols, 2nd ed rev and enl, ed. M. Thomas Inge. Vol. 1: Advertising--Graffiti,
Vol. 2: Illustration--Pornography, Vol. 3: Propaganda--Women. Articles include a chronological survey; a discussion of reference works; an extensive bibliography; history and critical study; a list of relevant journals; and a discussion of research centers and collections of primary and secondary materials.
XZ
5630
B55
1990
Mass Media Bibliography: An Annotated Guide to Books and Journals for Research and Reference,
by Eleanor Blum. Includes sections on print media and advertising and public relations. Author, Title, and Subject Indexes.
XE
161
M35
1985
Material Culture: A Research Guide,
ed. Thomas J. Schlereth.  Essays by individual authors on topics such as American vernacular architecture, American decorative arts and household furnishings, and social history scholarship.
XE
178
R43
1997
Reader's Guide to American History,
ed. Peter J. Parish. Describes and assesses recently published books on 600 alphabetically arranged topics on social, political, and economic history. In addition to a General Index of events, individuals, and topics mentioned within the entries, there is a Thematic List and a Booklist Index. Excluded are literary, art, architecture, science, and medical history.
XE
175
S58
37
1983
Sources for American Studies,
eds. Jefferson B. Kellogg and Robert H. Walker, 1983. Bibliographical essays on aspects of American culture, e.g., "The History of American Journalism", "Architectural History in the United States", providing titles and locations of primary and secondary sources.
Micro
XZ
7164
M18
H43
1984
Trade Catalogues at Winterthur: A Guide to the Literature of Merchandising, 1750 to 1980,
compiled by E. Richard McKinstry. Bibliography of the commercial catalogues collection of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Also serves as a guide to the catalogues on microfiche (Mugar Micro Mfiche). Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum
XZ
5939
H46
1974
Winterthur Museum Libraries Collection of Printed Books and Periodicals,
9 vols, by Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum Libraries. Covers general collection, rare books, auction catalogs, and the Shaker collection.

Electronic and Print Indexes to Articles in Journals and Newspapers

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America: History and Life, 1964--. BU
Subject index to articles, book reviews, and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Also available in print at Mugar Reference X Z 1201 F64.

ARTBibliographiesMODERN, 1969--. Indexes articles, books, exhibition catalogs, and theses on modern art, photography, and design from late 19th century to the present. Also available in print from 1969 to 2000 at Mugar Reference X Z 5935 L64

A&HCI (World of Science: Arts & Humanities Citation Index), 1988--. BU
Multidisciplinary database covering journal articles. Indexes articles (choose General Search) and references cited in articles (choose Cited Ref Search). Useful for authors who want to find out where their articles have been cited. Remember to use the operators, "and" and "or", e.g., "advertising and America*." Can be used to find illustrations in journal articles published from 1988 forward--(choose Cited Ref Search and then either enter artist or architect name--last name and first initial, e.g., picasso p--in Cited Author box or enter title of work of art in Cited Work box). Click Search to find the articles. For 1975-1991, use the print version (Mugar Reference Index Table 4).

Art Index/Art Index Retrospective, 1929--. BU
Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. Includes books reviews. Reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals also are indexed. Subjects covered include archaeology, architecture, art history, city planning, crafts, motion pictures, graphic arts, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, museology, and photography.

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, 1930--. BU
Indexes more than 1,000 international periodicals covering architecture, archeology, city planning, interior design, and historic preservation. Selective coverage back to the 1860's.

BHA(Bibliography of the History of Art), 1973--. BU
Getty Information Institute. Books, journals, dissertations, exhibition catalogs. Western art, all media, late antiquity to the present. Includes and continues RILA (International Repertory of the Literature of Art), 1975-1989 and RAA (Repertoire d'Art et d'Archeologie), 1973-1989.

Dissertation Abstracts, 1861--. BU Citations to dissertations accepted for doctoral degrees at accredited North American institutions and more than 200 institutions elsewhere; abstracts are available from 1980 to date. Citations to masters' theses from 1962 to date; abstracts available from 1988 to date. Abstracts in print are available from 1938 to date at Mugar Reference XAS 30 F38.

FRANCIS, 1984--. BU
A multidisciplinary, multilingual database indexing articles in the humanities, social sciences, and economics.

Historical Abstracts, 1969--. BU
Indexes articles, book reviews, and dissertations on the history and culture of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Also available in print from 1955 to 1999 at Mugar Reference X D 1 F55.

Index to 19th-Century American Art Periodicals. BU
Covers nearly all art journals from the 19th century. Indexes entire journal contents--articles, art notes, illustrations, stories, poems, and advertisements. Source of information on popular culture and industry, artists and illustrators, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, architecture and design, exhibitions and sales, decoration, and collecting.

JSTOR, dates vary. BU
Retrospective database of full text academic journals that can be searched individually or in groups. "The moving wall is a fixed period of time ranging, in most cases, from 2 to 5 years, that defines the gap between the most recently published issue and the date of the most recent issues available in JSTOR".

LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe, dates vary, generally from the mid-1980s. BU
Full text current newspapers and magazines.

Making of America (MOA)
University of Michigan and Cornell University. Databases of full-text 19th-century journals in the browsable and searchable collection of the University of Michigan (Appleton's 1869-1881 (2 series); Catholic World 1865-1901; DeBow's 1846-1869 + 1952 index (3 series); Garden and Forest 1888-1897 (from Library of Congress); Ladies Repository 1841-1876 (3 series); The Old Guard 1864; Overland Monthly 1868-1900 (2 series); Princeton Review 1831-1882 (3 series); Southern Literary Messenger 1835-1864 + 1936 Contributor index; Southern Quarterly Review 1842-1857 (3 series); Vanity Fair 1860-1862) and in the browsable and searchable collection of Cornell University (The American Missionary (1878 - 1901); The American Whig Review (1845 - 1852); The Atlantic Monthly (1857 - 1901); The Bay State Monthly (1884 - 1886); The Century (1881 - 1899); The Continental Monthly (1862 - 1864); The Galaxy (1866 - 1878); Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1850 - 1899); The International Monthly Magazine (1850 - 1852); The Living Age (1844 - 1900); Manufacturer and Builder (1869 - 1894); The New England Magazine (1886 - 1900); The New-England Magazine (1831 - 1835); New Englander (1843 - 1892); The North American Review (1815 - 1900); The Old Guard (1863 - 1867); Punchinello (1870); Putnam's Monthly (1853 - 1870); Scientific American (1846 - 1869); Scribner's Magazine (1887 - 1896); Scribner's Monthly (1870 - 1881); The United States Democratic Review (1837 - 1859).

MLA, 1964--. BU
The MLA International Bibliography is produced by the Modern Language Association of America. It indexes critical materials on modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore in more than 3,000 journals and series, monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies and dissertations. The materials are in many languages. It continues the MLA American Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures (1922-1963) (Mugar Reference X Z7006 F63).

Project Muse, dates vary, generally from 1996--. BU
Full-text access to recent issues of Johns Hopkins University Press's 40+ journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics, including American Quarterly, Callaloo, and Reviews in American History.

WilsonWeb, early 1900's--. BU
Eight databases covering art, business, education, general interest, general science, humanities, and social sciences which can be searched individually or in groups. About 20 percent of the journals indexed are available full-text. Direct link to the library catalog for journal holdings.

Print Indexes to Articles in Journals and Newspapers

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Pardee
Reference
Z
7164
C81
F58
Business Periodicals Index, 1958--.
Indexes articles from English-language periodicals published in the United States and elsewhere, including the leading business magazines and trade and research journals. Subjects covered include advertising, banking, building and construction, communications, computers, cosmetics industry, economics, electronics, entertainment industry, health care, hospitality and tourism, paper and pulp industries, public utilities, publishing, and retail trade. Available online from 1982 (BU).
XAI
3
F64
Cumulated Magazine Subject Index, 1907-1949.
In two volumes. American, Canadian, and British magazines. United States local and state history with emphasis on art, architecture, geography, education, political science. Complements Reader's Guide and Poole's Index.
Science
Z
7913
I7
Industrial Arts Index, 1913-1957.
Subsequent titles: Applied Science & Technology Index, 1958-- and Business Periodicals Index, 1958--. Covers engineering, technology, and industrial arts. Among the periodicals indexed in the earlier volumes are American Architect, Automobile, Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, Electric Railway Review, Industrial Management, Iron Age, and Municipal Journal.
XAI
3
R282
International Index to Periodicals, 1907-1965.
Originally called Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature Supplement, then International Index: A Guide to Periodical Literature in the Social Sciences and Humanities . Since 1974, continued as Social Sciences Index (XAI 3S65M) and Humanities Index (XAI 3 H85M).
XAI
3
F44
19th Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1890-1899.
Author, subject, and illustrator index to 51 American and British periodicals. Includes book reviews and title index to short stories, novels, plays, and poems.
XAI
3
E82R
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, 1802-1906.
Indexes 240 American and British magazines on all topics. The tabular list of periodicals indexed includes a place of publication column; London, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia predominate.
XAI
3
F05
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900-- and online (BU) , 1900--.
Indexes magazines covering all topics.

Book reviews

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XZ
1219
F06
Book Review Digest, 1906--.
Citations to and excerpts of reviews of current juvenile and adult fiction and nonfiction in the English language. The reviews are obtained from selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain. Generally no more than three or four reviews are excerpted, though a more complete list of review citations is included. The Digest has a subject-title index, which is cumulated annually and in five year cumulations. Book Review Digest is mostly useful for identifying reviews of popular fiction and nonfiction rather than scholarly works.
XZ
1035
A1
F65
Book Review Index, 1965--.
The most current general index to reviews of recent books appearing in over 500 publications from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia. BRI includes citations for reviews of any type of book, periodical, or reference work which is at least 50 pages long (poetry, children's and song books are exceptions to the 50 page rule.) The Index has two parts: the main section includes citations arranged alphabetically by the name of the book author; the second part is a title index.
XAI
3
C652
Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Humanities Journals, 1802-1974.
Author and title access to about 500,000 reviews in over 150 scholarly journals in the humanities.
XAI
3
C654
1979
Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974.
Author and title access to over 1,000,000 reviews in 459 journals in history, political science, and sociology.

Reference Works

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XE
169.1
E624
2001
v.1-3
Encyclopedia of  American Cultural and Intellectual Histsory

XE
169.1
G665
1987
American Chronicle: Six Decades in American Life, 1920-1980,
by Lois Gordon. A year-by-year snapshot of American culture including facts and figures, deaths, quotes, ads, radio/television, openings, top box-office stars, popular music, theater, classical music, art, dance, books, science and technology, sports, fashion, and a kaleidoscope of events including new words and uses and first product appearances.
Pardee
Reference
XHC
102
E53
1998
Encyclopedia of American Industries,
2 vols, 4th ed online (BU); 1st, 2nd, 3d ed in print, ed. Scott Heil and Terrance Peck. Covers 461 manufacturing industries and 544 service and other non- manufacturing industries in the United States. Each essay includes a section on background and development relating "the industry's genesis and historical development, including major technological advances, scandals, pioneering companies, major products, important legislation, and other factors that shaped the industry."
XE
169 1
E 625
2001
v.1-4
Encyclopedia of American Studies,
4 vols, ed. George Kurian. Alphabetical arrangement from "Abolitionism" to "Youth Culture." Short bibliographies of works mainly published in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's follow the entries. Limited number of biographical entries. Many entries include an illustration.
Pardee
Reference
HF
5415.3
E527
1994
Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands,
3 vols, ed. Janice Jorgensen. History of popular brands including information on advertising with some facsimile ad illustrations. Covers consumable products, personal products, and durable goods.
XNK
1165
E48
1997
Encyclopedia of Interior Design,
2 vols, ed. Joanna Banham. Entries on individual architects, critics, designers, makers, and patrons; and on topics, such as room types, decoration, and items of furniture. Lengthy articles survey individual countries, periods, and styles. Bibliographies for further reading are appended to entries.
Gale Virtual Reference Library BU
includes several encyclopedias covering different disciplines.  Click on Browse Publication Title to select or search all simultaneously.
XE
740.7
E53
1996
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century,
4 vols, ed. Stanley Kutler. Organized according to main categories: American People; Politics; Global America; Science, Technology, and Medicine, Economy; and Culture divided into subcategories, e.g., Consumption, Marketing, etc.
XE
169.1
S764
2000
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture,
5 vols, ed. Tom Prendergast. Over 2,700 essays on all aspect of popular culture in the United States in the twentieth century. Entries are arranged alphabetically by topic from A&R Men/Women to ZZ Top with short bibliographies. Illustrated. There are three indexes: Time-Frame (in decades), Category, and General.

Biographical Sources

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XZ
5305
U5
A74
1983
American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals,
by Laura Arksey, Nancy Pries, and Marion Reed. Vol. 1: Diaries Written from 1492-1844; Vol. 2: Diaries Written from 1845-1980. 5,000 items arranged chronologically. Name, Subject, and Geographic Indexes.
XCT
213
A68
1999
American National Biography,
24 vols, ed. John Garraty and Mark Carnes, under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies. Succeeds (but does not wholly supplant) the Dictionary of American Biography published between 1928 and 1958 (Mugar E 176 D56). Includes persons who died prior to 1996. Format of the signed essays is chronological. They include information on the person's career and private life and end with a paragraph putting the person's life in historical perspective as seen from the 20th century. Appended to each essay is a non-comprehensive bibliography consisting of primary sources, published biographies, articles and monographs, and obituaries.

Biography and Genealogy Master Index. BU
A comprehensive index to nearly 12 million biographical sketches in more than 2,700 volumes and editions of current and retrospective reference books, covering both contemporary and historical figures throughout the world.
XNK
1166
C66
1990
Contemporary Designers,
2nd ed, ed. Colin Naylor. Persons working in graphics, interior design, costume, and theatre. Biographical essays with bibliography by and about individual designers. See also the lst ed (XNK 1166 C66 1984b).
XZ
5301
F28
1976
Personal Name Index to The New York Times Index,
1851-1974, 1975-1996 Supplement. Names of persons in New York Times articles. Each name entry provides cumulated citations to years and pages of the New York Times Index.

Magazines and Newspapers

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XZ
6951
H65
American Periodicals, 1741-1900: An Index to the Microfilm Collections,
eds. Jean Hoornstra and Trudy Health, 1979. Provides a reel number index for three sets of microfilmed periodicals: American Periodicals, 18th Century; American Periodicals, 1800-1850; and American Periodicals 1850-1900, Civil War and Reconstruction. The main section is an alphabetical periodical title index. Each entry includes publishing dates, editors, and brief description. A subject index groups the titles by topic from abolitionists to zoology. There is also an editor index. Some of these magazines are indexed by subject in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and 19th Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. The Library owns the microfilm collections.
Micro
XAN
20
K4
1990
Index to Readex Microfilm Collection of Early American Newspapers
Indexes by title newspapers published from 1690 to 1820 and availble on microfilm.
PN
4877
F382
A History of American Magazines, 1741-1930,
5 vols, by Frank Luther Mott, 1938-1968. A comprehenisve history of the general development of American magazines and separate sketches of individual magazines. Many of the magazines are available at Mugar Memorial Library in the microfilm set, American Periodicals, 1741-1900, described above. Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and 19th Century Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature provide subject access to many, but not all, of these magazines.
Call
number
varies
Historical Guides to the World's Periodicals and Newspapers
This series includes several volumes on American magazines. Each volume provides magazine histories, including bibliographies, index and location sources, title changes, volume and issue data, publishers and publishing places, editors and circulation with an appended chronology. Mugar Memorial Library has the following volumes:
XPN
4877
A48
1990
American Mass-Market Magazines,
eds. Alan Nourie and Barbara Nourie.
XZ
6944
R44
1991
Regional Interest Magazines of the United States,
ed. Sam G. Riley and Gary W. Selnow.

XPN
4897
W6
1995
Women's Periodicals in the United States: Consumer Magazines,
eds. Kathleen L. Endres and Therese L. Lueck.

Archives and Manuscripts

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XCD
3020
D49
1988
Directory of Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the United States,
2nd ed, by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Entries for 4,225 repositories arranged by state. Each entry provides address, description of holdings, and bibliographic references to selected guides and printed finding aids published between 1958 and 1987. Aphabetical Repository Index and Subject Index.
XCD
3026
1995
Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States,
3 vols, compiled by Robert B. Matchette. Documents in paper, film, and electronic form of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Federal Government dating from the first Continental Congress. Vol. 3 is an index of all personal names, all named acts of Congress, position titles, names of organizations, place names, and subjects covered in Vols. 1 and 2. Also available on the Web (http://www.archives.gov/).
XCD
3022
A2
D48
1994
Guides to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States:
An Annotated Bibliography, compiled by Donald L. DeWitt. The 2,062 entries include guides, directories, inventories, checklists, calendars, and registers of unpublished materials. Arranged by subject: general, business, ethnic minorities and women, federal, fine arts, literary, military, political, professional groups and organizations, regional, religious, foreign repositories holding U.S.-related records, U.S. repositories holding foreign records of manuscripts. Index.
XCD
3023
N374
1985
National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States:
Federal Records--Index 1985, compiled by Victoria Agee, et al. Index to 1,500 published and unpublished finding aids to archives and manuscript collections of the National Archives, the Presidential Libraries, and the Smithsonian Institution reproduced on microfiche. The second section is a name and subject index to the entries in the main section. The microfiche are located in a cabinet behind the Reference Desk at Mugar Memorial Library.
XCD
3023
N375
1983
National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States:
Manuscript Division, Library of Congress--Index 1983, compiled by Victoria Agee. Index to microfiche editions of 762 published and unpublished registers. Alphabetical by name. The microfiche are located in a cabinet behind the Reference Desk at Mugar Memorial Library.
XZ
6620
U6
F62
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections, 1959-1993,
ed. Harriet Ostroff. Called NUCMC, the 29 issues of this catalog provide descriptions of approximately 72,300 collections located in 1,406 repositories. The final 1993 issue includes a Geographic Guide to Repositories 1959-93, a General Guide to Repositories 1975-93, a List of Contributing Repositories 1975-93, and Published Sources of Descriptions 1975-93. The catalog entries include descriptions of the collections and finding aid numbers. To facilitate use, check the Library shelf for multi-year cumulated indexes, especially for the years 1985-1993. For earlier years, two indexes are indispensable--Index to Subjects and Corporate Names in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections 1959-1984 (XZ 6620 U6 F62 Suppl.) and Index to Personal Names in the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections 1959-1984 (XZ 6620 U5 153 1988). Also available on the Web (http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html).
XCD
3021
R47
1988
Researcher's Guide to Archives and Regional History Sources,
ed. John C. Larsen. Provides background information for archival research, identifies basic procedures and tools, and suggests efficient ways of conducting research. Includes chapters on archives, ethics of archival research, general use of archives, reference tools, business records, religious records, public records, nonmanuscript sources, oral histories, cartographic sources, genealogical research, and preservation of archival material.

Atlases, Gazetteers, and Maps

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XG
1201
S1
A8
1994
Atlas of American History,
2nd ed rev, by Kenneth T. Jackson. Chiefly maps.
XE
154
O45
1991
Omni Gazetteer of the United States of America,
11 vols, ed. Frank R. Abate. "Providing Name, Location, and Identification of Nearly 1,500,000 Populated Places, Structures, Facilities, Locales, Historic Places, and Geographic Features in the Fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories". Arranged by region: New England, Northeastern States, Southeast, South Central, Southwestern, Great Lakes, Plains, Mountain, and Pacific States. Includes an alphabetical National Index and a U.S. Data Sourcebook providing a United States Geological Survey Topographic Map Names [54,000] Index; an Index of Feature Types and Generic Names; National Register of Historic Places; State & County Federal Information Processing Standards; American Indian Reservations; U.S. Airports; FAA National List of 60,000 Elevated Landmarks and Structures-- Obstructions to Air Navigation.
XG
1201
S1
C3
1996
Mapping America's Past: A Historical Atlas,
by Mark C. Carnes, John A. Garraty, and Patrick Williams, 1996. Covers social and cultural history as well as political and military history. Subjects include such themes as "Myth of the Mound Builders--Complete Structures erected by Native Americans," "Utopian Communities--Sexuality and Architecture," "Energy versus the Environment--the Great Dilemma." Provides statistical information.
Micro
Mfilm
HG
9778
M37
S45
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps [microform] Massachusetts [1867-1950] , 1983.
48 microfilm reels. Microfilm of Sanborn Map Company maps held in the Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress. These maps show the location of commercial, industrial, and residential buildings. For a list of maps for other cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, see Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress: Plans of North American Cities and Towns Produced by the Sanborn Map Company (Mugar Reference X Z6026.I7 U54 1981).
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Ruth S. Thomas, (rthomas@bu.edu)
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