History Pathfinder: Civil War & Reconstruction

Indexes

An index is a specialized database that organizes information about the locations of articles in journals/magazines, reports and newspapers; and book chapters, papers in conference proceedings, and book reviews. Indexes provide the complete bibliographic citation of an article, including the title of the article, author, name of the journal, volume number, the pages of the journal in which the article can be found, and a short summary, or abstract, of the article. Some indexes are in book form, and some are electronic databases. Some eletronic databases, including America: History & Life, do NOT provide the complete text of articles. For tips on how to effectively search databases, and how to find journals that are not available on-line, contact your librarian, or consult How to Find Materials on History in the Waidner-Spahr Library .


America: History and Life
Covers scholarly literature on United States and Canadian history. Materials treating all aspects of history from prehistoric times to the present. The rest of modern world history is covered in a companion database, Historical Abstracts.

Humanities Full Text
Covers journal articles in the humanities, archaeology, art, classics, film, folklore, history, journalism and communications, linguistics, literature, music, performing arts, and religion.

Humanities and Social Sciences Retrospective
A bibliographic database that cites articles from English-language periodicals. Coverage includes a wide range of interdisciplinary fields covered in a broad array of humanities and social sciences journals.

JSTOR
An interdisciplinary archive of over 600 journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Lexis-Nexis
Lexis Nexis will provide you with full-text from newspapers around the world, for up to the past ten years.

Project Muse
Project Muse covers numerous subject fields in the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, including history. Journals covered by Project Muse are scholarly and peer-reviewed, published by a not-for-profit press or scholarly society, and be a sensible fit with titles in the humanities, the social sciences and the arts.

ProQuest
ProQuest is a good index to use in the beginning stages of your research project. It is an index that covers major journals in English and many other subjects in which Dickinson College offers a major. It offers access to thousands of periodicals and newspapers, many of which are supplied full-text. ProQuest supplies both scholarly and non-scholarly resources. See your librarian for tips on how to narrow to scholarly topics.

WorldCat
A catalog of books and other materials in libraries worldwide. You can use this database to find out what libraries own material you might need.

 

Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Dictionaries and encyclopedias are helpful in finding basic information about your topic area. They may also serve as sources of inspiration to you as you search for new topics to research. The following list is not comprehensive. Search the library catalog for more encyclopedias and dictionaries. Refer to How to Find Materials on English in the Waidner-Spahr Library for tips on how to best perform a search, or contact your librarian for assistance.


Civil War:

American Eras: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850-1877
REF E166 .A48 1997

Women During the Civil War
REF E628 .H37 2004

Historical Dictionary of the Civil War
REF E468 .J777 2002

Encyclopedia of the Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History
REF E468 .H47 2000

Macmillan Encyclopedia of the Confederacy
REF E487 .M34 1998

The Civil War Years: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of the Life of a Nation
REF E468.3 .D44 1992

The Civil War Source Book
REF E468 .K24 1992

Great Battles of the Civil War
REF E470 .M17 1988

Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War
REF E468 .H57 1986

The Civil War Almanac
REF E468.3 .B68 1983

The Civil War Dictionary
REF E468 .B7 1959

A Dictionary of American History
REF E174 .P87 1995

The Reader's Companion to American History
REF E174 .R43 1991

Reconstruction:

Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction
REF E668 .T66 1991

American Eras: Civil War and Reconstruction, 1850-1877
REF E166 .A48 1997

Biographies

Print:

Who was Who in the Civil War
REF E467 .S56 1988

Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy
REF E467 .W2 1977

Civil War Generals
REF E467 .S78 1986

Generals in Gray
REF E467 .W3 1959

Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography
REF CT213. C36 1995

Dictionary of American Biography
REF E176. D563

Electronic:

Biography and Genealogy Master Index
Biography and Genealogy Master Index (BGMI) is the best place to begin a search for information about people. It is an index of reference sources containing biographical information on individuals, both living and deceased, from every field of activity and from all areas of the world. This index is not full-text, but Dickinson College owns many of the materials referenced in the database. A librarian can help you locate any materials you are having trouble locating.

American National Biography (ANB)
Nearly 20,000 biographies, revised three times per year.

 

Bibliographies

Civil War Eyewitnesses: An Annotated Bibliography of Books and Articles, 1955-1986
REF E601 .C78 1988

The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research
REF E456 .A47 1996

Reconstruction in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography
REF E688 .L56 2000

 

Atlases/Maps

Civil War Newspaper Maps: A Historical Atlas
REF G1201 .S5 B6 1993

A Battlefield Atlas of the Civil War
REF E470 .S976 1983

 

Finding Journals

The Journal Locator is a searchable, alphabetic list of all the journals that Dickinson College owns in any format. The Journal Locator will tell you what issues of each journal we own.

To search for journals dealing with history, first access the Journal Locator on the library's web site. Change the selection box under "Browse Journals by Subject" from "--Please select a subject category--" to "Humanities and Reference." Then click on "History" or any of the specific sub-catgories under history. Most of the databases will allow you to perform a search within each individual journal once you choose one.

Most of the printed journals owned by Dickinson College are located on the lower level of the Library, east wing (the side closest to the HUB). Journals are arranged in alphabetical order by title. When you locate a journal title, be sure to read the details of the the record to make sure we own the specific issue or years you need.


Primary Resources

Print:

100 Key Documents in American Democracy
REF E173 .A15 1994

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion
REF E591 .U58 1894

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
REF E464 .U6 ser.1 1880

Electronic:

The Library owns the entire run of the New York Times from its inception in 1851.

American Periodicals Series Online 1740-1900
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.

Making of America
Contains digitized books and journals from the second half of the 19th century from the areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion and science and technology.

 

Websites

AmericanPresident.org
A non-partisan resource on the history and function of the American presidency. Brought to you by the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, the nation's leading research institute for the study of the American presidency.

Gilmer Civil War Maps Collection
From the University of North Carolina. Mostly southern.

University of Delaware Civil War Letters Collection
Primary sources, mostly letters.