4/4/98.

*note: most links available only to those in Swarthmore College community.
 
One objective of this class is to introduce you to techniques of historical research. The following provides a guide to steps you should follow (to be modified according to your topic), and bibliographic resources available, both in hard copy and on-line. For the Progressive era, many primary materials must be located using hard copy since early bibliographies, periodical guides, etc. are not available on-line.
 
This sheet should be turned in with your term paper, with check marks next to the sources you consulted. We shall also review them at the final class. You obviously need not consult all but should at least look at those that appear relevant to your topic.
 
HISTORIOGRAPHY. Survey existing work on your topic (monographs, scholarly articles, doctoral dissertations). In the first instance, you need not, and probably should not, read this literature in detail, but rather attempt to get a sense of the boundaries of work in the field, and of what are the most important works in the field.
 
On-line. A complete list of journal indices available on-line to the Swarthmore Community is on the Swarthmore Library Home page.See especially:
 
Books in Print .A database listing titles of books presently available for purchase or recently out of print. Enter via Swarthmore Library Index page:
 
ContentsFirst Indexes contents page and holdings information for nearly 12,500 journals in many fields. January 1990 to the present. Updated daily. Enter via Swarthmore Library Index page:
 
FirstSearch. offers access to over 40 databases providing citations to books, journal articles, dissertations, scores, sound recordings,videos, films, manuscripts, and other material. It also includes databases containing other types of information such as corporate financial reports, conference schedules, a world almanac, and telephone directories. Enter via Swarthmore Library Index page.

Lexis-Nexis. Useful mostly for current events. Helpful for tracing recent discussion of issues that first arose in the progressive era (e.g. antitrust). Click here.

 
Trilogy . includes EconLit, Encyclopedia of Associations (Gale), ERIC, Life Sciences, MathSci, MEDLINE, MLA, Bibliography, PAIS, PsycInfo, and Sociofile. Sociofmost useful for material relating to U.S.history in general, and Progressive Era. Click here.

Wilson Search. combines six indexes published by the H.W. Wilson Co.: Art Index, Essayand General Literature Index, General Science Index, Humanities Index, Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, and Social Sciences Index covering a basic array of popular and scholarly sources. Via Tripod (telnet) or WWW
 
WorldCat. The OCLC On-line Union Catalog. Over 36 million records of many types of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries around the world. Updated daily. Enter via Swarthmore Library Index page.
 
*note: useful summaries of literature on different topics appear frequently in scholarly journals. To locate these try word searches under "historiography" "topic." Above descriptions adapted with thanks from the Swarthmore College Library Home page, which contains listing of additional resources available on-line.
 
Hard Copy (mostly for titles pre-1985)
 
(a) Bibliography.
 
For guides to scholarly articles see International Guide (1907- ) , later called the Index to Periodicals in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, and most recently, separately as Social Science Index and Humanities Index. Since the mid-1980s these guides are available on TRIPOD on Wilson Search. More detailed citations may be found in Combined Retrospective Index to Periodicals in Political Science 1886-1974 [ref. JA1.+.A1. C74, vols. 1-8]; Combined Retrospective Index to Periodicals in Sociology 1895-1974 [ref. H1.+.C74, vols. 1-6]; and Retrospective Index to Periodicals in History 1838-1974 [ref. D1.+.C74, vols. 1-6].. All are shelved reference Alcove, Level II McCabe. The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (1890-) indexes more popular periodicals. Ore general guides to historical literature on individual topics see also:
 
American Historical Association Recently Published Articles. A quarterly published separately since 1976, and before that at the back of each issue of the American Historical Review (available on-line at JSTOR). Groups articles in rather broad categories, but has a more distinctly historical focus than the periodical guides noted
above.

American Historical Association, Writings on American History (1902-), an exhaustive listing until 1960, and articles after that date.

Burns, Richard D. ed. Guide to American Foreign Relations since 1780 (1983).

Friedel, Frank et al., The Harvard Guide to American History (rev edn. 2 vols. 1974) [Ref.1236.F86];
 
United States Library of Congress, Guide to the Study of the United States (1960, 1976) [Ref. Z1215.U7]
 
(b) Historiographical reviews
 
American Historical Association. AHA Pamphlets for Teachers of History. These separate publications contains a summary of recent scholarship in general areas such as American Labor. Most are now outdated, but may b useful for older pre-1960s scholarship.They are listed in our catalogue under "American Historical Association" Pamphlets, and shelved together under D5.
 
Cartwright, William and Watson, Richard, eds. The Reinterpretation of American History and Culture (1973). Individual scholars review interpretations after 1960.
 
Foner, Eric , ed. The New American History (1990) the same for the scholarship of the 1970s-80s.
 
Higham, John ed., The Reconstruction of American History (1962) in effect summarizes the "consensus" historians' assault on progressive historiography.
 
Kammen, Michael, ed. The Past Before Us (1980). A survey of recent scholarship in American, European, and non-western history, with emphasis on the scholarship of the 1970s.
 

An Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities (1960-) [ref. Z1002.I4. v 1-29]
Book Review Digest (1904-); Book Review Index 1969-80, 1983-current [ref. z1002.B8].
Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals 1886-1974 vols. 1-16 [Ref. z1035.+ A1. C64]
Current Book Review Citations 1976-82. [ref. 1035.A1C86]
National Library Service Book Reviews 1905-1974 [Ref. Z1035.A1N35x, vols. 1-6]
Humanities Index and the Social Science Index. (cited above).
*For "citations" see Arts & humanities citation index.( Philadelphia, Pa., Institute for Scientific Information.) [ S McCabe Ref Z5579 .A75x :1976-1989] ; and Social sciences citation index., (Philadelphia, Institute for Scientific Information[ McCabe Ref Alc Z7163 .S8 : 1971- present 1993].

Dictionary of American Biography, ed. D. Malone (20 vols, plus supp. Ref. E176.D56 (see Concise DAB for brief listing of all entries)

Who Was Who (7 vols.) Ref. E747.W579
Notable Americans (10 vols.) ed. R. Johnson Ref. E 176.T9
National Cyclopedia of Am. Biog. , Ref. 176.N27 (see three part index for all entries).
Who's Who (current)
Biographical Dict. American Congress. Ref. JK1010.A5 1961;
Notable American Women (3 vols.), Edward T. James,. ed.