The strength and the challenge of IU's history collection is its breadth. Do you feel overwhelmed? Can't find what you're looking for? This guide can help! If you're still having trouble, please let me know! You can also make use of the much larger history research guide linked below.
In a rush? Try the tabs below.
The main catalog of books at Indiana University is IUCAT. Watch the video below if you need help finding e-books in IUCAT.
If you are just starting a research project and need to know some basic information to get started, encyclopedias and historical dictionaries are great tools.
Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources.
Encyclopedias and specialized reference resources in: Arts, Biography, History, Information and Publishing, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation and World, Religion, Science, Social Science
Most databases allow you click a box with a name like "scholarly articles," which does a reasonably good job of limiting your results to high-quality, academic articles.
Bibliographic database focusing on the history and life of the United States and Canada, indexing more than 1,800 journals published, dissertations and reviews.
In addition to the principle English language sources in the field, it includes some (about 10%) in other languages, as well as some state and local history journals. All aspects of historical inquiry are represented: diplomatic, ecclesiastical, agricultural, cultural, economic, political, military and others. The index also provides citations to book and media reviews from about 100 journals and references to abstracts of dissertations in the field. All abstracts are in English.
Provides full text access and indexing for e-journals and e-books from a variety of scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.
Although IU has access to newspapers from around the world, most of our large collections of historical newspapers center on the United States. Check out the "Old News" link below for non-American newspapers.
Access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages. Search historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages.
Digital archive of American newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, representing every state in the U.S.
Based on a collection of rare newspapers held by the American Antiquarian Society, with contributions from the Boston Athenaeum, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Connecticut State Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia; the Library of Congress, the libraries of universities such as Brown and Harvard, and private collections. Fully text-searchable; browseable by newspaper title.
Collections included: African American Newspapers, Series 1 ; African American Newspapers, Series 2 ; Caribbean Newspapers ; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection ; Hispanic American Newspapers ; Early American Newspapers, Series 1-7, 11-12, and 17-19.
There are countless options for primary sources. In addition to all the physical collections at IU (including the Lilly Library and University Archives), IU has paid for access to hundreds of online databases that include primary sources from all over the world and all periods of human history. Finally, libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions have digitized many of their collections and made them freely available. For most history research, at least through the undergraduate level, you can likely find the sources you need right in Bloomington. Contact me if you need help.
Digital editions of the papers of many of the major figures of the early American republic.
Searchable and cross-searchable, full text collection of primary and secondary materials that include The Adams Papers, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, The Dolley Madison, The Papers of James Madison, The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry, The Papers of George Washington, The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, and Founders Early Access.
Collection of material from the archives of the British government covering all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.
Includes access to the following modules:
Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries
The first module of Colonial America documents the early history of the colonies, and includes founding charters, material on the effects of 1688’s Glorious Revolution in North America, records of piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish, and copious military material from the French and Indian War of 1756-63.
Module 2: Towards Revolution
This module focuses on the 1760s and 1770s and the social and political protest that led to the Declaration of Independence, including legal materials covering the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. It is also particularly rich in material relating to military affairs and Native Americans.
Module 3: The American Revolution
This module charts the upheavals of the 1770s and 1780s which saw the throwing off of British rule in the Thirteen Colonies. Contents include volumes of intercepted letters between colonists, the military correspondence of the British commanders in the field and material produced by the Ordnance Office and the office of the Secretary at War, as well as two copies of the ‘Dunlap’ edition of the Declaration of Independence printed on the night of the 4th-5th July 1776.
Module 4: Legislation and Politics in the Colonies
This module traces the colonies' legal and political evolution between 1636-1782. Includes access to council and assembly minutes and court journals.
Module 5: Growth, Trade and Development
Consists of correspondence with the Board of Trade. There are also details of land grants, financial accounts and documents focusing on American Indian relations, as well as George Vancouver’s dispatches to London from his 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest.
This resource offers more than 100,000 early American books, pamphlets, broadsides and rare printed materials. Featuring extensive indexing and full bibliographic information, they together illuminate more than 250 years of American history, literature, culture and daily life.
Most texts included are from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Archival collections documenting topics in eighteenth- through twentieth-century American history. Provides access to digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials taken from the University Publications of America (UPA) Collections.