AP U.S. History: 1877—1945
See also these course guides: U.S. History: Gilded Age/Progressive Era Powerpoint Projects and 20th Century US History
Encyclopedias and Reference Books / eBooks
START HERE: These resources provide essential background information - who, what, when, where, why, how
- Search large collections of reference ebooks simultaneously in these databases:
- Britannica Academic Online contains the complete and regularly updated Encyclopedia Britannica plus authoritative websites and full-text journal access.
- Click on the links below for reference materials in these categories:
- General American History Reference Books / eBooks
- Arts, Literature and Music
- Business, Labor and Economic History
- Eras in American History Gilded Age, Progressive Era, Jazz Age, Great Depression and New Deal
- Federal Government, the Law, and the Presidency Political history, Legal history, Court Cases
- Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations, Wars
- Multicultural America and Immigration
- Science and Technology Medicine
- Social History LGBTQ, Popular culture, Reform movements, Women
- Additionally, a number of other databases contain reference articles (see Taft Online Subscription Databases below)
(also called secondary sources and monographs)
RhinoCat is the Library's automated catalog of books, ebooks, DVDs, and other library materials. RhinoCat is available from any browser at http://library.taftschool.org. It is also accessible from your TaftNet homepage. A keyword search using a broad term will yield the most hits. TIP: When you identify a book in RhinoCat that sounds useful, open the book's full record, scroll down and click on Browse shelf to find additional books for your project.
- Books on Reserve at the Circulation Desk (SIGN OUT FOR USE IN LIBRARY ONLY for duration of assignment)
- Freedom from fear / David M. Kennedy. E801 .K46 1999
- The republic for which it stands / Richard White. E668 .W58 2017 2 copies
- Search Rhinocat for books and ebooks containing primary source documents by copying and pasting the following phrase into the basic keyword search, substituting your topic or topic phrase for xxxxx: su,wrdl: sources or su,wrdl: diaries or su,wrdl: personal narratives and kw,phr: xxxxx
- Primary source databases
- 19th Century U.S. Newspapers Digital Archive Contains full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from urban and rural regions throughout the U.S.
- African-American Newspapers, 1827-1998 Full-text access to 270 historically significant African-American newspapers from across the U.S
- American Periodicals (1740 - 1940) Full facsimile images of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
- America's Historical Newspapers 1690 – 2000 Full facsimile images of American papers back to the colonial era
- Annals of American History Search 2700+ primary source documents and multimedia by author, decade, or topic
- Gale Virtual Reference Library (select American Eras: Primary Sources in right sidebar)
- Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950 Liberty flourished when illustrated magazines were the most important form of mass entertainment. Liberty charted the moods, attitudes, lifestyles, fads, and fortunes of middle class America through three significant decades.
- New York Times 1851-2009 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
- Salem History (see Defining Documents and Milestone Documents collections)
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600 – 2000 Thousands of primary source documents and other resources in American women's history
- The Library has the following original journals shelved at the end of the Reference collection: Harper's Magazine (1922-1971), LIFE magazine (1936-1972), TIME magazine (1930-1966). Thanks for handling these fragile bound volumes with care. Want a copy of an article or advertisement? Please take a picture using your smartphone.
- See Taft Online Subscription Databases and Websites below for additional resources containing primary sources.
- See also the course guide Find Primary Sources for more ways to find documents and primary sources in our Library and on the internet.
Taft Online Subscription Databases
- American History Online Overview essays, biographies, primary sources, videos and slideshows, images, timelines, and maps and graphs in American political, military, social, and cultural history
- Daily Life Through History (Academic) This comprehensive collection of primary and secondary sources provides insight into the social history of societies from prehistory to the 21st-century. Includes authoritative content from more than 75 Greenwood reference works and original journal articles from prominent historians.
- Issues and Controversies in American History Background, outcomes, and contemporary points of view for every major debate and conflict in American history
- U.S. History in Context Comprehensive collection of reference sources, primary documents, periodicals, maps and multimedia
- Journal article databases
- Video database
- Classroom Video On Demand Provides access to thousands of full-length videos and clips on core-curriculum topics
Wikipedia's general disclaimer: "Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields."
- To find reliable websites:
- Britannica Academic includes links to recommended websites.
- SweetSearch: a Search Engine for Students searches only credible websites approved by research experts.
- Google Advanced Search
- Limit your search to reliable domains by including the phrase site:gov OR site:edu OR site:ac.uk (gov for U. S. government agencies; edu for educational institutions in the U.S.; ac.uk for educational institutions in the United Kingdom)
- Here's an example for a topic on Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Deal. Think about other terms you can swap in and out.
* see the course guide Find and Evaluate Websites for more information
- American Memory (Searchable primary source collections at the Library of Congress; browse by topic, media, place, or time period
- Biography of America (from Annenberg Learner educational resources)
- The Black Past: Remembered & Reclaimed (The "Google" of African American history includes an online encyclopedia, primary sources, and much more)
- Digital History (comprehensive U.S. history website from the Univ. of Houston's College of Education)
- Digital Public Library of America (Discover 33,425,159 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States)
- Discovering American Women's History Online (digital collections of primary source materials browsable by subject, place, time period, and source type)
- History Matters: the U.S. survey course on the web (an annotated guide to the best web resources in American history including primary sources and websites)
- History of U.S. Foreign Relations (comprehensive site from the Office of the Historian, U.S. Dept of State including documents)
- LIFE Magazine Archive (published from late Nov 1936 to 1972, LIFE was "the photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th century")
- People's century (companion to the PBS series of the same name documenting the extraordinary events of the century through the revealing personal testimony of the people who experienced them firsthand)
- WWW-VL; History: United States (a wealth of links arranged by topic and by time period)