Useful Databases for Historical Research
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowA collection of full text scholarly journals from a variety of subject areas, useful for finding articles about history. Consider limiting your initial search by discipline and be aware that JSTOR does not often cover a journal's most recently published issues.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowProvides citations, abstracts, and limited full-text of scholarship dealing with the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the US and Canada which are covered in America History and Life.)
- America: History and Life This link opens in a new windowProvides citations, abstracts, and limited full-text of scholarship dealing with the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
- Art Full Text This link opens in a new windowThis database, which covers all aspects of the fine, decorative, and commercial arts, is useful for finding information about the art, architecture, and material culture of the past that might be relevant to a play or other production. Includes full text journal articles published after 1997 as well as citations and abstracts for articles, dissertations, reviews, and other literature published after 1984.
Primary Sources
These are just some of the primary source collections available through Bertrand Library and online. For others, take a look at the research guides for History. On the "Visual Research" page of this guide, you will find collections of visual primary source materials.
- Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowSearch the New York Times (1851 - 2015), Wall Street Journal (1889 - 2001), Washington Post (1877- 2002), and the L.A Times (1881 - 1995) Historical Newspaper databases and more.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new windowProvides access to citations of articles from popular magazines that were published between 1890 and 1982.
- Defining Gender This link opens in a new windowA wide range of original sources including ephemera, pamphlets, commonplace books, diaries, periodicals, letters, ledgers, manuscript journals, poetry, receipt books and conduct and advice literature.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America This link opens in a new windowThis collection of manuscripts, ephemera, photos, video, and other archival material documents popular culture in Britain and America from 1950 – 1975.
- Library of Congress Digital CollectionsDigitized images and other media from the Library of Congress that document the American experience.
- American Song This link opens in a new windowA collection of streaming music from the American past and present, including genres such as country, folk, bluegrass, Western, old time, American Indian, blues, gospel, shape note singing, doo-wop, Motown, R&B, soul, funk, and others.
Finding Books for Historical and Contextual Research
It is sometimes important that you do research surrounding the broader historical and cultural context(s) of a dance or a dramatic work. For example, if you are working on a play that is set in 16th Century Florence, you might need to discover what the city looked like during that time and how people like your characters might have dressed. You might also investigate the major political, economic, and cultural events that were taking place, the social mores and religious beliefs that were prevalent, etc.
To get started, perform a keyword search in the WorldCat Library Catalog.
You might combine terms such as "Florence," "Sixteenth Century," and "Religion," or "Florence," "Sixteenth Century," and "architecture." There are many different terms you could use, but what is most important is that you carefully examine your results and modify your search accordingly.
Once you have found relevant results, take a look at the subject terms that are used to describe them. Use these to build further searches.
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