United States History
Research Guide
Post World War II
Reference Works
Specialized reference works like the ones listed
below are very useful for research. All of the titles here are
located on the first floor of the Library. Browse around the same
areas to find other useful titles.
Biographies
- American National Biography
Reference E 176 .A6 1999
- American
National Biography Online
- Dictionary of American Biography
Reference E 176 .D563
- National Cyclopedia of American Biography
Reference E 176 .N28
Chronologies
- American Chronicle
Reference E 169.1 .G664 1999
- American Decades
Reference E 169.12 .A419
- Day by Day
Reference D 427 .D3x
- Great Events from History: American Series
Reference E 178 .M22 1975
- Great Events from History: North American
Series
Reference E 45 .G64 1997
- Great Events from History: Worldwide Twentieth Century
Reference D 421 .G63
- Magill's History of North America
Reference E 18 .M2 1988
Encyclopedias
- American Foreign Policy
Reference E 183.7 .E52
- Civil Rights in the United States
Reference E 184 .A1 C47
- Cold War 1945-1991
Reference D 839.5 .C65
- Dictionary of American History
Reference E 174 .D52 1976
- History behind the Headlines (Not really an encyclopedia, but a wonderful sourcebook)
Reference D 410 .H5
- Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual
History
Reference E 169.1 .E624 2001
- Encyclopedia of American Social History
Reference E 20 .E6 1993
- Encyclopedia of the Korean War
Reference DS 918 .E53
- Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth
Century
Reference E 740.7 .E53 2001
- Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War
Reference DS 557 .E53
- Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern
- Great American Court Cases
Reference KF 385 .A4 G68
- Great American Trials
Reference KF 220 .G74
- Historic U.S. Court Cases
ReferenceKF 385 .A4 J64
- Sixties in America
Reference E 169.12 .S5
- Women in World History
Reference HQ 1115 .W6
Library
Catalogs
Use the catalogs below to locate print and audio-visual
materials.
Primary Sources
There are several ways to locate primary sources in the College of DuPage Library.
Some may be found in the Reference Section
- Annals of America
Reference E 173 .A793
- Cold War 1945-1991 (v. 3 has primary sources)
Reference D 839.5 .C65
- Historic Documents of.... (1972-present)
Reference E 839,5 .H37
- Speech Index (no sources, but an index to speeches)
AI 3 .S85 Reference
- United States Supreme Court Reports
Reference KF 101 .U6584
- Vital Speeches of the Day
Current Periodicals and Microfilm
There are considerably more primary sources available in the General Collection. To locate them use the College's Library Catalog.
- Do an author search.
Anything written by a participant would be a primary source. For example, for a primary source about the Korean War, look up "Truman, Harry S. " as an author and you will find
Public papers of the Presidents of the United States, containing the public messages, speeches, and statements of the President .
- Do a subject search.
- Primary sources often contain one of these subheadings: sources, personal narratives, diaries, or correspondence. For example, look up "Watergate" and scan the results for those subheadings.
- Sometimes primary sources are found in broad collections with or without the subheadings above. Look up a broader heading such as "Women - United States " and limit the search results to "source material" to find some useful collections.
Many of the Internet Sites mentioned below also have collections of primary sources. Using Primary Sources on the Web is an excellent guide to finding and evaluating web-based primary sources.
Indexes
In addition to online indexes specifically for history, many
general sources cover the topic well. In many cases,
the databases will have the full text article available online.
If you are using these databases from off-campus, please be sure
to have your library
card available.
- Online Indexes
- Academic Search Premier (1984-present)
Indexes over 3,000 journals and magazines; sometimes inlcudes primary sources.
- Essay
and General Literature Index (1985-present)
Indexes chapters or essays in books.
- Expanded
Academic Index (1980-present)
Indexes over 2500 journals and magazines.
- Historical
New York Times (1851-1999)
Full images of the entire paper.
- History Study Center
Primary and secondary sources.
- JSTOR
JSTOR is an archive of digitized journal articles ranging in date from the 1700's to the early 2000's. These collections span a variety of subjects in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Physical Sciences.
- Newspapers
(1980s-present)
Full text of the Washington Post, Wall Street
Journal, and the New York Times (last 90 days
only).
Internet Sites
The Internet is an excellent place
to find primary sources for the study of history. Primary sources
are original documents from the time period. These texts are the
foundation upon which other studies and interpretations are made.
The Internet is also a good place to find images on historical
topics. While there are good sites with secondary information,
they are often not in enough depth for academic research. It is
best to critically evaluate these sites before using them.
Writing
Papers
Here are some helpful sources
to help you research and write papers in history.
Citing Sources
The MLA format (Modern Language Association) is
commonly used to create bibliographies or works cited pages. The
sources below may help you.
Professors in other disciplines or professors
at other schools may prefer a different citation style. It's always
best to ask to be sure what style they would like you to use.
For professional writing in the field of history, the Chicago
Manual of Style is the prefered citation format. These are some
sources to help with that format
Marianne Berger, Reference Librarian
630-942-2338
berger@cdnet.cod.edu
6 November 2003
