F734: Literary & Historical Methods in Contemporary Folkloristics
On this page:
| Archives-General | Newspapers and periodicals | Literary Collections |
| Archives-Foklore and Ethnography | Ephemera | Reference Tools |
The vast majority of archival collections have not been digitized. In the worst case, they're accessible only by visiting in person and studying card files and other finding aids on location. Use Repositories of Primary Sources to identify archives of potential interest (it's organized geographically and covers the whole world).
In many cases, quite a bit of information is available online --collection descriptions and even detailed finding aids. For U.S. archives, use ArchiveGrid and WorldCat to locate relevant collections via keyword searching. For the U.K., use Access to Archives (A2A).
Many archival collections were microfilmed. They can often be identified and borrowed through WorldCat, using archival materials as Type and microform as Subtype in your search. The IUB Libraries hold many of these collections: see our list of Selected Microfilm Collections for ideas.
Increasingly, you'll find digitized collections on the websites of many archives. The Library of Congress Digital Collections, for example, are a rich resource for oral histories and similar documentation. Gallica, France's national digital library, contains much archival material.
The IUB Libraries have also acquired many commercially available digital collections with archival content, including:
Early Encounters in North America - letters, diaries, memoirs and other accounts of early contacts between Europeans and Native Americans in North America.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries - letters and diaries of hundreds of North American women, from the 16th century to 1950.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories - letters, diaries, autobiographies, and oral histories of immigrants to America and Canada. Covers 1840 to present, but heaviest focus is on 1920-1980.
American Civil War: Letters & Diaries - letters, diaries, and memoirs from the American Civil War, with biographies and an extensive bibliography.
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960 - 1974 - primary resources related to the history, culture, and politics of the American 1960s.
In the First Person - cross-searches the collections above plus many other digitized archival collections.
For more resources, see the IUB Libraries Resources by Subject pages, especially for materials in non-Western languages.
II. Archives--Folklore and Ethnography
Mass Observation Online - Field research into the cultural and social life of Britain from 1937 to 1965
eHRAF World Cultures - Full-text ethnographies on hundreds of ethnic, cultural, religious, and national groups worldwide from the Human Relations Area Files.
A growing collection of so-called "gray literature" (unpublished working papers, abstracts of conference presentations, etc) produced by folklorists can be found through Open Folklore, a portal site developed by the American Folklore Society and Indiana University Libraries.
Folklore Archives -
1."Archives, Museums, and Libraries," from the Folklife Sourcebook:
2.The biggest folklore archives:
Indiana University Folklore Archives
American Folklife Center:
Finding Aids to Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture
Fife Folklore Archives (Utah State University, Logan, UT)
Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (St John's, Newfoundland)
University of California Folklore Archives (University of California, Berkeley)
University of Pennsylvania Folklore Archives (Philadelphia)
Vermont Folklife Center (Middlebury, VT)
William A. Wilson Folklore Archives (Brigham Young University, Provo, UT)
3.Some regional folklore archives:
Indiana Federal Writers' Project/Program Papers (special collection)
Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN
Maine Folklife Center and Northeast Archive of Folklore and Oral History
University of Maine, Orono, ME
Hornbake Library, College Park, MD
Joyner Library Special Collections
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Liston B. Ramsey Center for Regional Studies
Mars Hill College, Mars Hill NC
See their Southern Appalachian Archives
Randall V. Mills Memorial Archive of Northwest Folklore
University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, OR
Northwest Digital Archive: provides access to descriptions of primary sources in the Northwestern United States, including correspondence, diaries, or photographs. Digital reproductions of primary sources are available in some cases.
III. Newspapers and other periodicals
An increasing number of older newspapers and magazines have been digitized, so far mostly in English, but some in other languages as well. (Check the Libraries' Resources by Subject pages for more non-English-language sources.)
Newspaper collections include:
LexisNexis Academic - for recent news coverage (newspapers, broadcast transcripts, etc)
Access World News - recent/current newspapers. Includes access to the Chicago Tribune and the Indianapolis Star and other Indiana newspapers, and many world newspapers.
African-American Newspapers: The 19th Century - some of the major African-American newspapers published in the United States during the 19th century.
Early American Newspapers - More than 1,000 U.S. historical newspapers published during the past four centuries, including titles from all 50 present states, 1690-1922. (As "America's Historical Newspapers," incorporated into some of the other newspaper collections below.)
Hispanic American Newspapers 1808-1980 - Spanish-language newspapers printed in the United States.
19th Century Historical United States Newspapers - American historical newspapers from the 19th century, including over 1.5 million full-text pages, many complete with images.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers - historical newspapers from the United States. Includes the major papers, eg New York Times, Chicago Tribune, etc
World Newspaper Archive - includes digitized African, South Asian and Latin American newspapers from the collections of the Center for Research Libraries. CRL holds impressive collections of world newspapers in print and microfilm --these can be located and borrowed through WorldCat.
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection - newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom, 1600-1799. Also, for the 19th Century, 19th Century British Library Newspapers.
Magazine collections include:
American Periodicals Series Online - Digital archive of 1000 American magazine and journal titles, from 1740 to 1900.
British Periodicals - Searchable full text of British periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth.
Godey's Lady's Book - The most popular women's periodical of its day, with stories, poems, fashion, illustrations and music.
19th Century UK Periodicals - so far covers periodicals in two categories: "New Readerships" (women, workers, etc) and "Empire."
Readers Guide Retrospective 1890-1982 - Provides access to citations from 512 of the leading United States periodicals from 1890-1982.
Academic journals can also be used as historical sources. Periodicals Index Online provides access to "highbrow" and academic journals, going back to the late 17th century, and JSTOR is a digital archive of a selection of important academic journals back to their first issues (eg, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, which began in 1665).
See the History Resources page under "Newspapers and periodicals" for more.
Ephemera --that is, publications that were never expected to be kept for posterity --often contain material of great interest. IUB's Lilly Library has remarkable collections, including chapbooks, sheet music and children's games. The Libraries also have access to digitized collections such as:
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760-1900 - Full-color digital facsimiles of 18th- and 19th-century American ephemeral publications (broadsides, ballads, programs, sermons, libretti, etc).
Victorian Popular Culture - documents related to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe from 1779 to 1930, including stage magic, spirit writing and ghost hunting.
Alexander Street Literature - Contains the following digitized collections: Black Short Fiction and Folklore, Black Women Writers, Caribbean Literature, Irish Women Poets of the Romantic Period, Latin American Women Writers, Latino Literature, Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period, South and Southeast Asian Literature
American Drama - America dramatic writings from 1714 to present.
Asian American Drama - Begins with the works of Sadakichi Hartmann in the late nineteenth century and is planned to include contemporary playwrights’ productions, with related biographical and theatrical information.
Black Drama - When complete, will contain texts of 1,200 plays (many rare or out of print) written by over 100 playwrights from African diaspora countries.
Black Short Fiction - Works by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora compiled from literary magazines, archives, and the personal collections of the authors, some previously unpublished.
English Poetry Database - English-language works of British, Irish, Scottish and Welsh poets, from the Anglo-Saxon period through the end of the Nineteenth century.
North American Indian Drama - Full text of plays by American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the 20th century.
North American Theatre Online - full-text reference works in theatre, drama, and related fields, including links to full-text plays.
North American Women's Drama - plays written by women from the United States and Canada, primarily in the 20th century.
Twentieth Century American Poetry - Collection of poetry surveying the movements, schools, and voices of modern and contemporary American poetry. The collection includes 50,000 poems by over 300 poets.
Women Writers Online - Contains approximately 200 texts written by women in English from 1400-1850.
Wright American Fiction (1851-1875) - 19th-century American novels, often with rich descriptions of contemporary life
HathiTrust Digital Library - digital library of 10.4 million volumes and growing--full acces to public domain materials; all content (including copyrighted material) is fully searchable.
America: History & Life – acces to secondary literature (published 1964-present) about the history of the United States and Canada from pre-history to the present, indexing more than 2000 journals published worldwide, dissertations and reviews.
Historical Abstracts – access to secondary literature (published 1954-present) about world history, 1450 to present.
JSTOR - provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business.
Literature Resource Center -online access to the Dictionary of Literary Biography and many other useful reference works relating to literature.
MLA International Bibliography – access to secondary literature (published 1963-present) in the fields of modern languages, literature, linguistics and folklore.
Oxford Reference Online – online reference works published by Oxford University Press, including A Dictionary of Superstions and A Dictionary of English Folklore.
Brand, John. (1884). Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain :
chiefly illustrating the origin of our vulgar and provincial customs, ceremonies, and superstitions.
Chambers, Robert. (1862-64). Book of days: a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, including anecdote, biography, & history, curiosities of literature and oddities of human life and character.
Vol. 1: Vol. 2:
Hone, William. (1826-1827). The every-day book, or, Everlasting calendar of popular amusements, sports, pastimes, ceremonies, manners, customs, and events incident to each of the three hundred and sixty-five days, in past and present times.
Thistleton-Dyer, T.F. (1876). British popular customs, present and past; illustrating the social and domestic manners of the people; arranged according to the calendar of the year.
Walsh, William S. (1888). Curiosities of popular customs and of rites, ceremonies, observances and miscellaneous antiquities.
