J301: Conspiracy Theory
Need more help? Contact the Government Documents Librarian: Lou Malcomb, malcomb@indiana.edu or the History Librarian, Celestina Savonius-Wroth, cewroth@indiana.edu.
Books
Use IUCAT, the IU Libraries online catalog, and WorldCat, the combined catalogs of majority of US libraries: Tips: In IUCAT, use the Advanced Keyword search. Try including 19th century as a subject term. To find 19th-century primary sources, limit your search by date of publication, OR experiment with some of these subject terms: sources or correspondence or diaries or personal narratives or interviews. You can also include 19th century as a subject term.
IUCAT now links directly to Google Books and Hathi Trust for fulltext of many books published before 1923.
Government Information Databases and Digitized Collections
Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS) - The Declassified Documents Reference System provides online access to over 500,000 pages of previously classified government documents. Coverage: 1940's to present
Digital National Security Archives - Access to historical documents that have been declassified. Coverage: 1985 to present
Military and Intelligence Database - Covers all aspects of military affairs.
Proquest Congressional - Provides easy access to congressional publications since 1789 and some full-text of reports, bills, resolutions, and laws to the present. Coverage: Varies, Coverage and update schedule
Public Documents Masterfile - about | terms of use - Database providing electronic access to historical as well as current indexes to documents products by government agencies. Coverage: 1700s to date
FBIS Fulltext - about | terms of use - FBIS Daily Reports issued by the U.S. Government. Translations of broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the world Coverage: 1941-1995 [1941-1958 pending]
Archived materials
Much archival material that has not been digitized has been microfilmed. See more about microforms and a selected list of guides relevant for this course through the publishers: UPA or Primary Sources: http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=981. Some examples include: Documents of the National Security Council, Minutes of Meetings of the NSC, with Special Advisory Reports, Map Room Files of President Roosevelt, 1939-1945, Map Room Army and Navy Messages, December 1941-May 1942, OSS/ State Department Intelligence and Research Reports, Part 01. Japan and Its Occupied Territories During World War II,1942-45.
Finding Secondary Sources
Confused about the difference between primary sources and secondary sources? This guide to Identifying Primary and Secondary Sources may help. When you search IUCAT, you'll find both primary and secondary sources. You can limit by date of publication (using the Advanced Keyword Search) but you still need to decide if something published in 2008 or 1979 is a secondary source, or actually a new edition of a primary source.
Newspapers and Magazines
A large selection of 19th-century US newspapers are available in digital from. See ProQuest Historical Newspapers for major newspapers such as the New York Times, 1851-2001, Chicago Tribune(1890--), Los Angeles Times (1881--), Washington Post (1877--). Early American Newspapers and 19th Century Historical United States Newspapers cover many smaller, regional newspapers, with papers from the entire 19th century. African-American Newspapers: The 19th Century provides an African American perspective on the issues of the period.
For magazines, American Periodicals Series Online has searchable full text of over 1000 magazines from 1740-1900, ranging from children's magazines to professional journals. Periodicals Index Online is an online index (with links to fulltext for some journals) to thousands of scholarly journals in English and other western European languages, with coverage back to first issue of journal. Limit your search by date to find 19th-century materials. Godey's Lady's Book is a digital archive of the most widely-read 19th-century American women's magazine. It's especially good for dress and fashion!
America: History & Life is a good place to start your search for secondary sources. It's an online index to scholarly publications about North American history. Use the Time Period limit to focus your search on the 19th century, or even individual decades. This is the best way to find articles from history journals --it's also helpful for finding scholarly books.
JSTOR is a searchable digital archive of core scholarly journals, with coverage going back to first issue of each journal. You might end up using it for primary sources as well as secondary sources. Tip: use very specific keywords. Use the publication date limits (in the advanced search) --use the dates of research subject for primary sources or use 1990--present for more recent secondary sources.
In the First Person is online index to digitized biographical materials.
Ancestry Library Edition is a giant online collection of "vital statistics" (birth, death, marriage, etc records). It's used mostly by genealogists, but obviously has applications for microhistory and biography!
