Research Resources Home > History > 20th Century History > Malia's favorite resources

Off-Campus Access

20th Century History Resources (all)

Now Showing:

Online Only

Mobile Interface Only

Open Access/Free Resource

Best Bets

History Portal

Your shortcut for research in History is the History Portal.

It connects you to pages that will help you find background sources, books, articles, and primary sources for all historical periods.

[more info]

Articles (from journals)

America: History and Life (EBSCO)

An index with abstracts to history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)

An index with abstracts to more than 1,800 journals in 40 languages on world history from 1450 to the present. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984 (EBSCO)

Indexes articles in the subjects of gerontology, history, international relations, journalism, law, linguistics, and many more subjects. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Index Islamicus (EBSCO)

Indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews on Islam. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

JSTOR

Full online text and images for back issues of selected scholarly journals and ebooks in history, economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, literature, etc. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

OmniFile Full Text Mega (EBSCO)

An index with abstracts and some full text covering all subjects, including humanities and social sciences. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Articles (from magazines)

American Periodicals Series (ProQuest)

Digitized page images from American magazines and journals of all types. Titles range from some of the first American magazines to America's first scientific journal. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (EBSCO)

Indexes the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890 to 1982. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Audio (Music, Spoken word , etc.)

American Memory (Library of Congress)

Digitized collections of primary source materials at the Library of Congress on American history and culture... [more info]
Location: Internet

American Rhetoric Speech Bank (American Rhetoric)

Index and full text of over 5000 audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches... [more info]
Location: Internet

American Song (Alexander Street Press)

American Song is a history database with music from America's past. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Books / Book Chapters

America: History and Life (EBSCO)

An index with abstracts to history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

American Decades (Gale)

Online reference book chronicles American events, people, and places for each decade. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)

An index with abstracts to more than 1,800 journals in 40 languages on world history from 1450 to the present. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Index Islamicus (EBSCO)

Indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews on Islam. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

WorldCat (OCLC / Firstsearch)

Catalog of over 62 million titles cataloged by libraries worldwide ... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Images

American Memory (Library of Congress)

Digitized collections of primary source materials at the Library of Congress on American history and culture... [more info]
Location: Internet

American Periodicals Series (ProQuest)

ARTstor

Image database containing over 1 million images in subject areas such as art, architecture, music, religion, anthropology, world history, literature and more. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

LIFE Photo Archive

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. [more info]
Location: Internet

Legislative & Congressional Information

CQ Press Electronic Library (SAGE)

Searches subscribed CQ Press reference works and historical documents. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Letters & Diaries

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street Press)

Primary source database offering women's diaries and letters... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street Press)

Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries brings together 100,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, displayed as high-quality images of the original manuscripts. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (Alexander Street Press)

Collection of primary sources written by North American immigrants from 1800 to 1950. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

North American Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street Press)

Collection of letters and diaries reflecting on the immediate experiences of 1,325 women. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online (Alexander Street Press)

Experience the past through thousands of private writings and personal narratives... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Maps and Atlases

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 (ProQuest)

View digital maps of Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. These maps were digitized from the fire insurance maps of the Sanborn Map Company. Click here for a map legend that provides symbols and a glossary of terms used in this map collection. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

News Articles

Access World News (NewsBank)

Provides full-text for over 600 U.S. and over 700 international news sources. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Alternative Press Index & Archive (EBSCO)

API and Archive contains bibliographic information on over 300 international periodicals dealing with alternative, radical, and left information. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

America's Historical Newspapers: 1690-1922 (Readex)

Cover-to-cover digital facsimiles of 1,000 historic newspapers from every state. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

British Newspaper Archive

The British Newspaper Archive contains millions of digitized newspapers owned by the British Library. While searching is free, there is a fee to download full text articles. JMU Libraries are not responsible for paying these fees. [more info]
Location: Internet

Chicago Defender: Historical (ProQuest)

Full text articles from the Chicago Defender newspapers from 1910-1975. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)

Collection of digitized American newspapers from 1860 to 1922, as well as a directory of non-digitized newspapers from 1690 to the present. [more info]
Location: Internet

Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest)

Full text and indexing for ethnic, minority, and international newspapers and magazines... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Gale NewsVault

Search or browse the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century British Newspapers, 19th Century US Newspapers, 19th Century UK Periodicals, Times Digital Archive, and the Times Literary Supplement at once. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

LexisNexis Academic

Contains several full-text databases: current news, laws and legislation, business and company information and more... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Nation Digital Archive (EBSCO)

Index with full-text of the Nation magazine... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

New York Times: Historical (ProQuest)

Full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue to about 3 years ago... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

NewspaperArchive - Virginia

Access full text historical newspapers in pdf format. JMU subscribes to select VA newspapers only (excluding coverage from 2007). Content from all other cities and states is not available. See the [more info] link for city details. Dates of coverage varies by title. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

US Newspaper Program

The United States Newspaper Program is a cooperative national effort...
[more info]
Location: Internet

Washington Post: Historical (ProQuest)

Full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue to about 15 years ago... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Primary Sources

American Memory (Library of Congress)

Digitized collections of primary source materials at the Library of Congress on American history and culture... [more info]
Location: Internet

American Periodicals Series (ProQuest)

American Song (Alexander Street Press)

American Song is a history database with music from America's past. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

ARTFL: American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language

Provides the complete text of nearly 2,000 French works including classic works of French literature, non-fiction prose, and technical writing. [more info]

Black Thought and Culture (Alexander Street Press)

Collection of non-fiction published works of leading African Americans. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street Press)

Primary source database offering women's diaries and letters... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

CQ Press Electronic Library (SAGE)

Searches subscribed CQ Press reference works and historical documents. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

CQ Press Historic Documents Online Library (SAGE)

A full-text database of primary source documents. Each volume contains approximately one hundred documents highlighting the year's most important events and issues. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Digital National Security Archive (ProQuest)

This database is the most comprehensive collection available of significant primary documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984 (Gale)

Contains FBI files on African Americans and others considered "politically suspect" from 1920 to 1984. People of interest to the FBI were members of protest groups, Socialists, Communists, militant labor unionists, and many more. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories (Alexander Street Press)

Collection of primary sources written by North American immigrants from 1800 to 1950. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

North American Women's Letters and Diaries (Alexander Street Press)

Collection of letters and diaries reflecting on the immediate experiences of 1,325 women. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

OAIster (OCLC / Firstsearch)

OAIster contains thousands of multidisciplinary resources from more than 1,000 contributors worldwide. [more info]
Location: Internet

Oral History Online (Alexander Street Press)

This full-text material includes Ellis Island oral history narratives and rare Black Panther Party interviews... [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (EBSCO)

Indexes the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890 to 1982. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Vanderbilt Television News Archive

The latest version of RealPlayer required to view videos. Click here to download.
Streaming video of news from NBC (1968 to date) and CNN (1995 to date) plus indexing of television network news from all the major networks, 1968 to date. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Virginia Memory

The digital collection of the Library of Virginia containing photographs, maps, government documents, etc, from the beginnings of Virginia history to the present. [more info]
Location: Internet

Reference Information

American Decades (Gale)

Online reference book chronicles American events, people, and places for each decade. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Bibliographic Index

Online access to Bibliographic Index is no longer available. Print volumes for 1937-2008 (v.1-48) are available in Carrier Library. Please stop by the public service desk for assistance with retrieval. [more info]
Location: Carrier Library - Stack 2a

Blackwell Reference Online - History (Blackwell)

A collection of full-text reference books in history. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Cambridge Histories Online (Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge Histories Online provides political, economic and social history, philosophy and literature of selected countries and subjects.
[more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

CQ Press Electronic Library (SAGE)

Searches subscribed CQ Press reference works and historical documents. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Guide to Reference (ALA)

No longer updated after January 31, 2016. A selective guide of reference sources, organized by academic discipline. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Oxford Reference Online (Oxford University Press)

Database of full-text scholarly reference books on all subjects. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Reference Universe (Paratext)

Search most of JMU's reference collection for background articles from encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Reports & Proceedings

CQ Press Electronic Library (SAGE)

Searches subscribed CQ Press reference works and historical documents. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Statistics & Datasets

County and City Data Book (University of Virginia. Geospatial & Statistical Data Center)

Statistical database offering demographic, economic, and government information... [more info]
Location: Internet

Historical Census Browser (University of Virginia. Geospatial & Statistical Data Center)

Detailed U.S. census information by state and county from 1790-1960. [more info]
Location: Internet

Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge University Press)

Historical Statistics of the United States from 1790 to 2000. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote

Videos

Films on Demand

A streaming video resource containing thousands of educational videos, archival films, and newsreels in 30 subject areas. [more info]
Location: Campus/Remote