InfoGuides: US History Sources 1820s-1880s: Begin Your Research

Begin your research

Welcome to the primary source resources and research strategies for the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction Eras in American History, from the 1820s to the 1880s Infoguide.

Use this guide to discover sources related to United States history between 1820-1880 available to you at Mason and online.

Find Secondary Sources -Research tools to assist finding secondary sources
Find Primary Source Books and Imprints - Electronic collections of primary source books and other published sources
Find Primary Source Periodical Publications - Electronic collections of primary source magazine and newspaper collections
Search Primary Source Legal and Government Documents - Electronic collections of political and legal resources including government documents
Access Specialized Archival Collections -Selected primary source collections by topic.(e.g. African American, Native American, Civil War etc.)
Find Archival Collections -Research tools to assist finding manuscript sources in repositories
Get Help - Chat with a librarian or setup an appointment with the History Librarian

Top 5 Resources

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
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Provides English language abstracts of scholarly literature (journal articles, articles in collections, dissertations, book and media reviews) on the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada with indexing for journals from 1910 in more than 40 languages.
African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Database provides online access to approximately 270 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This collection features papers from more than 35 states, including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
Resource features more than 170 wide-ranging periodicals by and about African Americans published in 26 states. Include academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, annual reports and other genres.
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
A digital preservation repository and access platform for long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in-copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives.

Related Research Guides

See also: InfoGuide for Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early Republic Eras in American History, from the first European settlements to the 1820s.http://infoguides.gmu.edu/early-american