Research, Citation, & Class Guides: Guide to Historical Research: Databases

General Databases

Gale Primary Sources
A tool that searches across many of Gale's databases containing British and American historical newspapers and other periodicals.

It searches: British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1913, the Eighteenth Century Collection Online, the Nineteenth Century Collection Online, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, the Seventeenth-Eighteenth Century Burney Collection, and the Times (London) Digital Archive.
Films on Demand
Streaming video library with over 38,000 documentaries, lectures, and historical primary source videos, covering a wide range of academic subjects.
Partial funding provided by UW System Shared Electronic Collection.

U.S. History Databases

Black Drama
Approximately 1,200 rare and hard-to-find plays written from 1850-present by playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African Diaspora countries.
Access provided by UW Madison.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
A collection of primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment
Primary sources that document the relationships among peoples and the environment in North America from 1534 to 1850.
The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women.
Gilded Age
Full text primary source documents, letters, photographs, cartoons, and government sources, along with video interviews and twenty-five critical documentary essays, covering America from 1865-1900.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
Primary sources providing a personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between the late 1700s and 1960.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950
The lived experiences of 1,325 women shared in diaries and letters. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources included.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
Legal materials on slavery in the U.S. & the English-speaking world: every colonial/state/federal statute on slavery, and state/federal legal cases on slavery.
US History (Gale in Context)
Contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events, and topics in U.S. History from full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files, and links to vetted websites.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600 to 2000
Books, images, documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies, documenting the multiplicity of women's reform activities. Updated quarterly.
Black Life in America Series 3
The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by news media. Sourced from more than 19,000 American and global news sources, including over 400 current and historical Black publications. Coverage 1976-today.
Partial funding provided by UW System Shared Electronic Collection; included in the Access World News subscription.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750
A citations database created from European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to The Americas, 1493-1750.
Access provided by Wisconsin DPI via Badgerlink.

International History Databases

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
Letters and diaries detail the personal experiences of 1,000+ British and Irish women writing from 1500-1900, all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, and many geographical regions.
Access provided by UW Madison.
Early English Books Online
Digital page images of virtually every work printed from 1473-1700 in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and British North America, and works in English printed elsewhere.
Access provided by UW Madison.
Empire Online
Primary sources telling the story of the rise and fall of empires over five centuries; from Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation and modern debates over American Imperialism.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online I & II (Gale)
Digital images of over 180,000 titles including books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides, and more in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science.
These collections can also be searched using Gale Primary Sources.
Gerritsen Collection
Large primary source collection for the study of women's history, with over 4,000 books, pamphlets, and periodicals spanning four centuries and 15 languages.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online I-IV
Primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, mostly focused on Europe and Asia.
Collections include Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, British Politics and Society, British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture, and European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection Archives.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
Legal materials on slavery in the U.S. & the English-speaking world: every colonial/state/federal statute on slavery, and state/federal legal cases on slavery.
World History (Gale in Context)
Contextual information on hundres of the most significant people, events, and topics in World History from full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files, and links to vetted websites.
Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts
Hundreds of Reformation and post-Reformation Protestant authors's works, including theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, sermons, letters, and treatises.
Access provided by UW Madison.
Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation
Hundreds of Reformation and post-Reformation Catholic authors' works, including theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, sermons, letters, and treatises.
Access provided by UW Madison.
Europa Sacra
Complete coverage of Church prelates; all 1300 medieval bishoprics, archdioceses and patriarchates; and prosopographical information on 18,507 bishops, archbishops and patriarchs. Note: This resource is limited to 1 user at a time.
Access provided by UW Madison.
International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages
Based upon the most important encyclopaedia in the world for medievalists; published in German. To read articles in English, select entries that have [IEMA] after the headword.
Note: This resource is limited to 1 user at a time.
Access provided by UW Madison.
International Medieval Bibliography
The major citation index to medieval studies (c. 400-1500), covering articles in approximately 4500 journals and "miscellany" volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections, and Festschriften).
Access provided by UW Madison.

Head of Archives

Jennifer Motszko

Email Me

Contact:

Andersen Library, Room 1125E

262-472-5515

Subjects: History