Research Guides: 19th Century U.S. History: Encyclopedias & Background Sources

Encyclopedia & Background Sources (aka Reference Sources)

Reference sources are extremely useful for providing authoritative overviews and background information on a topic. They will give you the terminology and the key names, dates and concepts that can be used when conducting online searches for scholarly articles, books, as well as for searching for primary sources and historical newspapers. Many reference sources also provide extensive bibliographies that list the important and influential scholarship on a given topic.

Large Online Reference Collections

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
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Includes thousands of reference titles, some of which are also available in print.
Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
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Includes introductory essays with selective lists of the most authoritative and significant research on a subject. The introductory essays are written by experts and present theoretical and historical background, along with the scholarly context for the citations included in the bibliographies. Each subject area is overseen by an editorial board and peer reviewers.
Combining the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia, this cutting-edge resource guides researchers to the best available scholarship across a wide variety of subjects.

Biographies

American National Biography Online This link opens in a new window
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More than a decade in preparation, the American National Biography is the first biographical resource of this scope to be published in more than sixty years.
African American Studies Center (Oxford) This link opens in a new window
The Oxford African American Studies Center provides access to more than 10,000 articles by top scholars in the field.
Access to the database is limited to 3 users.
The core content includes Africana; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895; Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; Black Women in America, Second Edition; and African American National Biography. In addition to the full-text of these works, the Center draws on other key resources from Oxford's reference program, including the /Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature; the Oxford Companion to Black British History;/ and selected articles from other major reference titles. This database also includes over 2,500 images, more than 450 primary sources with specially written commentaries, nearly 200 maps, and more than 150 charts and tables that offer information on everything from demographics to government and politics to business and labor to education and the arts.

Print Reference Sources

USC has hundreds of reference books in print that provide authoritative background information to help you get started on your research. Here is just a sampling:

Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century 3 vols. (2001)

Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History 5 vols. (2001)

The Civil War Era and Reconstruction: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History 2 vols. (2011)

Women in the American Civil War 2 vols. (2008)

Every Day of the Civil War: A Chronological Encyclopedia (2010)

Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era 2 vols. (2006)

Anti-Immigration in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia 2 vols. (2011)

Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad (2006)

Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 3 vols. (2005)