U. S. History: 20th Century America

How to use NoodleTools

Books Primary Sources Taft Online Subscriptions Websites

Encyclopedias and Reference Books / eBooks

START HERE: These resources provide essential background information - who, what, when, where, why, how

Search large collections of reference ebooks simultaneously in these databases:
- Gale Virtual Reference Library
- Infobase eBooks
- Salem History Full content of many reference sets including Great Events from History, Great Lives from History, Decades (20th century U. S. history), and Defining Documents in American History.
Britannica Academic Online contains the complete and regularly updated Encyclopedia Britannica plus authoritative websites and full-text journal access.
Click on the links below for reference materials in these categories:
- General Reference Books / eBooks
- Arts and Literature
- Biography
- Business, Labor, and Economic History
- Eras in 20th century U. S. History Progressive Era, Jazz Age, Great Depression, New Deal, Individual decades
- Federal Government, the Law, and the Presidency Political history, Legal history, Court Cases
- Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations, and Wars
- Multicultural America, Civil Rights, and Immigration
- Religion
- Science and Technology Environment, Medicine, Military sciences, Space exploration
- Social History Popular culture / Media, Reform movements, LGBTQ, Women
Additionally, a number of other databases contain reference articles (see Taft Online Subscription Databases below)

Books / eBooks

(also called secondary sources and monographs)

RhinoCat is the Library's automated catalog of books, ebooks, DVDs, and other library materials. RhinoCat is available from any browser at http://library.taftschool.org. It is also accessible from your TaftNet homepage. A keyword search using a broad term will yield the most hits. TIP: When you identify a book in RhinoCat that sounds useful, open the book's full record, scroll down and click on Browse shelf to find additional books for your project.

Primary Sources

Search Rhinocat to find books and reference sources containing primary sources by copying and pasting the following phrase into the basic keyword search, substituting your topic or topic phrase for xxxxx: su,wrdl: sources or su,wrdl: diaries or su,wrdl: personal narratives and kw,phr: xxxxx
Primary source databases
- African-American Newspapers, 1827-1998 Full-text access to 270 historically significant African-American newspapers from across the U.S.
- American Periodicals (1740 - 1940) Full facsimile images of special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
- America's Historical Newspapers 1690 – 2000 Full facsimile images of American papers back to the colonial era.
- Annals of American History Search 2700+ primary source documents and multimedia by author, decade, or topic.
- Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950 Liberty flourished when illustrated magazines were the most important form of mass entertainment. Liberty charted the moods, attitudes, lifestyles, fads, and fortunes of middle class America through three significant decades.
- New York Times ProQuest Historical Newspapers Full-text coverage 1851-2008.
- Salem History (see Defining Documents and Milestone Documents collections)
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600 – 2000 Thousands of primary source documents and other resources in American women's history.
Statistics and Polls in Reference sources
The Library has the following original journals shelved at the end of the Reference collection: Harper's Magazine (1922-1971), LIFE magazine (1936-1972), TIME magazine (1930-1966). Thanks for handling these fragile bound volumes with care! Want a copy of an article or advertisement? Please take a picture using your smartphone.
See Taft Online Subscription Databases and Websites below for additional resources containing primary sources.
See also the course guide Find Primary Sources for more ways to find documents and primary sources in our Library and on the internet.

Taft Online Subscription Databases

American History Online Overview essays, biographies, primary sources, videos and slideshows, images, timelines, and maps and graphs in American political, military, social, and cultural history.
Daily Life Through History (Academic) This comprehensive collection of primary and secondary sources provides insight into the social history of societies from prehistory to the 21st-century. Includes authoritative content from more than 75 Greenwood reference works and original journal articles from prominent historians.
Issues and Controversies in American History Background, outcomes, and contemporary points of view for every major debate and conflict in American history.
Modern World History Reference articles, biographies, events and topics, primary source documents, timelines, maps and charts, images and videos from the mid-15th century to the present.
U.S. History in Context Comprehensive collection of reference sources, primary documents, periodicals, maps and multimedia.
World History in Context Comprehensive collection of reference sources, primary documents, periodicals, maps and multimedia.
World History: The Modern Era Covers the history of the world from 1500 to the present. Includes reference articles, media and primary source material.
Journal article databases
- Academic Search Complete Access full-text articles in thousands of magazines and journals. Tip: Limit your search to Full Text, Articles, and language.
- JSTOR Extensive backfiles of full-text scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
Video database
- Classroom Video On Demand Provides access to thousands of full-length videos and clips on core-curriculum topics.

Websites

Wikipedia's general disclaimer: "Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields."

To find reliable websites:
- Britannica Academic includes links to recommended websites.
- SweetSearch: a Search Engine for Students searches only credible websites approved by research experts.
- Google Advanced Search
  - Limit your search to reliable domains by including the phrase site:gov OR site:edu OR site:ac.uk (gov for U. S. government agencies; edu for educational institutions in the U.S.; ac.uk for educational institutions in the United Kingdom)
  - Here's an example for a topic on Eleanor Roosevelt and the New Deal. Think about other terms you can swap in and out.

* see the course guide Find and Evaluate Websites for more information

Useful Websites

Annotated Bibliographies (from the Purdue Online Writing Lab)
American Memory (Searchable primary source collections at the Library of Congress; browse by topic, media, place, or time period
Best of History Websites: American History (Quick, convenient, and reliable access to the best history-oriented resources online in a wide range of categories and has been designed to benefit history teachers and their students.)
Biography of America (from Annenberg Learner educational resources)
The Black Past: Remembered & Reclaimed (The "Google" of African American history includes an online encyclopedia, primary sources, and much more)
Digital History (comprehensive U.S. history website from the Univ. of Houston's College of Education)
Digital Public Library of America (Discover 33,425,159 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States)
Discovering American Women's History Online (digital collections of primary source materials browsable by subject, place, time period, and source type)
History Matters: the U.S. survey course on the web (an annotated guide to the best web resources in American history including primary sources and websites)
History of U.S. Foreign Relations (comprehensive site from the Office of the Historian, U.S. Dept of State including documents)
LIFE Magazine Archive (published from late Nov 1936 to 1972, LIFE was "the photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th century")
People's century (companion to the PBS series of the same name documenting the extraordinary events of the century through the revealing personal testimony of the people who experienced them firsthand)
WWW-VL; History: United States (a wealth of links arranged by topic and by time period)

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revised 5/2019

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