Gilded Age & Progressive Era Research Guide

	The Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877-1919) Research Guide
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Selected Reference Sources

Use reference sources to choose a topic, understand terminology, locate background information, and identify good search terms.

Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era R 973.8 E56
American Eras: Development of the Industrial United States R 973.8 A512 (1 also in circulation)
Encyclopedia of American History (v. 6 & 7) R 973.03 M268en
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century R 973.03 E56n
Encyclopedia of American Social History R 973 E56
Encyclopedia of American Cultural & Intellectual History R 973 E56
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Twentieth Century R 973.03 E56
Dictionary of American Biography R 920.073
American National Biography R 920.073 A512 (also see the database)

Finding Books (and more) in the Online Catalog

Use "Gilded Age" and "Progressive Era" in the keyword search to locate materials with these phrases in the title or the record for the item. This terminology is not used in subject headings.

Examples of subject headings used to describe materials about these two periods in U.S. History and related topics are listed below. Note how they are constructed:

Keyword searching:

Use the language found in subject headings to construct keyword searches with words describing the topic--these words are always good search terms
Note the time periods used for each period and use them in a keyword search: Gilded Age (1865-1898), Progressive Era (1865-1921)
Note that "19th century" is used as a subdivision after a major subject heading--use it to create keyword searches such as: 19th century and women and United States
Note that a time period is not always used with a historical subject heading, but the word "history" may be present: labor movement--United States--history
Try creating keyword searches with related topics--a complex keyword search using "and" and "or" (Boolean Logic) finds results for all 3 concepts within the parentheses--example: (labor or trade unions or industrial) and United States and history
Think about what kind of book might have a chapter on your topic--books about the history of race relations in the United States would include information about these periods: United States and race relations and history
To locate primary sources, try using a search term or phrase describing your topic with one of these additional terms in a keyword search: sources, biography, diaries, correspondence, personal narratives

Finding Articles in Research Databases
(go to DA Orgs/Library for off-campus access)

Biography Databases:

Biography Resource Center provides the full text of articles from references sources as well as periodical articles
American National Biography (the electronic version of the paper reference source)
Biographical information is also available in the history databases

History Databases

History Reference Center (full text)
Contains the full text of over 750 historical encyclopedias and other non-fiction books and at least 60 leading history periodicals--includes over 55,000 historical documents, plus photos, maps, film, and video--search simultaneously with Academic Search Premier
History Study Center (full text)
Consists of digitized primary and secondary sources, reference sources, historical images, video clips, and links to reliable web sites
American History Online (full text)
Provides comprehensive coverage of the history of America and its people--includes biographies, primary sources, timelines, images, maps and charts
JSTOR (full text)
An archive of core scholarly journals back to the 1800's--due to agreements with journal publishers, does not include current issues from the last 3-5 years
Readers Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)(citations only)
Indexes the most popular general interest periodicals published in the U.S.--use Periodical & E-Journals to determine if the article is available in the library
SIRS Decades (full text)
Contains primary sources from the 20th century and reference source content organized into topics pertaining to American history, culture, and daily life
American Periodicals Series (and Historical Newspapers)(full text)(1740-1940)
Provides digitized images of American magazines and journals including general interest magazines, children's publications, and more than 20 journals for women--search this database along with the Historical Newspapers or by itself
Black Thought & Culture (full text)
Includes monographs, speeches, essays, articles, and interviews by leaders within the black community from early times to 1975
Women and Social Movements in the United States (1600-2000)(full text)
Includes over 1,500 documents as well as book, film, and website reviews
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, & Oral Histories (1800-1950)(full text)
Contains over 2,000 authors and provides the personal reflections of immigrants to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950--includes letters, diaries, oral histories, interviews and other personal narratives--audio is available in selected cases
North American Women's Letters & Diaries (full text)
Contains the personal experiences of over 1,000 American women from the Colonial Period to 1950--includes biographies and an annotated bibliography

Newspapers

Historical Newspapers (and American Periodicals Series) (full text)
Provides digitized images of the following newspapers published in the fifties:
Hartford Courant (1764-1984)
Chicago Tribune (1849-1986)
The New York Times (1851-2005)
The Altanta Constitution (1868-1939)
The Boston Globe (1872-1925)
The Washington Post (1877-1992)
Los Angeles Times (1881-1986)
The Wall Street Journal (1889-1991)
The Christian Science Monitor (1908-1995)
America's Historical Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1922
Hundreds of historic newspapers from more than 20 states

Selected Internet Resources
(Websites should always be evaluated for authorship, accuracy, relevance, and currency)

Websites on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (San Francisco State U.)
Gilded Age and Progressive Era Resources (Tennessee Technological U.)
Gilded Age and Progressive Era Resources (from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era)
From Slavery to Freedom: The African American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909 (Library of Congress)

Gilded Age

The Gilded Age: 1876-1900 (WWW-Virtual Library)
The Gilded Age (Library of Congress)
Illinois During the Gilded Age, 1866-1896 (includes audio and video)
New Spirits: A Website on Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 (Vassar)
The Gilded Age (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)
American Cultural History: the 19th Century (Kingswood College Library)
Industrial Supremacy, The NewCity, Capital and Labor (WGBH Educational Foundation)

Progressive Era

Twentieth Century History (WWW-Virtual Library)
1900-1909, 1910-1919
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis (1890)(online scanned version or hypertext version)
Progressive Era (Library of Congress)
American Cultural History: the 20th Century (Kingswood College Library)
1900-1909, 1910-1919
Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929 (Library of Congress)
Progressivism, Immigration, The United States Becomes a World Power, World War I (Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)
Document Library: Progressive Era (primary documents)
A Vital Progressivism, TR and Wilson (WGBH Educational Foundation)

People

Theodore Roosevelt on Film (Library of Congress)
Theodore Roosevelt Association (biography, quotations, research resources and more)
The Edison Papers (Rutgers collection on Thomas Edison)
Edison's Miracle of Light (PBS)

Statistics

Historical Statistics of the United States (subscription database)
Standard source for quantitative facts on American history--includes information on population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, governance, and international relations
United States Historical Census Browser (includes U.S. data from 1790-1960)
Historical Statistics of the United States: colonial times to 1970, Part I
Historical Statistics of the United States: colonial times to 1970, Part II
Statistical Abstracts: 1878 - present
Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990 (U.S. Census Bureau)

Need help with citing sources?
MLA Citation Style Guide
NoodleBib (citation management tool)

The Gilded Age & Progressive Era (1877-1919) Research Guide

The Gilded Age &
Progressive Era (1877-1919)
Research Guide