HST270: Gender and Community in Antebellum New England



	Research > Library Research Guides > HST270: Gender & Community in Antebellum New England

Spring 2002 - K. Nutter
reference contact: Pamela Skinner x2961

FIND BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Use scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries, such as those below, for an overview of your topic, definitions, a list of suggested readings, and (sometimes) a lead on related primary source material.

Reference Source	Reference Call Number
Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. 3 v.	ref E 169.1 E624 2001
Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 v.	ref HN 57 E58 1993
Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century. 3 v.	ref E169.1 .E626 2001
Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery.	ref E 441 D53 1988
Dictionary of Literary Biography. [In progress; use cumulative index in back of latest volume to locate your author. Covers both literary and non-literary authors.]	ref PN 451 D53
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. 5 v.	ref E 185 E54 1996
Encyclopedia of Religion. 16 v.	ref BL 31 E46 1987
Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience. 3 v.	ref BL 2525 E53 1988
Handbook of American Popular Culture. 3 v.	ref E 169.1 H2643 1989
Handbook of North American Indians. [See v. 4. History of Indian-White Relations and v. 15. Northeast]	ref E 77 H25
Notable American Women, 1607-1950; A Biographical Dictionary. 4 v.	ref CT 3260 N57 1971
Utopias and Utopians : An Historical Dictionary.	ref HX 626 T73 1999

FIND BOOKS

5 College Library Catalog

Note that the "correct" subject heading isn't always obvious. If a subject search doesn't work, try a keyword search to find a few relevant titles. Then click on the subject headings on those relevant titles to conduct a more comprehensive subject search. Remember that the catalog is split into two databases: 4-College and UMass. Sample subject headings:

Unitarianism:	Moral reform:
Unitarian churches	[place] moral conditions
Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence Mass history	e.g. Rhode Island moral conditions
Unitarian Universalist Churches	e.g. United States moral conditions
Unitarianism	e.g. United States moral conditions history
	Abolitionists
Factory dynamics:	Antislavery movements [place]
Blue collar workers [place] history	Child abuse [place]
Factories [place] history	[place] social conditions
e.g. Factories New England history	e.g. Lynn (Mass.) social conditions
e.g. Factories Massachusetts history	Prostitution [place]
Labor [place] history	Poverty moral and ethical aspects [place]
Textile factories [place] history
Working class [place] history	Masons/Anti-Masons/Women:
Working class families [place] history	Freemasons [place] history
	Freemasonry [place] history
Spiritualism:	Order of the Eastern Star
Evangelicalism United States	African American freemasonry history
Family United States religious life history	Friendly societies United States history 19th century
Spiritualism United States	Men United States societies and clubs history 19th century
Spiritualism United States history	Women and freemasonry
United States religion 19th century
Women's rights and spiritualism United States history	Slaves/Riots/Anti-Abolitionist riots:
	Fugitive slaves [place] history
Utopianism/Brook Farm:	Riots [place] United States.
Brook Farm	Violence [place] history
Collective settlements [place] history
Transcendentalism (New England) history	Race relations:
Utopias [place] history	[place] race relations [history]
	e.g. Northeast states race relations
Fundamentalism:	e.g. Providence (R.I.) race relations
Fundamentalism	African Americans history to 1863.
Fundamentalism [place] history	African Americans [place] [history]
Fundamentalist churches United States	e.g. African Americans Rhode Island Providence history
Baptists [place] history	e.g. African Americans New England
Christianity United States history	Slavery New England history
Evangelicalism United States history
Methodism history 19th century	Literary romanticism:
Methodist Church [place] history	Romanticism United States
National Baptist Convention of the United States of America history.	American fiction history and criticism
United States church history 19th century	American literature 19th century history and criticism
Women in Christianity United States history 19th century
	Health concerns/Health policies:
Popular fiction:	Gynecology [place] history 19th century
Best sellers	Hydrotherapy [place] history 19th century
Best sellers bibliography	Medicine [place] history 19th century
Popular literature United States history and criticism	Obstetrics [place] history 19th century
also, try a keyword search on "popular fiction"	Public health [place] history 19th century
	Women health and hygiene [place] history 19th century
Indians in western Massachusetts:
Indians of North America Massachusetts	Whaling in Nantucket:
See also specific tribes, e.g.:	Nantucket (Mass.)
Housatonic Indians	Whaling Massachusetts
Stockbridge Indians

WorldCat
Use WorldCat to expand your search for books, theses, etc. beyond the Five-College area. Watch for items that are owned by only one library: such unique material is often not obtainable via interlibrary loan. If you plan to use interlibrary loan to request books and theses, please allow at least 2 weeks for delivery.

A SAMPLING OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Bibliographies list published research (and sometimes primary source material) on a topic. Watch for the words "bibliography," "indexes," or "abstracts" as you search by subject in the 5-College Library Catalog. (Example: Women-Employment-United States-Bibliography.):

Reference Source	Reference Call Number
American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature. v. 2 (If you're overwhelmed by the number of books on your topic, use this to help you identify the best ones!)	ref D 20 A55 1995
African American Experience : An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide.	ref E 184.65 A37 2001
American Evangelicalism : An Annotated Bibliography.	ref BR 1644 U5 M34 1990 and ref BR 1644 U5 M34 1997
Brook Farm : an Annotated Bibliography and Resources Guide. 1978.	Z 7164 S67 M94
History of Nantucket Island; A Bibliography of Source Material with Index and Inventory. 1970.	974.49 Ac 654h
Indians of New England : A Critical Bibliography.	E 78 N5 S2 1982
Women and Children of the Mills : An Annotated Guide to Nineteenth-century American Textile Factory Literature.	ref PS 217 W64 R36 1999

FIND ARTICLES

The major database for American history:

America, History and Life. 1953+
Lists articles, book reviews, collections, and dissertations.

Other possibilities:

Humanities Abstracts. 1984+
Covers the core history journals.

19th Century Masterfile. 1802-1906.

Periodical Contents Index. 1770+
The only database covering journals from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Recommended Aggregators/Full-Text Sources:

J-STOR
Full-text articles from major history journals, among other disciplines. Coverage lags ca.3 years behind printed version of the journal.

ProjectMuse
Full-text articles from major history journals, among other disciplines. Coverage limited to issues from the past 2-3 years.

Printed indexes (to find articles published in the 1800s):

Reference Source	Reference Call Number
The New York Times Index. 1851+	ref index tables

LOCATING PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIAL AND INTERNET LINKS

In addition to the primary source material available in the Sophia Smith Collection and College Archives, there is an abundance of primary source material in Neilson Library.
Use secondary literature for leads on primary sources.
The form your primary source material takes will vary from topic to topic. It may be a diary, correspondence, letters to the newspaper, court cases, newspaper accounts, or the records of an organization. It may be a law, testimony at hearings on an issue, debate on the floor of Congress, editorials reflecting public opinion at the time, or an exchange of articles by commentators. For some topics, there will be compilations of significant documents.
As you search the online catalog; watch for the words "personal narratives," "interviews," "correspondence," and "sources" as part of the subject headings. Other clues may be buried in the title, authorship, date of publication, etc.

Samples:

Source	Call Number
Abstract of the Proceedings of the Anti-Masonic State Convention of Massachusetts, Held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Dec. 30 and 31, 1829, and Jan. 1, 1830.	AC/Arch-SpecColl File HS527 A6 1830
The Baptists, 1783-1830, A Collection of Source Material.	277.3 Sw36r 1
Brook Farm Book : A Collection of First-Hand Accounts of the Community.	HX 656 B8 B76 1987
The Constitution and Circular of the New-York Female Moral Reform Society. With the addresses delivered at its organization.	microfilm 478, item no. 9853
Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations, Demonstrating the Existence of Spirits and their Communion with Mortals... 1858.	Amherst College
Fourteenth Annual Report of the New England Female Moral Reform Society, For the Year Ending May, 1852.	microfilm 478, item no. 8404
Indian Deeds of Hampden County, Being Copies of All Land Transfers from the Indians Recorded in the County of Hampden: Massachusetts . . .Together with Notes and Translations of Indian Place Names.	974.4 W93
The Lowell Offering. [1843-1845 only]	Sophia Smith Collection
Mind Amongst the Spindles : A Selection from the Lowell Offering : A Miscellany Wholly Composed by the Factory Girls of an American City. 1844.	PS 655 L6 1844
Pamphlets of Protest : An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790-1860.	E 184.6 P36 2001
Radical Passion : Ottilie Assing's Reports from America and Letters to Frederick Douglass.	E 449 .A8 2000
Vindication of the Character and Condition of the Females Employed in the Lowell Mills, Against the Charges Contained in the Boston Times, and the Boston Quarterly Review. By Elisha Bartlett, M. D. 1841.	Amherst College

REFERENCE DESK HOURS

Weekdays:
Monday - Friday: 9 am - 5 pm (reference librarian)

Weekday evenings:
Monday - Tuesday: 7 pm - 10 pm (reference librarian)
Wednesday - Thursday: 7 pm - 10 pm (reference assistant w/ reference librarian on-call)

Weekends:
Saturday: 1 pm - 5 pm (reference librarian)
Sunday: 1 pm - 5 pm (reference librarian)
Sunday: 7 pm - 10 pm (reference assistant w/ reference librarian on-call)

CONTACT THE REFERENCE LIBRARIAN

Contact Pamela Skinner, the instructor for your library session: pskinner@smith.edu

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Last Updated: November 20, 2006