American History Subject Guide

Reference Materials:

Album of American History: REF E 178 .A482
American Indian Biographies: REF E 98 .A46
Annals of America: REF E 173 .A793
Black Women in American: REF E 185.86 .B542
Dictionary of American Biography: REF E 176 .D52
Dictionary of American History: REF E 174 .D52
Encyclopedia of African American History 1896-Present: REF E 185 .E5453
Encyclopedia of American Indian History: REF E77 .48
Encyclopedia of the United States: REF E156 .E48
Great Debates in American History: REF E 173 .M64
Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life in America: REF E 169.1 .G7553
Historical Encyclopedia of World War II: REF D 740 .E5213
History of American Presidential Elections: REF E 183 .H58
Milestone Documents in African American History: REF 184.6 .m55
Milestone Documents in American History: REF E 173 .M62
Milestone Documents of American Leaders:
Oxford Companion to World War II: REF D 740 .O94
Reference Library of Native North America: REF E 77 .N378
Working Americans 1880-1999: REF HD 8066 .D47

Circulating Materials:

All circulating U.S. History materials are located on the second floor of the library under the listed call number ranges. Please check the online catalog for specific titles and call numbers.

E 1-909 United States History
E 1-185 General U.S. History; includes Native Americans and African-Americans
E 186-453 Colonial America-Civil War
E 456-655 Civil War
E 666-735 Reconstruction-Spanish/American War
E 740-837 1900-World War II
E 838-889 1961-2000
E 895-909 21st Century

E-Resources:

Additional reference, primary source documents and secondary sources are available through our E-Research Tools

Online Primary Source Documents:

Articles/Reference Resources/Videos available through NCLIVE:

Type your search terms in to the NCLIVE database search program or search for a particular magazine title in NCLIVE. Read the abstract (that’s the symbol at the end of the title line with a magnifying glass) to see if the article meets your needs, and then look for the “HTML Full Text” symbol at the bottom of the entry.If you need help searching NCLIVE, please ask a librarian.

Databases and journals from NCLive:

Some ebook titles from the ABC-CLIO eBook Collection include:

  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Daily Life During the American Revolution
  • Daily Life in Civil War America
  • Daily Life in Colonial New England
  • Daily Life in the Industrial United States, 1870-1900
  • Daily Life in the United States, 1902-1939
  • Daily Life in the United States, 1940-1959
  • Daily Life in the United States, 1960-1990
  • Daily Life on the Nineteenth Century American Frontier
  • Daily Life on the Old Colonial Frontier


Internet Resources:

  • First Ladies of the United States search biographies, sound recordings, primary source documents and more about this nation's First Ladies
  • American Presidents: Life Portraits access biographies, primary source documents, videos and more about the United States Presidents
  • General American History Links to important documents in American history, brief biographies of the Presidents, the U.S. Constitution and more
  • African-American History Historical timelines, biographies, primary source documents, and multi-media presentations on African-American history
  • Civil Rights Era Civil Rights era resources from the Library of Congress
  • Civil War Companion site to the PBS television series on the Civil War; includes maps, biographies, documents and links to other information resources
  • Vietnam Overview Vassar College's brief history of the Vietnam conflict, primary document resources and links to other information resources