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Michigan State University

Nineteenth Century Literature: Primary Resources Online

Primary and secondary sources for the study of English and American Lit of the nineteenth century.

Selected Primary Resources in English and American Literature and History

  • C19: The Nineteenth Century

    C19: The Nineteenth Century Index is a gateway, or portal, into a variety of primary sources for 19th Century studies, especially of the British Isles. Each resource or database may also be accessed/searched individually. Includes full-text databases for British Periodicals and American Periodicals. Also provides indexes for House of Commons Parliamentary Papers and the US Congressional Serial Set.
  • The Archive of Americana: Contains the full text of the Evans (1639-1800) and Shaw-Shoemaker (1801-1819) bibliographies.
  • Sabin Americana: 1500-1926: Online full text of the important bibliography for the study of the history of the Western Hemisphere.
  • London Low Life: London Low Life is a full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. It is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.
  • Empire Online: Empire Online offers about 60,000 images of original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, (1492-1969); Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; the Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, and Colonialism (c1783-1969). Maps, manuscripts, pamphlets, paintings, drawings, and rare books are included. Five centuries of history are represented.
  • LION (Literature Online): Search the "front end" of this database, or check "Individual Collections" for full text access to collections such as Nineteenth Century Fiction and English Poetry.
  • Periodicals Archive Online

    Periodicals Archive Online is the new name for PCI Full Text - an archive of hundreds of digitised journals published in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It provides researchers with access to more than 200 years of scholarship, spread across a wide variety of subject areas.

  • NINES (Nineteenth Century Scholarship Online) provides a search engine that crawls across digital editions of primary works as well as currnet scholarship. MSU patrons will not have access to all links.
  • U.S. Congressional Serial Set

    The bound, sequentially numbered volumes of all the reports, documents, and journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives constitute a rich source of primary source material on all aspects of American history. Upon completion, the digital version of the Serial set will consist of approximately 13,800 volumes and over 12 million pages." Covers 1789-1969.

  • Making of America (University of Michigan)

    A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection contains the full text of approximately 1,600 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.

  • Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

    "(Women and Social Movements) is intended to serve as a resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1700 and 2000.
  • Black Studies Center

    Black Studies Center is a fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies including scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, and much more. It combines several resources for research and teaching in Black Studies: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), the full text of serveral historical black newspapers including The Chicago Defender, and the Black Literature Index.

  • Black Thought and Culture

    Approximately 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews written by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975. The collection is intended for research in black studies, political science, American history, music, literature, and art. The collection begins with the works of Frederick Douglass and is targeted to include the works of W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ralph Bunche, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Houston Baker, Jesse Jackson, Ida B. Wells, Bobby Seale, and many others.
  • British Library Online Gallery of images: Digital images from collections at the British Library.

  • ARTstor: ARTstor is a digital image database containing approximately 400,000 images. Images are grouped into collections and represent the canon of art history (as defined by major art history survey texts) as well as specialized collections such as the MoMA Architecture and Design Collection and the Huntington Archive of Asian Art.