American Studies

American Literature

The primary goal of this guide is to help identify resources for studying various areas of American Studies.

Primary Texts -- American Literature

When looking for primary literary texts in literature an obvious strategy is to search the Library Catalog. Try also Google Book Search which points to hundreds of thousands of public domain books that may be downloaded as PDF copies. Other very useful databases are below.

American Broadsides and Ephemera
Based on the American Antiquarian Society’s landmark collection, this database offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900 (as well as 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900)
Asian American Drama
Contains more than 250 plays by over 40 playwrights.

Black Drama This link opens in a new window
About 1,200 full text plays (mid-1800s to present) by over 200 Black playwrights.
Early American Imprints, Series II - Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive set of books, pamphlets and broadsides published 1801-1819.

Emily Dickinson’s Correspondences: A Born-Digital Textual Inquiry
This brings together 74 poems and letters from Dickinson's correspondence with her sister-in-law and primary confidante, Susan Dickinson.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
Includes monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more from the "long nineteenth century".
Theatre in context collection This link opens in a new window
Thousands of records for people, places, theatres, productions, production companies, and more.
Theatre in Video This link opens in a new window
Over 250 performances of leading plays, together with over 100 film documentaries.

Twentieth Century African-American Poetry
9,000 poems by 62 important African American poets of the last century.
Wright American Fiction
This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. There are currently 2,887 volumes included by 1,456 authors.

Critical Studies: Literature Specific Databases

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), this electronic version of the Bibliography dates back to 1925 and contains over 2.2 million citations from more than 4,400 periodicals (including peer-reviewed e-journals) and 1,000 book publishers.
Literature Online This link opens in a new window
Lion points to full text articles, references to articles, monographs and dissertations, related websites and major literary reference works.
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), 1920 - This link opens in a new window
ABELL indexes periodical articles, monographs, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline.

Critical Studies: Major Non Literary Databases

America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
This History database, indexing over 1,700 journals from 1964 to present, contains much literature related material.

American Periodical series
A selection of periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically-significant periodicals.
ATLA Religion Database
An index for finding essays, book reviews, and journal articles in theological and religious disciplines. Also much literature coverage.

Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
Each volume of this resource covers four to eight dramatists or plays. For each play or playwright featured, a full range of critical opinion is presented, along with a biographical sketch, a chronological list of the writer's major works and more.
Essay and General Literature Index This link opens in a new window
Access to nearly 65,000 essays contained in some 5,300 anthologies and collections. Much literature related material.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Full text newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Contains much literature related content.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
Full text database of publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. much literature related content.
Humanities & Social Science Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
This is an index to articles from nearly 1,200 English-language periodicals. More than 1,300,000 articles and 240,000 book reviews are included. Much literature related material.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a digital archive of fully searchable back issues of scholarly journals in a number of disciplinary areas.

Nineteenth Century Masterfile
Indexes mostly nineteenth and early twentieth century periodicals.
Philosopher's Index
Includes journal articles, books, anthologies, and book reviews. Over 480 journals indexed. Numerous studies pertaining to literature.
Project Muse
Project Muse offers full-text, online access to hundreds of humanities, arts, and social sciences journals.

O'Neill Library

Bapst Library

Burns Library

Educational Resource Center

Law Library

Social Work Library

Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

American Studies

American Literature

Primary Texts -- American Literature

Critical Studies: Literature Specific Databases

Critical Studies: Major Non Literary Databases