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American Studies

This guide supports American Studies I and II class research and assignments.

Searching the Catalog

MoLib's Universal Search can search and retrieve all secondary sources in the Library's collection. Filter your search by format (peer-reviewed article or book, for example), publication date, or subject. Click the material title or green full text online button to access the resource.

American Studies databases are collections of primary and secondary sources covering topics related to U.S. history and culture. The benefits of searching directly in a database versus a search engine like Google is that the materials are already vetted for relevance, directly accessible through the Library, and there are often browsing features available.

The databases and journals below are great places to find background journal articles.

Databases

Search Tips

Example keyword search terms include:

  • United States OR u.s. OR usa AND colonialism
  • United States AND colonial AND government
  • United States AND politics AND 1700s OR 18th century OR eighteenth century
  • Democracy AND United States AND history
  • Slavery AND United States AND history
  • Minorities AND United States history
  • United States race relations history
  • Immigrants AND United States history
  • Indigenous peoples AND United States history
  • Social classes AND United States history
  • Slave insurrections AND United States
  • Abolition AND United States
  • United States AND women's history
  • Sexual minorities AND United States history
  • African American women's history
  • Latina women United States history

Once you locate items of interest such as ebooks and articles, you may find it useful to search by subject headings or categories.

  • Within a database, subjects and categories are located at the bottom of an item record. 
  • Click on the hyperlinked subject or category text to initiate a new search using these filters.
  • Perform an advanced search by limiting your search to subject and copying and pasting the subject you would like to search.

 

Use Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT to tell the search engine exactly what you're looking for.

Using AND: United States AND U.S.

Using OR: medical OR scientific experimentation

Using NOT: Black history NOT slavery