This PowerSearch subcollection searches magazines and encyclopedias relating to history and influential people, both historical and contemporary. (PowerSearch sets a cookie to limit the resources to this subject. If you use more than one Gale subcollection in a short period of time, you'll need to clear your cookies.)
Biography and history
Covers American ethnic groups, African Americans, Africa, Black history, Black studies, and civil rights. This is a subcollection of the Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Maps the geographic and development history of the United States over several hundred years. Also includes some city directories.
Over 30 reference books covering history, including archaeology, military history, family history, dynasties, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and much more. This is a subcollection of Oxford Reference.
An extensive collection covering many aspects of history with an emphasis on American history, including some primary resources. This is a subcollection of the Gale Virtual Reference Library.
A growing collection of resources for American history and social issues (such as guns, criminal justice, Internet abuses and privacy rights, LGBTQ, education, prescription drug abuse, etc.). New sources are added regularly.
Maps the history, growth, and development of Tennessee cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
Provided by the Tennessee State Library and Archives, includes historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other primary sources.
Digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, oral histories, artifacts, etc.) documenting the history and culture of Tennessee. This site searches the "Growth of Democracy in Tennessee" database and the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
A collection of encyclopedias with substantive articles about important people around the world and through history. This is a subcollection of the Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Full page images of the historical archives (covering 1922–1990) are searchable along with—or separate from—the database of full-text articles in the current collection (1990 to the present). The historical archives are funded through the generous donations to the Library Foundation's "From Papers to Pixels" campaign.
Includes The Atlanta Constitution (1869–1984), Chicago Defender (1909–1975), The New York Times (1840–2014), The Wall Street Journal (1889–2000), The Washington Post (1877–2001), and The Tennessean (1999–present, provided by the Tennessee Electronic Library).
Search historic newspaper pages from 1836–1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690–present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. More about the Tennessee Newspaper Digitization Project
These encyclopedias cover topics in African American history that don't usually get much treatment in general histories: the great Black migration, military history, and business history.
"Profiles from the international Black community." Multinational coverage includes rising personalities as well as groundbreakers and newsmakers in a variety of fields. Events, places and organizations are cross-referenced to each entry to help you identify key black individuals associated with such topics as the NAACP, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Motown Records, Medicine, the Olympics and hundreds of others.
Diverse articles provide a detailed portrait of how the Appalachian landscape has shaped each generation of its people.
Numbers tell an important part of the history of the United States. This is the most definitive source for historical data on population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, economic sectors, and government and international relations.
With video, audio, and slideshow features, this encyclopedia is a top resource for Tennessee history.
Covers 1529 to the present day, and includes local luminaries Ida Cox, Beauford and Joseph Delaney, Nikki Giovanni, Bessie Harvey, and William Hastie.
Almost everything you wanted to know about life in the South but were afraid to ask. Contents: v. 1. Religion -- v. 2. Geography -- v. 3. History -- v. 4. Myth, manners, and memory -- v. 5. Language -- v. 6. Ethnicity -- v. 7. Foodways -- v. 8. Environment -- v. 9. Literature -- v. 10. Law & Politics -- v. 11. Agriculture & Industry -- v. 12. Music -- v. 13. Gender -- v. 14. Folklife -- v. 15. Urbanization -- v. 16. Sports & Recreation -- v. 17. Education -- v. 18. Media -- v. 19. Violence -- v. 20. Social Class -- v. 21. Art & Architecture -- v. 22. Science and Medicine -- v. 23. Folk Art -- v. 24. Race
Data on incomes, investments, jobs, prices, and more; pricing trends for various categories and items. The source for each price, salary, etc., is noted; much of the information comes from ads in newspapers and magazines. Currency conversion charts help readers translate costs to 2012 dollar values.
Profiles women throughout time and throughout the world, featuring women from all walks of life, including: rulers, royalty, lawyers, politicians, soldiers, heroines, pacifists, resistance fighters, financiers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, investors, authors and more.
Primary resources such as these are often required in history homework assignments. Some of these are reference books and others may circulate.
This lists a few selected books for the regional study of African American history.
Indexes much of the 20th century's cultural heritage as documented by participating public broadcasting stations, including interviews and performances by notable people from a broad variety of professions and cultural genres. Online playback of thousands of hours of programming plus data records for approximately 2.5 million items inventoried by public broadcasting stations. Special collections include Eyes on the Prize civil rights interviews, Woman series covering the women's movement, Ken Burns' The Civil War Internviews, and American Masters.
The Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection is an online archive of images from the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection. This website makes it easy and fun to research, view and find compelling digital images and artifacts from our rich East Tennessee history. Check back often; images are constantly being added.
Exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and selected external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.
A collection of diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives written by Southerners, mostly those whose voices were less prominent in their time, including African Americans, women, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans.
The Library of Congress digital collections includes American Memory and the American Folk Life Center. These and other collections present texts, sound recordings, still and moving images, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
Contains digital scans of thousands of classic film and media magazines from 1904 to 1963.
An online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major collections from museums, archives, libraries, and research units, with over 1.3 million images, videos, audio files, podcasts, blog posts and electronic journals.
Provides nearly two million detailed descriptions of historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and other archival materials held by thousands of libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives. It also provides contact information for the institutions where the collections are kept. These are not digital archives: the description of an item does not link to an online representation.
Search for citations to published information about a person. This is an index only and does not include full text.
Searching on subject headings in a library catalog can be tricky. This article provides links to some frequently searched topics in African American history and culture.
A data preservation project of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, offering digital access to historical policy documents and data to scholars, economists, analysts, students, and interested observers of the United States economy.
Dr. King's papers, speeches, sermons, an encyclopedia, biography and chronology are available.