Historiography
Historicans and Historical Writing.  RR D 14 .E53 1999
    See the introduction titled, "Rethinking history?" in volume 1.
Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing.  RRD13.G47 1998
    See article, "American Historiography," pp. 17-29 in volume 1.
For a discussion of historiographical writing and sample essays, check the Claremont Graduate University Writing Center web site:  http://writecenter.cgu.edu/students/bro_hist.html

Colonial Period
Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies.  RR E45.E53 1993
    Articles on topics from racial interaction to religion to science and technology.  Signed with bibliographies.
Colonial America to 1763.  RR E 188.P86 1999
    A gold mine of statistics, plus a chronology and short articles on various subjects.  Includes a collection of primary documents at the back.
Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America.  RR E188.E63 1990
Encyclopedia of American Social History.  RR HN57.E58 1993
    Within articles, sections focus on this time period (e.g.  Sexual Behavior and Morality -- Colonial Period).  Use index for access.
American Cultural and Intellectual History  RRE169.1.E624 2001
    Arranged chronologically so easy to browse table of contents.  Interesting articles on Popular Belief, Law, Conflicting Ideals of Colonial Womanhood, Whig ideology, Agraianism, Rhetoric, Prophetic Native American Movements, etc.

The American Revolution, per se
Dictionary of American History.  RR E174.D52 2003
    Includes an extensive article on the Revolution from political, military, diplomatic, financial and privateering perspectives
Companion to the American Revolution  RR E208.C67 2000
    Extensive articles with bibliographies; detailed chronology.
Historical Dictionary of the American Revolution  RR E209.M36 1999
    Brief entries for ID purposes (events and people)
Oxford Companion to American Military History  RR E181.O94 1999
Encyclopedia of Battles in North America, 1517-1916.  RR E46.5.P87 2000

By Group
African American Culture and History  RR E185.E54 1996
Encyclopedia of Women's History in America  RR HQ1410.C78 2000
Handbook of American Women's History  RR HQ1410.H36 2000
Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, vols. 1&2.  RR E77.N62 1996
Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 4  History of  Indian White Relations.  RR E76.2.H36

Constitution and Bill of Rights
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution  RR KF4548.E53 2000
The Complete BIll of Rights:  The Drafts, Debates, Sources and Origins  RR KF47441997

From the British Perspective
Britian in the Hanoverian Age, 1714-1837  RR DA480.B75

Chronologies
Wars of the Americas  RR E18.75.M374 1998
Great Events from History North American Series  RR E 45.G74 1997
Chronology of African-American History  RR E185.H64 1991

Biographical Dictionaries
Women Patriots of the American Revolution  RR E 276.C5 1991
Pirates and Privateers of the Americas  RR E18.M44 1994
American Indian Biographies  RR E89.A46 1999
American Military Leaders from Colonial Times to the Present  RR E181.F84 1999
Notable U.S. Ambassadors since 1775  RR E176.N895 1997
Lives of the Georgian Age (Britain)  RR DA501.A1L3

Bibliographies
Reader's guide to American History  RR E178.R43 1997
The Harvard Guide to African American History  R.R. E185.H236 2001
    A comprehensive bibliography both in paper and cd-rom.  Divided by era and subdivided by topic.  Don't miss special sections on women, geographical location and autobiography and biographies.

 Subject Heading  DICTIONARIES
BIOGRAPHY DICTIONARIES   
BIBLIOGRAPHY

B.  To identify books, videos, journals, etc. owned by St. Olaf and Carleton, consult:

Sage and Muse

Once you have relevant subject headings identified, search Sage or Muse by subject to find the holdings on your topic in Northfield. Alternatively, if you know of a book on your topic, you can look it up in Sage by title or author, see under which subject headings it's listed, and then use those for a subject search.  

For a broader perspective, search the University of Minnesota catalog or World Cat, the cataloging database for most libraries in the United States and many abroad.  Both are available from the pull-down menu on the right-hand side of the Library home page.

 C.  For subject access to journals and newspapers, consult:

 Given the plethora of on-line, cdrom and paper indexes, it is critical that you carefully target an index which is likely to cover the appropriate journals which publish material or book reviews on your topic. Additionally, you need to consider whether you want broad, general indexes which will give you a sampling of materials appearing in mainstream publications, or specialized indexes which will be comprehensive and focused. Listed below are a sample of the indexes to be found in the St. Olaf Libraries. If you can't find the type of materials you need, please consult a reference librarian to help you find your way through the maze.

A complete list of indexes and databases is available through the Libraries' home page.   This includes online databases, CD-ROM products and indexes published in paper format. I have included a sampling here so that you can get an idea of the breadth available and because I believe they may be the most useful for your research.

• America:  History and Life   The main starting point for historical research for America and Canada. Don't skip this source. [The other option, when you get there, is Historical Abstracts which covers everything beyond the U.S and Canada.] I suggest you click on Advanced Search -- basic is so basic you'll miss things. The thesaurus is only available from the advanced site
• Combined Retrospective Index to Journals in History, 1838-1974  RRD1.C71977
  
• MLA International Bibliography   The major index to literature journals. Also covers articles in books. Subjects include literature, folklore, languages, and linguistics.
• Art Index   Indexes English-language art periodicals, plus museum bulletins, bibliographies, film reviews, and conference reports. Covers 1984 to the present.
• International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP), 1874 - present.
Indexes a wide variety of international music periodicals, some back to the late 1800s.
• Music Index  The major index to periodical literature in the field of music. Does not include abstracts. Online database covers 1979 - present.
• EconLit, ATLA (Religion), etc.   If you're interested in economic history or religion of this time period.
  

• Expanded Academic ASAP Indexes articles in both popular magazines and academic journals, although the default is only for scholarly materials. Covers 1500 core titles, many back to the mid to late 1980s. Full text of articles often an option.
• Index to Black Periodical Literature  R.R. AI3.O4  1960-  
  Provides a  black perspective on all topics.

•  JSTOR is an online, full-text database of scholarly articles.    It's great if articles appear here, but there is a 3-5 year lag before they do.  Rather than searching by keyword in this database, it is better to search a topical subject index (e.g. America:  History and Life)  and then connect to JSTOR for the article if it appears there.  For AHL, there are hotlinks to the specific article in JSTOR.  Project Muse is similar, although the time lag is not as great.

• Combined Retrospective Index to Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974  RR Z1035.A1C6
• Book Review Index, 1965-  RR Z1035.A2B6
  

For St. Olaf holdings, do a title search in Sage or check the Periodicals Title List ;  for Carleton holdings check Muse.  If the items are available at Carleton they may be requested electronically through the "request button" on the page); if at neither St. Olaf or Carleton, please order through the Library's home page and the  ILL form  available there.
 

Sourcebooks/Collected Editions
Microbook Library of American Civilization.  Index:  R.R.  E169.1.L53 1971  
    (Collection at Carleton; take the LAC number from the index)
The fate of a nation : the American revolution through contemporary eyes  E208 .C87 1975
The boisterous sea of liberty : a documentary history of America from discovery through the Civil War  E187 .B65 1998
American independence, the war : facsimiles of documents  E203 .G69 1976
Political sermons of the American founding era, 1730-1805  BR115.P7 P63 1991

Published Memoirs/Journals/Letters/Personal Accounts/Autobiographies/Collected Papers
Journal.  The journal and occasional writings of Sarah Wister  E263.P4 W79 1987
Basic writings of Thomas Jefferson  E302 .J442 1944
Correspondence.  Letters of Thomas Attwood Digges (1742-1821)  PS737.D35 Z48
Dear Papa, dear Charley : the peregrinations of a revolutionary aristocrat, as told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and his father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with sundry observations on bastardy, child-rearing, romance, matrimony, commerce, tobacco, slavery, and the politics of revolutionary America  E302.6.C3 A4 2001
Letters from a distinguished American : twelve essays by John Adams on American foreign policy, 1780  E203 .A57
George Rogers Clark papers.  Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library  E234 .C57
Hessian journals : unpublished documents of the American Revolution  E268 .H47
The journal of Gideon Olmsted : adventures of a sea captain during the American Revolution  E207.O5 A32

Government Documents
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 : index  GS 4.2:C76/2/774-89
Proceedings and debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America, 1754-1783  E187 .G79

CONTEMPORARY (i.e. Revolutionary times) PRINT SOURCES

American Periodical Series   digitized magazines and journals published in the United States between 1740 and 1900
Blacks Who Stole Themselves:  Advertisements for Runaways in the Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1790
Times.  London.  Carleton on microfilm  1788-
"Pretends to be free" : runaway slave advertisements from colonial and revolutionary New York and New Jersey  E445.N56 P74 1994
The American revolution : as described by British writers and the Morning chronicle and London advertiser  E249.3 .A63 1991
Rebellion and reconciliation:  Satirical prints on the Revolution at Williamsburg [catalog]  Carleton Library E298.C64 1976

To find authoritative websites, it is best to first launch a search from known sites.
As always, you must take care to evaluate your material. Who wrote/posted it? What are their credentials? Is the material from an academic source (scholarly publisher or .edu site on the web) or proprietary source (commercial publisher or .com site)? Is the material current for the topic? If a website, when was it last updated? Is that important? Etc. For more suggestions for evaluating websites, consult the list on the libraries' page:  Evaluating Web Sites

Scout Report     http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/archives 
   A source of website reviews; search by keyword or browse by Library of Congress Subject Headings.  A sample entry:

Infomine  http://infomine.ucr.edu
    Websites "collected" by academic reference librarians from the University of California system.  A sample

Spy Letters of the American Revolution from the Collections of the Clements Library

	Spy Letters presents facsimiles of spy letters from the American Revolution. The exhibit places the spy letters in an educational framework. Letters are presented along with stories of the letters, biographies and portraits of spies and important personages of the American Revolution, a timeline (1763-1783) of the American Revolution, articles about espionage methods (secret codes, invisible ink, quill letters, etc.) at the time of the American Revolution, and more historical information. For teachers, there are classroom a ctivities, study questions, a brief introduction to interpreting primary sources, and a bibliography.
Refine your search by clicking on topics related to this resource:
	Subjects -- LCSH: ESPIONAGE -- GREAT BRITAIN -- HISTORY; ESPIONAGE -- UNITED STATES -- HISTORY; ESPIONAGE, AMERICAN -- HISTORY; ESPIONAGE, BRITISH -- HISTORY; SPIES -- UNITED STATES -- BIOGRAPHY; UNITED STATES -- HISTORY -- REVOLUTION, 1775-1783 -- SOURCES;
	Subjects -- LCC: UB1-900;
	Keywords: AMERICAN REVOLUTION; AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR; AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE; BIBLIOGRAPHIES; BIOGRAPHY; CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES; ESPIONAGE; EXHIBITIONS; EXHIBITS; Images; INTELLIGENCE; K-12; LESSON PLANS; LETTERS; PAINTINGS; PORTRAITS; PRIMARY SOURCES; REVOLUTIONARY WAR; SIR HENRY CLINTON COLLECTION; Sources; SPIES; SPY LETTERS; TIMELINES; UNITED STATES HISTORY; UNITED STATES WAR OF INDEPENDENCE; WAR OF INDEPENDENCE; Web;
	Authors: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN; UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, ANN ARBOR; WILLIAM L. CLEMENTS LIBRARY;

Librarians' Index to the Internet  http://www.lii.org
    Aimed at public library patrons but for many topics, still relevent.  A sample entry: 

Others:
Documenting the American South  http://docsouth.unc.edu/   from the University of North Carolina
American Memory Collection  http://memory.loc.gov/   from the Library of Congress

Suggestions for materials to be included on this page should be emailed to: macphers@stolaf.edu. Thank you!