HIS350 Modern America Research Guide

To assist you with your "Descriptive Profile of a Great Depression Era American" assignment, a sample life history was selected from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940, and the beginning steps of conducting research on this topic are illustrated on this page.

(Image from: U.S. History in Context (Gale))

Click on the Reference tab to see a select list of resources in which you can begin searching.

Credo Reference

• Sample searches:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
    AND
    (women* OR woman)
    AND
    (south* OR georgia)
• Sample information sources:
  • Black, B. (2014). Great Depression. In S. Bronner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American studies. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • World War I, the 1920's, and the Great Depression. (2001). In Encyclopedia of American culture and intellectual history.
  • Hine, D. C. (1998). African American women. In The reader's companion to U.S. women's history.
  • Georgia, state, United States. (2015). In The Columbia encyclopedia. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

• Sample search:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
    AND
    (women* OR woman)
• Sample information sources:
  • Great Depression. (2004). In D. Levinson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of homelessness (Vol. 1, pp. 183-188).
  • African Americans. (2003). In S. I. Kutler (Ed.), Dictionary of American history (3rd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 47-53).
  • A New Deal for Blacks. (2001). In J. S. Baughman, V. Bondi, R. Layman, T. McConnell, & V. Tompkins (Eds.), American decades (Vol. 4: 1930-1939).
  • Flamming, D. (2003). Georgia. In S. I. Kutler (Ed.), Dictionary of American history (3rd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 553-558).

Click on the Primary Sources tab to see a select list of resources in which you can start searching

Summon (Indexes titles held at libraries within the CLIC consortium)

• Sample search:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    sources
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  • United States--History--1933-1945--Sources
  • Depressions--1929--United States--Sources
  • United States--Social conditions--1933-1945--Sources
• Sample information sources:
  • McElvaine, R. S. (2000). The Depression and New Deal: A history in documents. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Marable, M., & Mullings, L. (Eds.). (2000). Let nobody turn us around: Voices of resistance, reform, and renewal: An African American anthology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Women Working, 1800-1930

• Sample search:
  • "african american*" OR negro*
• Browse through the list for documents from 1920's-1930's
• Sample information source:
  • Hill, J. A. (1929). Women in gainful occupations, 1870-1920: A study of the trend of recent changes in the numbers, occupational distribution, and family relationship of women reported in the census as following a gainful occupation. In Census monographs: Vol. 9). Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:136965
    (Chapter 13: Negro Women in Gainful Occupations (Pages 109-121).  Good statistics on laundresses)

Historical New York Times

• Sample search:
  • (women OR woman)
    AND
    (african* OR negro*)
    AND
    (worker* OR domestic OR service)
• Limit search by publication date:  1929-1939
• Sample information source:
  • Harris, J. (1934, June 17). Starvation near for many in South: Quarter of one county in Georgia on relief at 15 cents a day... New York Times, p. E1.

• Title of Life History:  Bea, The Washwoman
• Name:  Sarah Hill
• Race:  African American
• Occupation:  Washwoman/laundress
• Age:  60s ??
• Family:  Husband (Whitt), minister; four children (two girls, two boys)
• Location:  Athens, Georgia
• Date of Interview:  1939

Click on the Books & eBooks tab to see possible resources in which you can begin searching

Summon

• Sample searches:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
  • "great depression"
    AND
    (south* OR georgia)
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used for additional searches:
  • African Americans--HIstory--1877-1964
  • Depressions--1929--United States
  • United States--History--1933-1945
  • African American women--Employment--History
  • Southern States--Economic conditions--1918-
  • Southern States--African Americans--History--1877-1964
• Sample information sources:
  • Greenberg, C. L. (2011). To ask for an equal chance: African Americans in the Great Depression. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Robinson, J. L. (1981). Living hard: Southern Americans in the Great Depression. Washington, DC: University Press of America.

eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)

• Sample searches:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
  • "great depression"
    AND
    (south* OR georgia)
• Sample information sources:
  • Kyvig, D. E. (2002). Daily life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of promise and pain. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
    • Search within the eBook for:  "african american*"

Click on the Articles tab to see a select list of resources in which you can begin searching

JSTOR

• Sample search:
  Using the "Advanced Search"
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
    AND
    (women* OR woman)
    AND
    (south OR southern OR georgia)
    (NOTE:  JSTOR will only except up to three truncated words)
• Narrow search by:
  • Item Type:  Articles
  • Language:  English
  • Discipline:  African American Studies  /  History
• Sample information sources:
  • Biles, R. (1990). The urban South in the Great Depression. The Journal of Southern History, 56(1), 71-100.
  • Holmes, M. S. (1974). From euphoria to cataclysm: Georgia confronts the Great Depression. The Georgia Historical Quarterly, 58(3), 313-330.

Humanities Source

• Sample searches:
  • "great depression"
    AND
    ("african american*" OR negro*)
    AND
    (women* OR woman)
  • "great depression"
    AND
    (south* OR georgia)
• Narrow search by:
  • Scholarly (Peer-reviewed) Journals
• Look for appropriate official Subjects that can be used to narrow your search or to place new searches:
  • Depressions--1929--United States
  • Women, Black
  • African American women--Employment
  • Working class women
  • Unemployed--United States
  • Southern States
• Sample information source:
  • Helmbold, L. R. (1988). Downward occupational mobility during the Great Depression: Urban black and white working class women. Labor History, 29, 135-172.

Project MUSE

• Sample search:
  Using the "Advanced Search":
  • "great depression"
• Narrow your search by the facets in the left column:
  • Content Type:  Articles
  • Research Area:  History > U.S. History or History > Women's History
• Sample information source:
  • Muhammad, R. D. (2011). Separate and unsanitary: African American railroad car cleaners and the Women's Service Section, 1918-1920. Journal of Women's History, 23(2), 87-111.
• NOTE:  Although this resource has many full text articles, its searching interface is not as good as other resources