HIS350 Modern America Research Guide

On this page, you will see examples of the beginning steps of research that could be used if you were researching what life was like for African American women during the Great Depression.

Hopefully this will give you ideas of places and ways that you can search for information sources on your topic!

(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.

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