Guides: HIST 431: Topics in U.S. History: Gender and the U.S. Welfare State: Home

Getting Started

U.S. History
by Kristen Howard Last Updated Nov 28, 2023 879 views this year

HIST 431 Course Reserves

Find Secondary Sources

Find books

Library Catalogue

Find peer-reviewed articles

America: History and Life
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Provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes information abstracted from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.
Gender Studies Database (EBSCO)
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Combines Women's Studies International and Men's Studies databases with coverage of issues related to sexual diversity. Includes gender-engaged scholarship from 1972 to the present.
Social Work Abstracts
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Over 500 indexed and abstracted coverage of social work and human services journals dating back to 1965.

Find Primary Sources

The primary sources included here focus on the 20th century. There are suggestions for primary sources from earlier periods on the U.S. History Subject Guide.

Top Suggestions

Proquest History Vault
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A collection of unique manuscript and archival materials Including multiple sub-collections in broad subject areas.
Useful subcollections for HIST 431:
-Records of the President's Organization of Unemployment Relief, 1930-33
-Records of the Children's Bureau, 1912-69
-New Deal Agencies and Black America
-War on Poverty
Includes multiple sub-collections in broad subject areas like Civil Rights; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; International Relations and Military Conflicts; Women's Studies; and Workers and Labor Unions
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 (Alexander Street Press)
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A resource for students and scholars of U.S. history and U.S. women's history. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000.
In "subject", go to Government --> Government functions --> Welfare and public relief.

Laws & Statistics

Historical Statistics of the United States (Cambridge)
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The standard source for the quantitative facts of American history.
To find useful data, go the the Table of Contents on the lefthand side. Click the arrow for B. Work and Welfare, then for Bf. Social Insurance and Public Assistance, then Tables. Social Welfare Programs in particular has useful data for this class.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Readex)
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Reports, documents, journals and maps published by the United States Congress. Covering public policy, infrastructure, the land, the people, military and defense, and more. Ends in 1980.
Search "Public Welfare" and use the advanced search feature to enter a date limiter (in the date box, enter, e.g., 1900-1980).
ProQuest Congressional
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Collection of historic and current congressional documents from 1789 to the present.

Govinfo
The govinfo database provides free online access to official Federal Government publications" from the U.S. Government Publishing Office. You can search government publications by date, collection, or other specific fields, or browse by collection, Congressional committee, or date. Includes the Budget of the United States Government from FY 1996-present.

Newspapers, Magazines, and Periodicals

America's Historical Newspapers (Readex)
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Over a thousand U.S. historical newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, including titles from all 50 states.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
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Search across all ProQuest Historical Newspapers databases -- useful for searching beyond 1922 (which the database America's Historical Newspapers ends at).
American Periodicals (ProQuest)
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Periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
Women's Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
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An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines.
Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005.
Note that non-US magazines are included in this collection.
Subject coverage : gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.

Newspapers
by Humanities and Social Sciences Library Last Updated Nov 16, 2023 22668 views this year

Thematic Collections

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1940
This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940.

The Sixties : primary sources and personal narratives 1960-1974 (Alexander Street Press)
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The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960–1974 brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.
The Nixon years, 1969-1974 (Adam Matthew)
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British records (FO and FCO) of Nixon's presidency, including material on social conditions, domestic reforms, trade, culture and the environment.

Freedom Archives
The Freedom Archives is a non-profit educational archive located in California dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of historical audio, video and print materials documenting progressive movements and culture from the 1960s to the 1990s.
For this class, look especially in the Feminism & Women's Liberation collection: https://search.freedomarchives.org/search.php?view_collection=327.

African American Communities (Adam Matthew)
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Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

Social Welfare History Project (VCU Libraries)
The Social Welfare History Project encompasses contemporary scholarship and historic documents. Articles on this site come from a broad range of sources, including materials that are offensive or contain negative stereotypes. VCU Libraries provides access to these items to support research and inquiry.

Printed Primary Sources

Frequently, scholars bring together primary sources into accessible, printed formats often called "sourcebooks". In a library catalogue, the trick to finding these types of sources are to search in Subject Headings for the word "sources" (the catalogue's word for "primary sources"). To find printed primary sources, try searching the Library Catalogue for the following Subject Headings:

su: Public welfare United States History Sources
su: Social service United States History Sources
su: Child welfare United States History Sources

Citations

History as a discipline uses the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) for citations, and usually the Notes-Bibliography form. This requires creating properly formatted footnotes footnotes and a Bibliography for your assignments. Resources to understand the Chicago style of citations are included below.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition
Call Number: Z253 U69 2017
Publication Date: 2017
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Ninth Edition by Kate L. Turabian
Call Number: LB2369 T8 2018
Publication Date: 2018
A guide to Chicago Manual of Style with more information on hard-to-cite or unusual sources than the original manual.

Guides

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Quick Guide
McGill Library Citation Subject Guide
Under "citation styles by subject", select "History" for more resources on Chicago style.

Library Support

Chicago Workshops
McGill Librarians offer two virtual Chicago Citation Style workshops per term. Follow this link to find and register for upcoming workshops!
Citation Management
Attend a workshop to learn how to use Zotero or EndNote, useful citation management systems. Zotero is highly recommended for History students!

Liaison Librarian

Kristen Howard

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Subjects: Classical studies, History, Indigenous studies, Religious studies

Librarian Office Hours Fall 2023

Tuesdays 9:45 - 11:45 am
Leacock Room 632

*Please note there will be no office hours October 10.

McGill University Collections Centre

Check on the progress of the move of the McLennan-Library circulating collection at the Collections Centre website.