HISTORY 202 - AMERICAN HISTORY - THE McCARTHY ERA


 A GENERAL RESEARCH GUIDE

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Databases and Indices
Popular periodicals of the 40's - early 60's at Lehigh
Newspaper Resources
World Wide Web
U.S. Government Publications
Selected Primary Resources at Lehigh
Selected Print Resources

Selected Databases and Indices for Historical Research

ASA, the Lehigh University Online Catalog
Search ASA to locate books, documents, journals, magazines and other materials in the Lehigh Collection.

In searching for materials in the Library catalog, consider using the following keywords in your subject search in
order to find primary materials:

Correspondence
Diaries
Documents
Documentary
Historiography
Memoirs
Papers
Personal narratives
Sources

Also consider limiting your search by date in ASA's "Advanced Search" form. Type in a year or range of years in the box labeled pub year .  Examples of pub year limits:

            1996 retrieves items published only in that year
            1990-1998 retrieves items published between and including the range of years
            <1990 retrieves items published before that year
            >1990 retrieves items published after that year

Some suggested Subject Headings when searching for materials:

Communist party of the united states of America
Communist trials – United States
Communism – United states
Anti-communist movements
Blacklisting…
Subversive activities
Internal security
Names of individuals  eg:  McCarran, Pat
Informers
Ex-communists

The following  tools can be used either to find primary or secondary source materials depending on the coverage.

While many of the electronic databases have full-text to articles  available, be sure to use the Lehigh Links (SFX) technology to determine if you can get to the electronic full text or if the Lehigh Library has the printed publication available. See this guide "Locating the full text of articles using SFX" for instructions.

America: History and Life . 1964-
A complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises almost  400,000 bibliographic entries, providing an incomparable research tool for students and researchers of US and Canadian history.  Covering over 2000 journals, this database is also a valuable source of scholarly book reviews.

Essay and General Literature Index1900-1993   print edition located in storage facility- use storage request form.
Emphasizing the humanities and social sciences, Essay and General Literature Index  provides easy access to nearly 45,000 English-language essays in 3,500 collections and anthologies.  Subjects covered include history, economics, psychology, religion, political science, folklore, film, music, drama, and literature.

PAIS Archive
Interdisciplinary index to journals, reports, books, government publications. PAIS Archive covers 1936-1976.

Readers Guide Retrospective - Readers' Guide Retrospective is a database containing comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America. It covers 1890- 1982 and replaces the printed editions of the Nineteenth Century Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and the later Readers Guide to Periodical Literature. ( see below for a list of periodicals dating from the period of this research project owned by the Lehigh Libraries)

WorldCat
Not an index to articles in journals, this specialized tool is essentially a catalog of the books, manuscripts, documents , journal holdings and other materials in libraries in  the U.S. and internationally. Materials in these collections can date back to 1200 .

To reach the entire list of Lehigh Databases go to the Database Finder .

Periodicals with coverage during the 1940's - early 1960's and beyond available at Lehigh Libraries.
(Focus on popular culture/business or politics)

Title Format Location Call number
American Mercury B Lind /Storage 051 A51
Architectural Record Film (F) Fairchild Martindale (FM)
Atlantic Monthly B Lind /Storage 051 A881
Business Week F FM
Fortune B FM 650.5 F744
Harper's B Lind 051 H293
Life B Mini Linderman 051 L694 (1936-; vol. 1 in Special collections)
National Geographic B Lind 910.5 N27
Nation F FM
New Republic F FM
Newsweek F FM
Reader's Digest F FM
Saturday Evening Post F FM
Theatre Arts B Lind 792.05 T37
Time F FM
Vital Speeches of the Day B, F Mini Linderman 808.505 V836

Newspaper Resources at Lehigh spanning the 1940's through early 1960's and beyond.

All Lehigh microform resources housed in Fairchild Library/ 2nd Floor South Wing

Bethlehem Globe Times (and successor Express Times) Film:1925 - 1997

New York Times Historical A full-image archive that includes the entire historical run of The New York Times, the "definitive voice of American journalism since 1851." The database delivers every page of every issue from cover to cover, with full-page and article images in downloadable PDF.

New York Times Film: 1857-

New York Times Index, FM-1-Index, 1851-

New York Times Obituary Index, FM-1-Index,1858-1978

Pittsburgh Courier Film: 1928-1997

Times (London) Film: 1914 - film

Official Index to the Times (Film: 1937-1955, Paper: FM-1-Index,1957-1997)

Click on the link below to be directed to a guide to the other newspaper collections and indexing tools available in the Lehigh University Libraries.

Newspaper Resources at Lehigh University: Historical Collections and Runs

World Wide Web

Selected Web sites with Primary Source Material:

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
The American Memory Historical Collections, a major component of the Library's National Digital Library Program, are multimedia collections of digitized  documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library's Americana collections. There are currently over 60 collections in the American Memory Historical Collections.

The FBI Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
Cases from the FBI FOIA Reading Room which have been selected for inclusion at this site. These cases have been placed in categories by type of records and also alphabetically listed.

Project Whistlestop
Project WhistleStop is funded in part by a United States Technology Innovation Challenge Grant
from the U. S. Department of Education. The project enables educators to work with the original
source material of the Harry S Truman Presidential Library; to use technology and primary
sources in project based learning experiences in the classroom; and to develop an on-line resource
of original Truman Library documents, photographs, records, cartoons, and other archival
material for student research projects.

Useful Gateways for Historical Materials on the WWW:

American and British History Resources on the Internet -
Extensive links to history resources in many categories: Reference Resources (maps,
statistics, documents, treaties, electric journals, etc.); History Gateways and Text Sites,
including sites by subject or by period; Titles by Historic Period; Archival and MSS.
Guides; Other Net Resources (history listservs, associations, societies, and directories).  From the
Rutgers University Libraries

History Matters
Serves as a gateway to history materials on the web. Database is searchable by keyword.

 .Rhodes- History Resources
http://www.rhodes.edu/Histhtmls/histnet.html

WWW - Virtual Library: History
http://gpweb.us/VLColdWarIndex.htm

Selected U.S. Government Documents

Congressional Publications

Senate or House Documents or Reports  - U.S. Serial Set.   Pre-1932 volumes housed in the Library's Remote Storage collection. Others in FM-2-DOC Government Documents Collection. Consult Documents Librarian (Roseann Bowerman) or Documents Coordinator (Stephan Firtko) to retrieve materials in storage.

"The US Serial Set may be the single most valuable collection of American historical documents in existence. Few, if any, research collections compare with it in size, time span, subject variety, source authority and diversity,  or relevance to modern studies of yesterday's activities and attitudes. The Serial Set includes: congressional publications, such as committee reports on public and private legislation, House and Senate journals, numerous investigations, directories, rule manuals, and histories of Congress and the Capitol; executive branch publications, including department and agency annual reports and special recurring publications; and nongovernmental publications, including reprints from magazines, newspapers, professional journals, and other sources."

Indexing:

CIS U.S. Serial Set Index - covering 1789-1969                          015.73 C749c FM-2-DOC-R

Catalog of the public documents of the 53rd (through 76th) Congress     015.73 U5c   FM-2-DOC-R
(covers 1893-1940. Use this tool to determine which Serial Set volumes are held in the Lehigh Collection. Look under the "Congressional Publications" section for notations on LU holdings)

CIS Index to publications of the United States Congress -1970-    015.73 C749i FM-2-DOC-R

Checklist of United States Public Documents 1789- 1909,            015.73 U5ch3 FM-2-DOC-R
(use this tool to determine which Serial Set volumes are held in the Lehigh Collection. )

Congressional Committee Hearings

Specific McCarthy Era hearings

Cumulative Index to Publications of the Committee on Un-American Activities. - 1938-1960. 335.4 U581p . FM-2-DOC-R

Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations. 1953-1954.

Y 4.G 74/9:S.PRT.107-84 (v.1-5) . FM-2-DOC
Electronic access:
Vol. 1 http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30931 Adobe Acrobat Reader required
Vol. 2 http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30933 Adobe Acrobat Reader required
Vol. 3 http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30934 Adobe Acrobat Reader required
Vol. 4 http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30935 Adobe Acrobat Reader required
Vol. 5 http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS30936 Adobe Acrobat Reader required

Hearings and Reports. House Committee on Un-American Activities. - 1948-1962. 335.43 U581h . FM-3-NORTH

Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States. House Special Committee on Un-American Activities- 1939-43.  (17 vols.) 335.43 U581i . FM-3-NORTH

Investigations of Senators Joseph R. McCarthy and William Benton pursuant to S. res. 187 and S. res. 304. Report of the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections to the  Senate Committee on Rules and Administration   1952-53 328.36 U585i . FM-3-NORTH

Subversive Influence in the Educational Process. Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws to the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate 1952-1955. (14 parts )                              370.973 U58su . FM-3-NORTH

U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Internal Security Subcommittee (McCarran Committee). Hearings and Committee Prints.
The Lehigh Government Documents collection contains many of the materials produced by this subcommittee, between approximately 1950-1960 (83rd Congress to 88th Congress). To identify specific materials, use the CIS Congressional Committee Hearings Index.

Other Hearings

Lehigh's hearing collection is spotty prior to 1960. After that the collection is very extensive. Located in in Superintendent of Documents classification scheme under "Y4.." in Government Documents Department.

Indexing :

CIS Congressional Committee Hearings Index - 1833-1969       348.731 C579 FM-2-DOC-R

CIS Index to publications of the United States Congress -1970- 015.73 C749i FM-2-DOC-R

Congressional Record 1873- Microform and Paper copies         328.732 C74r FM-3-South

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletins      v. 101-644 in remote storage, vol. 645- (1939-) in Gov Docs Stacks under sudoc number L 2.3:
The Bulletins of the U.S. Department of Labor and of the Bureau of Labor Statistics include many of the most penetrating and comprehensive reports made by the United States government on a wide array of issues affecting labor in the United States and around the world.The feature articles cover an extremely wide range of subjects. Timely matters of major political importance are frequently given extended treatment, including workman's compensation, arbitration of labor disputes, major strikes, and the analysis of key industrial sectors.

U.S. Womens Bureau Bulletins   1919-1962 (some gaps)  in Gov Docs Stacks under sudoc number, L 36.102:
These bulletins reported information on working conditions, health, safety, hours, and opportunities for women.

General Indexing to Government Documents of this period:
Some of the U.S.government publications held by Lehigh's libraries for the period of 1930's - 1960's would have been cataloged and added to the regular collection at time of receipt. You can identify others using the following indexes and find them in the Lehigh Government Documents Collection or if necessary obtain them through interlibrary loan.

Catalog of the public documents of the 53rd (through 76th) Congress     015.73 U5c   FM-2-DOC-R
1893-1940

Monthly Catalog of U.S. government publications (title varies)    015.73 U5m    FM-2-DOC-R
1936-


SELECTED PRIMARY RESOURCES IN THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Archives of the Work Projects Administration and predecessors: 1933-1943.   (Microfilm 13 reels)  Two part printed guide is on FM reserve under call number  331.137 U5877a.
Includes the final reports of the States programs, and final reports for the Federal Music, Art, Crafts, Museum, Visual Arts, Theatre and Writers programs.

Documentary Archives: multicultural America (CD ROM)
L- Reserve,  973.04 D637 CD Rom
L-0-Lower,  973.04 D637 Printed guide
Using more than 350 pictures and over 400 primary source documents, this CD Rom traces the history of many racial and ethnic groups and their contributions to American culture from prehistory to the present.

Lehigh University. Brown and White.
1894-   Copies in both the Microfilm Collection and the Linderman Special Collections Department.

The Presidential Papers (CD ROM)
FM-Reserve  353.03 U58pa  CD Rom
FM-1-Ref     353.03 U58pa  Printed guide
Contains public papers of Herbert Hoover through Bill Clinton.

The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt
FM-3-North   308 R781p,  vols. 1 - 13

The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. (including Truman and Eisenhower)
FM-3-North  353.03 U58p  1929 - 1998

SELECTED PRINT RESOURCES FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH

The American Historical Association's guide to historical literature.
General editor, Mary Beth Norton ; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. 016.9 A512 1995  - Linderman Reference

Guides to archives and manuscript collections in the United States: an annotated bibliography. Compiled by Donald L. DeWitt. Greenwood Press, 1994 L-REF 973.016 D522g

National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections   Linderman Reference  016.091 N277
The 26 printed volumes of this work provide descriptions of approximately 72,300 collections located in 1406 different repositories with approximately 1,085,000 index references to topical subjects and personal, family, corporate, and geographic names. These volumes were printed from 1959 to 1993. Since that time the catalog has been continued as an online product which can be accessed from the Library of Congress NUCMC website:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc

National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States: Federal Records, Index 1985.
Compiled by Victoria Agee, et.al. Chadwyck-Healy Inc, 1985. L-REF 081 N277f

National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the United States: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Index 1983. Compiled by Victoria Agee. Chadwyck-Healy Inc, 1983. L-REF 081 N277m

Official Museum Directory 2000. American Association of Museums. National Register Publishing, 1999.
L-REF 069.0578 O32

Researcher's guide to archives and regional history sources / edited by John C. Larsen. Hamden, Conn. : Library Professional Publications, 1988. L-REF 973.072 R432



Revised:  September 2005

Prepared by Roseann Bowerman , Social Sciences Librarian; Revised by Natalie Balaziuk , Graduate Intern
Consulting room in Fairchild Library reference area: every Weds. 1 to 5pm.
Office hours by appointment in Fairchild Library 621.

Call  x83053 or email rb04@lehigh.edu