LibGuides: History: Home

Finding Resources

The library website is a great place to start looking for resources for your class.

https://millsaps.edu/academics/millsaps-wilson-library/online-library-search/

Big Search uses keywords to find books, articles, DVDs and more.

History books are generally located in sections C-F, but you will find books about history throughout our collection. See below for areas where you can browse by subject.

DA 1 - 999 Great Britain History
DA 10-18.2 For British Commonwealth nations see --Commonwealth countries
DA 900-995 Ireland History
E 175 - 175.7 United States History Historiography
F 336-350 Mississippi History
F1001-1145.2 Canada History
F 1201-3799 Latin America History
F 1201-1392 Mexico History
F 1421 - 1577 Central America History
F 1601-1629 (including Cuba, Haiti, etc.) West Indies History
F 2201- 3799 South America History

Tips for subject searching in history:

For primary sources see, United States History Sources
To search for a certain country - do a subject search for [Country] -- history for example: Hungary History
Jackson (Miss.) History.
DC139-249 For French Revolution see -- France History Revolution, 1789-1799
DD 253-256 for Nazism, see -- National socialism
For World War I see -- World War, 1914-1918
For World War II see-- World War, 1939-1945
Renaissance
History Southern States
Industrial revolution
United States Politics and government

To better understand how books are organized in the Millsaps-Wilson Library, check out the Library of Congress Classification Outline.

Multidisciplinary Databases

History Subject Databases

Primary sources are contemporary accounts of an event, written by someone who experienced or witnessed the event in question. These original documents (i.e., they are not about another document or account) are often diaries, letters, memoirs, journals, speeches, manuscripts, interviews and other such unpublished works. They may also include published pieces such as newspaper or magazine articles (as long as they are written soon after the fact and not as historical accounts), photographs, audio or video recordings, research reports in the natural or social sciences, or original literary or theatrical works.

Primary: First-hand account of an event, an original work

Autobiographies, letters, e-mails, diaries, speeches, interviews
Documents, laws, treaties
Raw data that has been collected
Works of literature, art, music
Newspaper accounts of events, by someone on the scene

Secondary: A summary, interpretation, or analysis of something else

Articles, books, biographies which summarize, interpret the original statements, documents
Textbooks
Analysis of statistics
Criticism — of literature, art, music
Secondary accounts of events by those who compile and synthesize the original accounts

Tertiary: Usually a combination or collection of primary and secondary sources

Encyclopedias
Dictionaries
Indexes
Handbooks, guidebooks, manuals

Selected Online Primary Sources

Britannica Original Sources
From Encyclopaedia Britannica. Hundreds of thousands of primary source documents in history, literature, science, law, politics, religion, and more.

Ad*Access
The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Ad*Access concentrates on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II, providing a coherent view of a number of major campaigns and companies through images preserved in one particular advertising collection available at Duke University. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress, and other collections, that document American history and culture.
The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
The Avalon Project includes links to digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government.
The British Library Virtual Books Collection
Includes works by Jane Austen & Lewis Carroll
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1925 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
DOCS Teach: The online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives
Access thousands of primary sources — letters, photographs, speeches, posters, maps, videos, and other document types — spanning the course of American history.
Documenting the American South
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It includes eleven thematic collections of primary sources for the study of southern history, literature, and culture.
Early English Book Online (EEBO) Text Creation Partnership Versions
Free online, searchable versions of selected texts in Early English Books Online. Does not include images of pages.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Text Creation Partnership
Free online, searchable versions of selected texts in Early English Books Online. Does not include images of pages.
Life Magazine Photo Archive on Google
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
The official depository for U.S. government materials.
The New York Public Library Archives & Manuscripts
Search through over 300,000 digitized records as well as archival finding aids. Items include the James Baldwin Papers, Tom Wolfe Papers and many others.
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
Over 700,000 digitized from the NYPL collections. Consists of prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts & streaming video.

Open access internet resources, many with full-text.

Print Chicago Manual of Style and Turabian guides available in the library

The Chicago Manual of Style by University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff
Call Number: Reference Z 253 .U69 2017
ISBN: 9780226287058
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
Seventeenth Edition (2016), available in the Reference section
EasyWriter with Exercises, 2020 APA Update by Andrea A. Lunsford
Call Number: Reserves PE1408 .L852 2020
ISBN: 9781319361457
Publication Date: 2020-06-15
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate L. Turabian et al.
Call Number: Reference LB2369 .T8 2018
Publication Date: 2018