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HST 224: Civil War Era: Background Information
Biography
- American National BiographyAmerican National Biography offers portraits of more than 18,700 men and women whose lives have shaped the nation. Each entry traces a person's life through the sequence of significant events as they occurred from birth to death. Features over 2,700 illustrations, more than 80,000 cross-references, and links to select web sites.
- Biography (Gale In Context)Combines over 280,000 biographies from sources such as Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedias of World Biography, Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Contemporary Musicians, Historic World Leaders, Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists, Contemporary Black Biography, Religious Leaders of America, International Dictionary of Art and Artists; and many more, with full-text articles from more than 250 periodicals including American History, The Christian Century, U.S. News & World Report.
- U.S. History (Gale In Context)U.S. History In Context provides a complete overview of our nation’s past that covers the most-studied events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people. Includes over 5,000 primary source documents, reference materials, and journal titles.
- African American Studies CenterA comprehensive collection of scholarship focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 7,500 articles. The core content includes Africana, which presents an account of the African and African American experience in five volumes.
- Black Women in AmericaPulls together the research in this field to provide a building block of Black Women’s Studies. Includes women such as Venus and Serena Williams, Condoleezza Rice, Carol Moseley Braun, Ruth Simmons, and Ann Fudge. Addresses the achievements of black women throughout history, highlights their ongoing contributions in America today, and represents the new research the first edition helped to generate.
Starting with background information
Become familiar with the ideas, major concepts and basic vocabulary in your chosen research area. Such background knowledge places your topic in a wider context, deepens your understanding and helps you feel more comfortable with it.
- Encyclopedias are a great place to get an overview of a topic that is new to you.
Encyclopedias often identify narrower areas within the broad subject, which may suggest a focus for your research. Many encyclopedia article entries also provide a list of references that can help you locate further, more in-depth and scholarly information sources. - Work from general to specific.
If a general encyclopedia doesn't provide enough background information, continue your research with focused subject encyclopedias. Wikipedia can be a place to find specific names, dates and events, but use it mainly as a jumping off point. The library has scholarly subject encyclopedias which provide reliable and in depth information. - Subject dictionaries can help define unfamiliar words and specialized terminology when researching a new subject in specific disciplines.
- Remember: Encyclopedias are good starting points, but don’t contain ALL the information you'll need on a subject for college level research.
- Get started: Look up your keywords in the indexes to subject encyclopedias. Read articles in these encyclopedias to set the context for your research. Note any additional keywords and relevant items in the references at the end of the encyclopedia articles.
Search multiple background resources
Search across a variety of encyclopedias in Gale's Virtual Reference Library:
General Background
- Slavery and Anti-SlaverySlavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is a four-part historical archive devoted to the scholarly study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective. It consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts and maps from many different countries
- African American Studies CenterA comprehensive collection of scholarship focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes 7,500 articles. The core content includes Africana, which presents an account of the African and African American experience in five volumes.
- Oxford Reference OnlineIndexes the full text of over 100 Oxford subject encyclopedias and dictionaries.
- Gale EbooksGale eBooks is a Database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
- Sage Reference OnlineOnline versions of reference titles from Sage Publications.
- U.S. History (Gale In Context)U.S. History In Context provides a complete overview of our nation’s past that covers the most-studied events, decades, conflicts, wars, political and cultural movements, and people. Includes over 5,000 primary source documents, reference materials, and journal titles.