Research Guides: WRPR 164: Materiality and Spectacle in 19th C. U.S. (HC) Spring 2022: Background Information

Finding Background Information

The following sources provide overviews of topics in American history and culture. They are a quick way to find out the basic facts and pick up on current points of debate.

When using an article in an encyclopedia or handbook, check the bibliography for further reading at the end of the entry. It will provide a selective list of books, articles, and, sometimes, Web resources considered to be the most authoritative.

Historical Guides

** Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Offers more than 450 articles with scholarly analysis. See the related entries at the end of article, for example "Tourism and Travel" for related issues to explore.
Companion to American Cultural History
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Interpretive essay-length articles surveying changes over time as well as issues in terms of theme and methodology. Note in particular "Performance and Display" and "Situating Visual Culture."
A Companion to American Women's History
- This link opens in a new window
This collection of twenty-four original essays by leading researchers in American women's history highlights important scholarship.
Companion to 19th-Century America
- This link opens in a new window
Essay-length pieces on political and social history as well as issues involving popular culture and technology.
Oxford African American Studies Center
- This link opens in a new window
Includes many scholarly journal articles and biographical entries as well as images and primary sources about African Americans.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology
- This link opens in a new window
Entries explores changes in science, medicine, and technology; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations; and the concepts and practices related to these changes.

Biographical Information

American National Biography
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Offers portraits of more than 18,000 men and women, from all eras and walks of life, whose lives have shaped the nation. No living person is included.

Complete dictionary of scientific biography
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides information on the history of science through articles on the professional lives of scientists from all time periods.

Literature Resource Center
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Very useful collection of biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors.

Art and Artifacts

American Art in the Nineteenth Century
The many illustrated short essays on this page present different aspects of art in America. They come from the Heilbrunn Timeline at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture
The University of Wisconsin maintains this website of texts, images, and resources with an emphasis on American material from the past.

Oxford Art Online
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Oxford Art Online is an art reference library that searches Grove Art Online, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, and The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. This resource contains images, biographies, subject entries, and thematic timelines.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful resource when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles for greater understanding.

Oxford Bibliographies Online.
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Extensive annotated bibliographies on specific topics in different subject areas (including African American Studies, American Literature, Art History and Atlantic History) written by scholars in the field. New entries are added twice a year. Essays of interest now available include:
"The American West"
"John Muir"
"Nineteenth-Century American Magazines"
"Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers"
"Political Participation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World"