Research - US History Survey: The Great Depression and World War Two | Museum Exhibit

Getting Started

Starting Your Research
Off-Campus Access

Essential Question:

To what extent did experiences during the Great Depression and WWII differ based on ethnic, gender, class, or regional differences?

Guiding Question (choose a focus area in response to one of the following):

In what ways and to what extent did the Great Depression transform America economically, politically, and socially?
To what extent did WWII impact American soldiers and civilians?

Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Oklahoma dust bowl refugees. San Fernando, California. United States Los Angeles County California San Fernando, 1935. June. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017759887/.

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Background Reading: Reference Collections & Articles

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online This link opens in a new window
Includes the complete encyclopedia, as well as a Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus.
Facts on File: American History This link opens in a new window
American History Online spans more than 500 years of political, military, social, and cultural history. Thousands of biographies, subject entries, timeline entries, primary source documents, maps, and images cover the entire spectrum of the American experience.
Facts on File: African-American History This link opens in a new window
Exploring more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History Online offers many exciting features, including more than 85 historical videos that bring history to life. The extensively hyperlinked entries in this comprehensive database include subject entries, primary sources, images and videos, general and topic-specific timelines, biographies, maps and charts, and more. Culled from many of Facts On File's critically acclaimed print titles, this database provides students and researchers with a wealth of quality, authoritative content.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library. A database of over 1,000 reference ebooks, such as encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

Scholarly Source Collections: Online Resources

Online Resources:

eBook Central This link opens in a new window
Includes access to over 50,000 academic ebook titles on across a range of disciplines.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a free search engine that allows users to search for academic content (such academic papers, dissertations, theses, and case law) across the web, including content owned by Bunn Library. Results with full-text access will have a link in the column to the left of the title.
Access Google Scholar using the link provided below to ensure that you will retrieve full-text results from Bunn Library databases, or add The Lawrenceville School to "My Library" section of your user profile. For help or questions regarding Google Scholar, please reach out to Ms. Sinai at asinai@lawrenceville.org.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
This full-text database contains a broad range of scholarly journals in the arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences. The JSTOR mission is unique in that it creates a permanent, digitized archive of the selected titles.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive selection of prestigious humanities and social sciences journals to support a core liberal arts curriculum at any academic institution. Every journal is heavily indexed and peer-reviewed, with critically acclaimed articles by the most respected scholars in their fields.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
A very large collection of periodicals covering a broad range of subject areas. ProQuest includes four basic databases: Platinum Periodicals, ProQuest Newspapers, Reference, and The Historical New York Times. The New York Times collection is complete back to 1851.

Books from the Library Catalog:

To find a book, search the Bunn Library Catalog. Use the General Keyword search to broaden your results. For a narrower focus, search the catalog by Subject Keyword using the drop-down menu. Try the keywords World War, 1939-1945 or browse related subjects. To find books in the stacks, look at the call number: 000-399: Lower Level 400-699: Main Floor 700-999: Second Floor Have a useful book in hand? Look at the Index for additional keywords and locate where they are discussed in your book. Check the Bibliography for additional sources that are connected to your topic.

Primary Source Collections

American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
A primary source collection sourced from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
Facts on File: American History This link opens in a new window
American History Online spans more than 500 years of political, military, social, and cultural history. Thousands of biographies, subject entries, timeline entries, primary source documents, maps, and images cover the entire spectrum of the American experience.
Facts on File: African-American History This link opens in a new window
Exploring more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History Online offers many exciting features, including more than 85 historical videos that bring history to life. The extensively hyperlinked entries in this comprehensive database include subject entries, primary sources, images and videos, general and topic-specific timelines, biographies, maps and charts, and more. Culled from many of Facts On File's critically acclaimed print titles, this database provides students and researchers with a wealth of quality, authoritative content.

For more recommendations specific to women in WWII, visit this research guide.

Newspapers and Periodical Archives:

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Search and browse hundreds of U.S. newspapers published from 1690 through the 20th Century, including titles from all 50 present states.
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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.
Nation Archive This link opens in a new window
Founded in 1865, The Nation is America's oldest continuously published weekly magazine. The archive includes the full run of the paper from that time. The Nation is frequently quoted and referred to in works of historical analysis. In the contemporary period, it is characterized by a liberal point of view.
New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window
NYT Historical edition covers the newspaper from 1851-2016. For more recent articles try New York Times (ProQuest Central), which covers June 1, 1980-Present. For today's news, visit the digital New York Times.
Times of London This link opens in a new window
Search over 200 years of this invaluable historical source widely considered to be the world's "newspaper of record."

Historical Images (Photographs, Illustrations, etc):

Analyzing a visual source can be tough! Start with these questions to help think through how the imagery supports the creator's goals. What is the value of the source? What does it say? What does it leave out? Describe the source: List information about the images, colors, lines, placement of objects, other details. Record basic information about the work. Who created it? When? Does the piece have a title, or supporting text that can provide more context? In what format was it originally distributed, and how it was it used? Based on what you know about the image, what message did the creator(s) of the poster intend to express? Who was the intended audience? What do you think they wanted the audience to do or feel once they have seen the image? Is the image effective? Does it successfully communicate the intended message? Does it use misleading information or lies to express its message? If so, how? Remember, you are building an exhibit. When choosing your artifacts, think about how they relate to one another - can you find artifacts that share common themes, or offer a counterpoint? For more help, use the Image Analysis Procedure graphic organizer from Facing History.

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor contains over 1.8 million digital images in the arts, architecture, the humanities and science from outstanding international museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, and photo archives.
Bridgeman Education This link opens in a new window
Bridgeman Education is a complete visual resource offering over 1,000,000 digital images of art, history and culture from global museums, galleries, private collections and contemporary artists all copyright cleared for educational use.

Historic U.S. Government Publications at Cleveland Public Library
Documents relating to U.S. Army Operations in World War II; U.S. government propaganda posters from World Wars I and II.
Japanese American World War II Incarceration
From JSTOR. Building on its cornerstone collection of the Carey McWilliams Papers of the War Relocation Authority, Special Collections and Libraries (SCL) at The Claremont Colleges actively collects materials documenting the Japanese American Nikkei experience during World War II.
World War II Photographs
From JSTOR. This collection is composed of photographs and posters during World War II. Depicted are service men, service women, civilians, children and animals.
World War II Poster Collection
From JSTOR. Images of select World War II posters held at the Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library's Special Collections/University Archives at Bucknell University. Photographs and descriptions are based on student research done in Professor David Del Testa's History 100 course in the fall semesters of 2006 and 2008.

From the Web:

DPLA: Exhibitions
Stories of national significance drawn from source materials in libraries, archives, and museums across the United States.
DPLA: Primary Source Sets: The Great Depression and WWII
Curated primary sources covering topics related to the Great Depression and WWII in the United States. Includes related resources and teaching guide.
LOC U.S. History Primary Source Timeline: Great Depression and World War II, 1929-1945
Curated primary sources and added context, from the Library of Congress.
National Archives: World War II Photographs
The Second World War was documented on a huge scale by thousands of photographers and artists who created millions of pictures. American military photographers representing all of the armed services covered the battlefronts around the world. Every activity of the war was depicted--training, combat, support services, and much more. On the home front, the many federal war agencies produced and collected pictures, posters, and cartoons on such subjects as war production, rationing, and civilian relocation.
World War II: A Resource Guide
From the Library of Congress. The Library’s collections contain a wide variety of materials related to World War II. This guide provides access to the Library’s digital collections, external websites, and a selected print bibliography.
National World War II Museum
Dedicated in 2000 as The National D-Day Museum and now designated by Congress as the country's official World War II Museum, this remarkable attraction illuminates the American experience during the WWII era with moving personal stories, historic artifacts and powerful interactive displays.

US History Survey: The Great Depression and World War Two | Museum Exhibit

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