History 407 (Bend Campus)

The items listed below will help you locate resources to complete your research paper on some aspect of Oregon/Northwest history. If you have any questions, please contact me:

John Russell
johnruss@uoregon.edu
541-346-2689
AIM: UOHistLib

Back to History Research Guide

Online Primary Sources (Freely Available)

• Northwest Digital Archives - Search or browse archival collections held by special collections in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, and Montana.
• Oregon Historical County Records Guide - An online guide to help researchers locate historical county records.
  
• Historical Records - A section of the Oregon History Project from the Oregon Historical Society.
• Oregon State Archives - Provides a variety of digital records including local government records, genealogy sources and web exhibits and projects.
• Oregon State University Archives - Access to several collections including the Braceros in Oregon photo collection.
• SODA: Southern Oregon Digital Archive - A digital library primarily from the Southern Oregon University Library's collections of federal, state, and county publications concentrating on two collections of regional materials pertaining to the Southern Oregon Bioregion and the First Nations/Tribal Collection.
• University of Washington Digital Collections - A great collection of texts, images, and historical photographs.
• American Memory - Digitized material from the Library of Congress' collections as well as other major collections nationwide (for example, historical photos from the Denver Public Library).
• Making of America: Michigan and Cornell - Full-text of books and journals from the 19th Century. Collection is not complete, but still very useful.
  
• History Matters - Both a collection of primary material and a portal to high-quality collections online.

UO Online Resources (Primary and Secondary Sources)

• American Periodical Series - Full-text of magazines and journals from 1740-1900 (though there is some content later than 1900).
• America: History and Life - Search for scholarly articles about U.S. History here.
• JSTOR - Back issues of scholarly journals that go back, in some cases, to the 19th Century.
• Historical New York Times - Full-text of the New York Times from 1851-2003

Reference Sources

Oxford Reference Online

Search a variety of reference sources to get background information on your topic.

Dictionary of American History

An extensive collection of articles with bibliographies for further reading.

Encyclopedia of the American West F591 .E485 1996 Knight Reference (Find it at a library near you)

A four-volume set containing brief articles with suggested reading. Contains lists of biographies by profession, contributors, and alphabetical entries. Also includes maps.

Oregon Blue Book (also available in print [call number JK 9031] back to the early 20th Century)

Useful quick reference guide to Oregon people, institutions, and history.

Encyclopedia of Oregon F876 .E5 1999 Knight Reference (Find it at a library near you)

A single-volume guide to the history, geography, and government of Oregon. Contains a biographical dictionary of the state governors, a dictionary of places, a guide to historic places, the state constitution, and a quick survey of the geography and history of the state.

Dictionary of Oregon History F874 .D53 1989 Knight Reference (Find it at a library near you)

A great resource for finding out about the people, places, and events that have shaped Oregon's history. Particularly noteworthy is that many entries have citations to books or articles for further reading.

Oregon Newspapers

Finding News Articles: Oregon Indexes

Finding Printed Primary Material in the Library Catalog

(what follows is an excerpt from the Research Using Primary Sources guide)

In order to search a library catalog effectively, it is helpful to know something about Library of Congress Subject Headings. LC Subject Headings (LCSH) are standardized terms developed by the Library of Congress to describe materials listed in library catalogs and to make it easier to arrange them by topic.

LCSH terms are not always the first terms that come to mind. For instance, the LC Subject Heading for World War II is 'World War 1939 1945' and the subject heading for the Salem witch trials is 'trials (witchcraft) Massachusetts Salem'. See the Keyword search strategy below for tips on identifying appropriate LC Subject Headings for your search.

Some of the LCSH subheadings that point to primary sources include:

• correspondence
• sources
• pamphlets
• diaries
• early works to 1800
• personal narratives
• interviews
• speeches

Search by Keyword in the library catalog using various terms for your topic paired with the subheadings listed above. This will identify some of the relevant sources available in the UO Libraries or Summit. Note the LC Subject Headings so you can use them to search by Subject to find more information on the same topic.

Search by Author in the catalog to find the writings of a known author or names of groups or organizations. e.g. Fremont, John OR Oregon Pacific Railroad Company.

Note: you can use these search strategies in most library catalogs. You may want to use Open WorldCat as a way to see what academic and public libraries in your area hold.

Distance Education Services

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Maintained by: John Russell, johnruss@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 04/01/2008