Use encyclopedias and other reference sources to explore and refine research topics
Use these sources for broad, contextual information and for biographical summaries.
Be sure to go through the Bibliography or Recommended Resources at the end of each entry for recommended books & articles.
Oxford Art Online is the access point for Grove Art Online, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Includes image partnerships and a digital image search.
Literature
- Gale Literature Resource CenterA literature database combining biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information on authors and their works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism). Draws from Gale Group's core literary databases including Contemporary authors, Dictionary of literary biography, and Contemporary literary criticism. Provides additional search capability for Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of literature and Gale literary index.
African-American History
- Oxford African American studies centerComprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with precise search and browse capabilities. 8,000+ articles by top scholars, 1,750+ images, 300+ primary sources, commentaries, maps, charts, tables, biographies, encyclopedias...
Biographical Resources
Cornell subscribes to a number of biographical databases. Many of the biographies include excellent portraits.
- American National Biography Online. Entries with images are marked in search results with a camera icon.
Many of the featured portraits come from Library of Congress collections that may or may not be represented in its American Memory collection. - Biography and Genealogy Master Index
The Advanced search has a portrait check box that allows you to "find citations for sources that include a portrait." This will not lead you directly to the image, but will pre-select likely citations.
Oxford Bibliographies
Annotated bibilographies on many, many topics. Provides introductions to each topic area, and includes guides to introductory works, textbooks, guidebooks, journals, reference works etc., and links to useful websites. A library of authoritative, discipline-focused, online guides to the essential literature in subjects across the humanities and social sciences. Each module is a dynamic bibliographic tool containing a hierarchical body of interwoven entries designed to help students and scholars move through the most important scholarship, commentary, and resources in a specific area of research.
Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics in a growing range of subject areas. There are at least 50 specific topical bibliographies in each subject area. Each of these features an introduction to the topic. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.
Help from Oxford: Anatomy of an Article
- Oxford Bibliographies: Art HistoryOffers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on art history. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable. Contains a "My OBO" function that allows users to create personalized bibliographies of individual citations from different bibliographies.
Art History Research Guide
Specialized Reference Works
American nature writers by Call Number: Olin Library Reference (Non-Circulating)
PS163 .A6 1996ISBN: 0684196921Publication Date: 1996
Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol. I by Call Number: Online and Olin Stacks E77 .N62x 1996ISBN: 0521573920Two volumes. Provides a comprehensive history of the Native Peoples of North America from their arrival in the western hemisphere to the present. Describes how Native Peoples have dealt with the environmental diversity of North America and have responded to the different European colonial regimes and national governments that have established themselves in recent centuries. Also examines the development of a pan-Indian identity since the nineteenth century and provides a comparison not found in other histories of how Native Peoples have fared in Canada and the United States.
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History by Call Number: Online and Olin Reference (Non-Circulating) E185 .E54 2006ISBN: 0028973453Publication Date: 20065-vol. work covering all aspects of African-American life. Using biographies, historical essays, and thematic pieces -- many by the foremost scholars in the field -- it addresses a wide array of subjects in more than 2,300 articles to fully define in one source the history, cultural roots and current condition of the African-American community.Encyclopedia of American cultural & intellectual history by
Call Number: Olin Library Reference (Non-Circulating)
E169.1 .E624x 2001ISBN: 0684805618Publication Date: 2001v. 1. Historical periods, Early America, 1771-1838, 1838-1877, 1878-1912, 1913-1940 -- v. 2. Historical periods, 1941-1959, 1960-1980, 1981-2000, peoples, places, God & nature, political order -- v. 3. Economic order, social order, knowledge, the arts, methods, index.
Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society by Call Number: Olin Reference (Non-Circulating)
HQ767.84 .E53x 2003 (3 vols.) and onlineISBN: 0028657144Publication Date: 1905-06-01This three-volume set presents the social and cultural history of childhood from antiquity to the present. "Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society examines this history through articles on education, parenting, child labor, economics, images of childhood, children's literature, play, toys and games, health, physiology, law, the criminal justice system and social welfare. Comparative articles include information about childhood in cultures throughout the world. Features 250 photographs representing the visual images of childhood.
For an example, see: John Singer Sargent's Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882. (Boston MFA)
Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 0872896013Publication Date: 2011-09-15Covers consuming societies around the world, from the Age of Enlightenment to the present, and shows how consumption has become intrinsic to the world’s social, economic, political, and cultural landscapes. Offering an invaluable interdisciplinary approach, this reference work is a useful resource for researchers in sociology, political science, consumer science, global studies, comparative studies, business and management, human geography, economics, history, anthropology, and psychology. The first encyclopedia to outline the parameters of consumer culture, the Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture provides a critical, scholarly resource on consumption and consumerism over time.
Encyclopedia of the American Civil War : a political, social, and military history by Call Number: Olin Library Reference (Non-Circulating)
E468 .H47x 2000 +ISBN: 1576070662Publication Date: 2000
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Civil War by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 0199782016Publication Date: 2011-08-02
Encyclopedia of the American Left by Call Number: ILR and Olin Reference HX 86.E56 1998ISBN: 0195120884Publication Date: 1998Comprehensive reference book on radicalism in the United States from the Civil War to the present, this work fills serious gaps in basic reference materials on American politics, labor, and culture by focusing on radicals rather than reformers. Merging previously unutilized sources, such as oral history with the wealth of insight available from feminist, ethnic, racial studies and popular culture analysis as well as traditional scholarly approaches, their efforts retrieved a hitherto inaccesible history.
New Dictionary of the History of Ideas by Call Number: Online and Olin Library Reference (Non-Circulating) CB9 .N49 2005aISBN: 0684313774Publication Date: 2005An essential tool to make the often complex history of "what we think" accessible to students and general readers. Brings fresh intelligence and a global perspective to bear on timeless questions about the individual and society. A distinguished team of international scholars explore new thinking in areas previously covered (communism, linguistics, physics) and present cross-cultural perspectives on more recent topics such as postmodernism, deconstruction and post-colonialism.
The American Midwest by Call Number: Olin Reference (Non-Circulating) F351 .A534 2007 and OnlineISBN: 0253348862Publication Date: 2006-11-08Organized by topic, it encourages readers to reflect upon the region as a whole. Each section moves from the general to the specific, covering broad themes in longer introductory essays, filling in the details in the shorter entries that follow. There are portraits of each of the region's twelve states, followed by entries on society and culture, community and social life, economy and technology, and public life. The book offers a wealth of information about the region's surprising ethnic diversity -- a vast array of foods, languages, styles, religions, and customs -- plus well-informed essays on the region's history, culture and values, and conflicts. A site of ideas and innovations, reforms and revivals, and social and physical extremes, the Midwest emerges as a place of great complexity, signal importance, and continual fascination.
The New Encyclopedia of the American West by Call Number: Olin Reference (Non-Circulating) F591 .N46x 1998ISBN: 0300070888Publication Date: 1998-09-23The only comprehensive, single volume on the American West. This book will capture the interest & heart of a huge number of Americans interested in the history, landscape & ideas of the American pioneer.
The Oxford companion to American literature by Call Number: Online and Olin Library PS21 .H32 1995ISBN: 0195065484Publication Date: 1995
The Oxford companion to United States history by Call Number: Online and in print: Olin Library Reference (Non-Circulating) E174 .O94 2001ISBN: 0195082095Ethnic Dress in the United States: A Cultural Encyclopedia by
Call Number: OnlinePublication Date: 2015
