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HIST 212: The History of the African American Family (Spring 2025)

Tips

  • Language has changed over last century, and it is often difficult to determine which words would have been used 50+ years ago.

  • Please be prepared to encounter offense and uncomfortable language used by people in the past.

  • Most primary source databases will have "thematic" filters to get you started. Before keyword searching, start there. See what curated documents come up. From those documents, see what terminology is being used by contemporaries.   

  • Begin with basic searches and do not be too complicated.  DO NOT USE TOO MANY TERMS AT ONCE

  • Do NOT search a bunch of terms. This will give more, not less, false its.

  • Use the database limiting tools (publication date, place of publication, etc) to limit results. Do this instead of adding more search terms. 

  • Use boolean (and or not) to make the best searches.

Types of Sources Matter

  • Based on your topic & question, what types of sources are likely to survive? 
    • This will Directly influence where you start your search.
  • Consider the audience of the historic documents you're studying
    • This will influence the terminology they use.

Not sure were to start? Try the main catalog.

The Main Library Catalog searches our entire print collection (including Special Collections) and about 60% of our databases. 

If you're unsure where to start a primary source search, try a keyword search and then limit "publication date" to your period of interest.
Example: Subject search for African American families limited to publication 1800-1899 and then 1900-1950

Using language of the time period, we find additional sources from 1900-1950

Use Subject Terms to find historic materials in the collection.

These same tactics also work in WorldCat, 

These same searches will provide access to primary sources not held by WM Libraries, but which can be ordered via ILL (examples)