Multicultural/Ethnic Studies

Recommended Databases

Ethnic NewsWatch
Description : Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. A rich collection of articles, editorials, columns, reviews, etc. provide a broad diversity of perspectives and viewpoints -- the other sides of the stories. The database is searchable in both English and Spanish, with publications in each language and more than 125,000 articles in Spanish.
Coverage: 1991 - present, with archival material back to 1985.

GenderWatch
Description: GenderWatch is a full-text collection of international journals, magazines, newsletters, regional publications, special reports and conference proceedings devoted to women's and gender issues. The database provides in-depth coverage of the subjects that are uniquely central to women's daily lives, including family, childbirth, birth control, daycare, domestic abuse, work and the workplace, sexual harassment, aging, aging parents, body image, eating disorders and social and societal roles.
Coverage: Mid 1970 -

Humanities Full Text
Description: Provides indexing and abstracting to 400 English- language periodicals on disciplines including literature and language, history, philosophy, archaeology, classical studies, folklore, gender studies, performing arts, history, religion and theology.
Coverage: 1984 -

Social Sciences Full Text
Description: Indexes and abstracts over 400 English language periodicals. Topics include anthropology, area studies, community health and medical care, criminal justice and criminology, economics, family studies, geography, gerontology, international relations, law, minority studies, planning and public administration, policy sciences, political science, psychiatry, psychology, social work and public welfare, sociology, urban studies, women's studies, and related subjects.
Coverage: 1983 -
North American Immigrants Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
Description: Provides a historical record of what it was like to immigrate to the United States and Canada.
Coverage: 1840-present, with the majority of the coverage from 1920-1980.

MasterFILE Premier
Description: Provides abstracts and indexing for more than 3,100 periodicals, plus searchable full text for more than 1,500 active periodicals.
Coverage: 1984 -

eHRAF - World Cultures
Description: eHRAF is an acronym for Human Relations Area Files, which indexes the information in its collection of ethnography by culture and subject. Using a systematic listing of the cultures of the world search for information on hundreds of cultures worldwide.
Coverage: varies
Guide: Human Relations Area File

African American Biographical Database
Description: Includes profiles and full-text sketches providing both biographical detail and illuminating narratives chronicling the lives of Black Americans.
Coverage: 1790-1950.

Black Drama
Description: Black Drama includes almost 1,200 rare plays written from the 1850's to the present. North America, English-speaking Africa, the Carribbean, and other African Diaspora countries are represented. Includes many previously unpublished plays.
Coverage: 1850's-

African American Music Reference
Description: Offers comprehensive coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
Coverage: NA; current

Belgian American Collection
Description: One of the country's largest concentrations of Walloon-speaking Belgians is found in northeastern Wisconsin, resulting in a unique cultural and social flavor. The largest wave of Belgian immigration to Wisconsin occurred in the mid-1850s. While the 1850 U.S. Census lists only 45 persons of Belgian nativity in the state, by 1860 the number had increased to 4,647. The 1890 U.S. census also shows that 81% of Belgians in the state lived in the northeastern counties of Brown, Kewaunee, and Door. The Belgian immigration into northeastern Wisconsin came to an abrupt halt in about 1858, when word reached the homeland of the physical and economic hardships and the cholera epidemic sweeping the settlement.