Research Guides: HIST 395: Prison Nation: The Rise of Mass Incarceration in the United States (Rosen): Reference Resources

Language Dictionaries

Oxford Language Dictionaries Online This link opens in a new window
Includes English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Portuguese.
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
Online version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language.

Biographical Sources

African American Biographical Database This link opens in a new window
Biographical sketches and essays on African Americans from 1790 to 1950. The Database corresponds to the printed Black Biographical Dictionaries. These sketches have been assembled from biographical dictionaries, yearbooks, directories, histories, personal accounts, and other published sources. The full text of 300 rare books is displayed and searchable in page images, intact with images and illustrations.

Notable American Women
There are five separate links for the online version (click on the link above, which will take you to the appropriate records/links in NUsearch). The update (1950 to the end of the 20th century) is also available and that link is part of the five entries on NUsearch. Print volumes are available, check NUsearch for precise locations and call numbers.

World Biographical Information System WBIS This link opens in a new window
Over 3.6 million short biographical entries for individuals who lived across the world from ancient times to the present. Includes full text images of the original sources, usually older biographical dictionaries. Especially valuable for locating information on hard-to-find individuals from the past.

Reference and Research Databases

Black Studies Center. Black Studies Center combines invaluable resources for research and teaching in Black Studies: Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience, International Index to Black Periodicals (IIBP), Black Literature Index, The Chicago Defender as well as many other resources. This fully cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies to includes scholarly essays, recent periodicals, historical newspaper articles, and much more.

Gale e-books. Searchable database of several hundred subject encyclopedias and other reference works across all subject areas, but with particular strengths in the social sciences and humanities. It includes a number of major reference works, and is Northwesterns largest single collection of reference materials. A good source for authoritative background information.

Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Online bibliographies of topics in Atlantic history, political science, and much more. Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on specific topics in a growing range of subject areas.

Oxford Reference Online. Multi-part database of the online versions of seminal Oxford University Press texts. Each topical division contains the searchable version of the latest edition of published dictionaries and encyclopedias