NEIU Libraries Research Guides: History Research Guide: History Day 2023

Schedule a free virtual appointment for research help!

Need help finding sources on your Chicago Metro History Fair project? Book an individual Google Meet research consultation with an expert librarian at Northeastern Illinois University! Appointments can be scheduled for 30-minute time periods using Calendly.

Note: Chicago Public School students should use their personal email addresses (rather than CPS email addresses) when scheduling appointments, due to calendar and Google Meet restrictions on CPS gmail accounts.

Before your appointment: Watch this playlist on finding sources!

Search for Books

Primo VE (NEIU Libraries Catalog)
This is an NEIU-specific interface for searching OCLC's WorldCat, a catalog that unifies thousands of libraries from across the country and around the world. It's ideal for searching out books rare or obscure enough that they cannot be found in our 75 member I-Share network here in Illinois, which this catalog also encompasses.

Search for Scholarly Journal Articles

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
References to articles and books on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present, indexing 1964 to present.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
An historical, fulltext archive of core journals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences; includes indexing for the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984; 1998-) and for the Illinois Historical Journal (1984-1998).

Journal of Illinois History
Available in print in the 2nd floor periodicals section of NEIU's Ronald Williams Library.

Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
References to articles and books on the history of the world focusing on the 15th century to the present (excluding the United States and Canada), indexing 1955 to present.

Search for Historical Periodicals Online

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provide access to U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience, including many rare and historically significant 19th century titles.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Search more than 170 African American Periodicals published between 1825 and 1995
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Essential historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself.
Chicago Tribune Historical This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Full text, 1849-1999
New York Times Historical 1851-2013 This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Historical collection offers full page and article images with searchable full text.

Search Physical Archives in Chicago

Explore Chicago Collections
Chicago is home to a diverse range of organizations with extensive resources about the city's history and culture. Researchers often have to visit more than one archive to do in-depth research about Chicago. Most libraries and museums provide detailed guides to their archives that researchers can consult on the web prior to visiting in person. Until now, researchers had to know (or guess) in advance which libraries were likely to have relevant materials. Explore Chicago Collections brings those guides together into a single gateway to Chicago resources. By searching Explore Chicago Collections, you can easily tell which archives you'll need to consult to research your subject, and you may even discover resources in unexpected places.
Historic Chicago Newspapers at the Chicago Public Library
Located on the third floor of the Chicago Public Library's main downtown branch, the Harold Washington Library Center.

Search Digital Archives

Digital Public Library of America
A range of organizations, including the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, have successfully built resources that provide books, images, historic records, and audiovisual materials to anyone with Internet access. Many universities, public libraries, and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials, but these digital collections often exist in silos. The DPLA brings these different viewpoints, experiences, and collections together in a single platform and portal, providing open and coherent access to our society’s digitized cultural heritage.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. It contains 279 billion web pages, 11 million books and texts, 4 million audio recordings (including 160,000 live concerts), 3 million videos (including 1 million Television News programs), 1 million images, and 100,000 software programs.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. It provides a gateway to a growing treasury of digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, and books, as well as "born digital" materials such as Web sites.