Reference Works - A Place to Begin
FOOD ENCYCLOPEDIAS
- The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in Americacovers the significant events, inventions, and social movements in American history that have affected the way Americans view, prepare, and consume food and drink. 700 articles on regions, people, ingredients, companies, advertising, historical eras, holidays and festivals, and political, scientific, and economic currents pertinent to American cuisine.
- Encyclopedia of Food and Culture600 entries featuring multidisciplinary coverage of such topics as comfort food, ethnicity and food, medieval banquets, and nutrient composition, among many others. Includes photographs, illustrations, sidebars, recipes, menus, and timelines.
- Encyclopedia of Kitchen HistoryThe breadth of topics, including the evolution of the chimney, the uses of fruit from the Pleistocene to the present, cutlery as a status symbol, salt, weights and measures, canisters, and cannibalism, offers more than a glimpse into the social and scientific aspects of the center of family and community life. The term kitchen is used in the broadest sense, encompassing campfires, galleys, and mess tents, among other variations. There are 300 entries from around half a page to more than eight pages, balanced toward the U.S. A bibliography of sources, including books, articles, databases, and Web sites, is a useful resource for those seeking more information on particular topics.
- Archaeology of Food: An encyclopediaoffers more than 250 entries spanning geographic and temporal contexts and features recent discoveries alongside the results of decades of research. The contributors provide overviews of current knowledge and theoretical perspectives, raise key questions, and delve into myriad scientific, archaeological, and material analyses to add depth to our understanding of food.
- Sweet Treats Around the WorldThis encyclopedia surveys nearly 100 countries, examining their characteristic sweet treats from an anthropological perspective. It offers historical context on what sweets are popular where and why and emphasizes the cross-cultural insights those sweets present.
- The SAGE Encyclopedia of Food IssuesContains approximately 500 signed entries concluding with cross-references and suggestions for further readings; explores the topic of food across multiple disciplines within the social sciences and related areas including business, consumerism, marketing, and environmentalism, focusing on social and policy aspects of food production, safety, regulation, labeling, marketing, distribution, and consumption. A sampling of general topic areas covered includes Agriculture, Labor, Food Processing, Marketing and Advertising, Trade and Distribution, Retail and Shopping, Consumption, Food Ideologies, Food in Popular Media, Food Safety, Environment, Health, Government Policy, and Hunger and Poverty.
- The Chicago Food EncyclopediaHundreds of entries deliver all of the visionary restauranteurs, Michelin superstars, beloved haunts, and food companies of today and yesterday.
- Encyclopedia of Pastathe first book to provide a complete history of pasta in Italy, telling its long story via the extravagant variety of shapes it takes and the even greater abundance of names by which it is known. Food scholar Oretta Zanini De Vita traveled to every corner of her native Italy, recording oral histories, delving into long-forgotten family cookbooks, and searching obscure archives to produce this rich and uniquely personal compendium of historical and geographical information. For each entry she includes the primary ingredients, preparation techniques, variant names, and the locality where it is made and eaten.
- Larousse Gastronomiqueis an encyclopedia of gastronomy. The majority of the book is about French cuisine, recipes, and cooking techniques. The first edition included few non-French dishes and ingredients; later editions include many more.
Latin American Studies Encyclopedias/Bibliographies
- Oxford Bibliographies Online: Latin American StudiesCombines the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia to guide researchers to the best available scholarship in Latin American Studies. Each article includes an introduction written by a top scholar in the field. Also includes expert recommendations on the best works available in each discipline – whether it be a chapter, a book, a journal article, a website, an archive, or data set – to streamline the research process
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia: Latin American Historyoffers long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars in Latin American History. The encyclopedia covers both foundational and cutting-edge topics in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research. This source is regularly updated.
- Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, 2nd ed. (2008)Provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary view of Latin American history and culture from prehistoric times to the present. Covers cultural issues and includes numerous biographical profiles of important figures in politics, letters and the arts.
- The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos & Latinas in the United StatesWith an unprecedented scope and cutting-edge scholarship, this encyclopedia draws together the diverse historical and contemporary experiences in the United States of Latinos and Latinas from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Over 900 A-to-Z articles written by academics, scholars, writers, artists, and journalists, address such broad topics as identity, art, politics, religion, education, health, and history.
- Latino America: A state-by-state encyclopediaA Hispanic and Latino presence in what is now the United States goes back to Spanish settlement in the sixteenth century in Florida and the progressive U.S. conquest of the Spanish-controlled territory of California and the Southwest by 1853 and the Gadsden Purchase. Much of this information is hard to find and has never been researched before. All 50 states and the District of Columbia are covered in individual chapters. The historical overview is the core of the chapter. A selected bibliography and photos complement the chapters.
A Note About Keywords and Subject Headings
"Bibliography," "historiography," and "sources" are all Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) subheadings.
Journal Article Databases
HISTORY JOURNALS
- Historical AbstractsHistorical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present excluding the United States and Canada, from over 2,000 journals published worldwide.
- America: History & Lifethe definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With indexing for 1,700 journals from 1964 to present, this database is without question the most important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history.
- Hispanic American Periodicals IndexHAPI indexes article citations about Central and South America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. Analyses of current political, economic, and social issues as well as unique coverage of Latin American arts and letters.
MULTIDISCIPLINARY DATABASES
Google Scholar vs. Primo
JSTOR vs. Academic Search Complete
- Academic Search Complete (1975-present)
Covers topics in most areas of academic study. Full-text provided for over 10,000 publications, with over 7,850 peer-reviewed. Abstracts and indexing available for over 13,780 journals in the collection.
- JSTOR
Database and full texts of journal articles.
- MAS Ultra (1975 - )
Full text for more than 700 popular magazines, plus biographies, primary source documents, pamphlets, and reference books. Complements Academic Search Complete.
- Project MUSE Premium collection
A comprehensive collection of peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journals from leading university presses, not-for-profit publishers and prestigious scholarly societies.
Journals can be searched individually, in groups, or all together.
- Scopus
The world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Contains over 46 million records, 70% with abstracts, and also includes over 4.6 million conference papers.
More than 900 searchable full-text law journals and many legal resources, including the Code of Federal Regulations, United States Code, and U.S. Statutes at Large. Useful for U.S. political history.
Open Access Cookbook Archives
- Food & Drink in HistoryFrom feast to famine, explore primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production.
- The Sifterincludes over 8,000 authors and 8,000 works with details. The central documents are cookbooks and other writings related to getting, preparing, and consuming food, and the activities associated with them. It is based on the wiki model.
- UTSA's Mexican Cookbook CollectionUniversity of Texas at San Antonio's Mexican Cookbook Collection consists of more than 2,000 cookbooks, from 1789 to the present, with most books dating from 1940-2000. A selection of the materials from this collection have been digitized and are available online, including manuscript cookbooks from the collection. These handwritten recipe books provide an intimate view of domestic life and Mexican culinary culture.
- Culinary Institute of America's Menu Archivealmost 5,000 menus from 1740-2000s
- The Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museumhouses an extensive display of kitchen items collected by Chuck Williams, the visionary founder of Williams Sonoma, and Wade Bentson, one of the first employees of Williams Sonoma. The museum collection represents a rich heritage of the culinary arts from around the world and includes treasures from the 18th and 19th century—a batterie de cuisine of copper cookware from 1890s France; ceramic and metal chocolate and ice cream molds; and European and early American baking and pastry equipment. Among the nearly 4,000 artifacts are bread baking and culinary tools, specialty cookware, tableware, large and small appliances, and cookbooks.
- Duke U's Nicole Di Bona Peterson Collection of Advertising Cookbooks, 1850s-2000sCollection spans the years 1851-2005 and includes hang tags, inserts, recipe cards and guides, cookbooks, operating instructions, owner's manuals and other promotional materials addressed to cooking and kitchen arts. Materials in the collection were used to educate consumers and promote the use of a variety of foods (meat; fish and poultry; dairy; soups; fruits and vegetables; beverages); condiments and spices (sauces, bouillon and broths, chocolate and cocoa, baking soda and baking powder); canning jars; small appliances (cookware, blenders, mixers, microwave ovens); and large appliances (stoves and refrigerators). In addition cookbooks were produced to promote various institutions and trade organizations representing various agricultural cooperatives, insurance and utility companies, churches and government bureaus.
- Internet Archive's Cookbook & Home Economics Collectionincludes books from the Young Research Library Department of Special Collections at UCLA, The Bancroft Library at The University of California, Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library. These fascinating books take us back to an America in the early decades of the 20th century covering topics on cookery, textiles, family and home, budgeting, domestic sciences, and many other delightful topics.
- Virginia Tech's History of Food & Drink Collectionan additional link to their manuscript collection https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/HFDMss
- FSU - Ruth Graves Wakefield Cookbook Collection (NOT digitized)comprised of the donor's personal library of books on cooking, domestic science, etiquette, and other household topics. Ruth Graves worked as a dietitian and food lecturer. In 1930, she published a cookbook entitled Ruth Wakefield's Recipes: Tried and True. The most famous of her original recipes was the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie, better known as the chocolate chip cookie.
- Johnson & Wales University Culinary Arts Museumover 16,000 historic artifacts associated with the fields of culinary arts, food studies and hospitality. Through its online catalog, students and researchers can access digitized images of museum collection objects and identify book, journal and artifact holdings.
- Michigan State University's Feeding America Collectionan online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The digital archive includes 76 cookbooks from the MSU Libraries' collection as well as searchable full-text transcriptions.
- NY Academy of Medicine's Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbookscontains eleven English-language manuscript receipt books that were compiled between the seventeenth and the late nineteenth centuries in which the majority of the collected recipes are culinary in nature, but many recipes for home remedies are discoverable here as well.
- Texas Woman’s University Culinary History and Cookbook Collectioninclude over 25,000 books, 20,000 vendors' pamphlets, recipe books dating from 1624, conduct and etiquette manuals, household management techniques, and menus from around the world. Unfortunately, only 46 have been fully digitized.
Home Economics / Domestic Sciences Periodicals
- HEARTH - Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition, HistoryHEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available.
- Ladies Home Journal and Practical Housekeeper (1884-1889)The Ladies’ Home Journal remains to this day the prototype for women’s magazines. Heavy with advertising and advice on homemaking, cooking, fashion, and children, it also included information on family relationships.
- 19th Century Collections - Women and Transnational NetworksIssues of gender and class ignited nineteenth-century debate in the context of suffrage movements, culture, immigration, health and many other concerns. Using a wide array of primary source documents—serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports, and visuals—Women and Transnational Networks focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late-eighteenth century to the era of suffrage in the early-twentieth century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection also contains some popular women's magazines of the time.
- Woman's Home Companion (1899-1921)was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, Ohio, was discontinued in 1957.
Digital Images Archives
- ArtStorCollection of nearly 2 million images, documenting artistic traditions across many times and cultures. Embraces architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture.
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Primary Source Collections
- WGSS Primary Source WebpageLGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940; Independent Voices; LGBT Thought and Culture; Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000