Research Guides: History: Journals and Articles

Journals and Articles

The following databases offer excellent access to journal articles over a long historical period and extensive geographical coverage. While searching by keyword in the Omni catalogue is a vital step in your research journey, consider expanding your search to the various databases and resources we have available for you. Browse through the databases that you have full access to, and search for articles, documents, accounts, and reports often not available anywhere else. For information on books, newspapers, and data, visit those pages in the menu to the left.

Key Indexing Resources

America : History & Life
America History and Life contains citations, with abstracts to social science and humanities literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present.
Maximum of 6 simultaneous users.
C19: Nineteenth Century Index
C19 Index is a bibliographic database for 19th century research, providing integrated access to the most important finding aids for books, periodicals, official publications, newspapers and archives. Users can query collections simultaneously, or can conduct more detailed research using collection specific search screens.
Canadian Business & Current Affairs Database (CBCA)
This database, with 600 full text titles, is the most comprehensive Canadian reference collection available today. Accessible to readers and researchers at every level, CBCA Complete features a highly-respected, diversified mix of publications, including scholarly journals, trade publications, dissertations, books, newspapers and magazines.
CPI.Q Canadian Periodicals Index
CPI.Q is Gale’s award-winning full-text resource specifically designed to provide instant access to the most requested Canadian reference materials. Covering a wide range of disciplines, CPI.Q is the perfect one-stop resource for researchers in need of information from Canadian-focused journals, magazines, newspapers and reference sources.

CPI.Q features a wealth of Canadian and international periodicals, Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s weekly magazine and Canadian News Facts as well as comprehensive encyclopedic reference material.
English Historical Documents
English Historical Documents Online contains over 5,500 indexed and fully searchable primary documents from 500 to 1914. This includes American Colonial Documents, which was previously out of print. The online version of the standard series of primary source documents in British history, conceived in wartime and with volumes published since 1953, can also be found here.Sources include government and cabinet proceedings, military dispatches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, personal and official letters and diaries. It covers political and constitutional topics and social, economic, religious and cultural history.
Historical Abstracts
This database contains abstracts of articles from journals relating to the history of the world (excluding Canada and the US) from 1450 to the present. Also included are abstracts of important books in this field.
Historicity
The Toronto Public Library has some of the largest local history and genealogy collections in Canada.
History of Science, Technology & Medicine
History of Science, Technology and Medicine integrates four bibliographies—the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology, the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza and the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. With an interdisciplinary focus, the database covers topics on the role of scientific discovery in society and culture, as well as the historiography of scientific disciplines from prehistory to the present. It includes journal articles, conference proceedings, books, dissertations, serials, maps and other related materials.
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law
HeinOnline's Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law was created from a desire to consolidate the wealth of material available on indigenous American life and law, and to share the tremendous influence that these peoples and their cultures have had on the development of the United States.
Online Egyptological Bibliography (OEB)
The Online Egyptological Bibliography (OEB) holds the details of more than 100,000 references in Egyptological literature. It includes the volumes of the previous Annual Egyptological Bibliography (AEB) for 1947-2001 with all abstracts, combined with Bibliographie Altägypten (BA) for 1822-1946, and a large majority of the records in the Aigyptos database. The OEB provides coverage of Egyptological literature from 1822 to the present and is updated nearly every day.
Oral History Online
Oral History Online provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,500 collections of Oral History in English from around the world.
The collection also provides keyword searching of more than 271,000 pages of full-text by some 9,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 3,000 audio and video files and over 17,000 bibliographic records.

Digital Collections (Access for TMU Community Members Only)

Archives of Sexuality and Gender (ASG)
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender from Gale provides a significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.

TMU has 5 parts of the Archives of Sexuality and Gender Collection:
- ASG1: LGBTQ History Since 1940 pt1
- ASG2: LGBTQ History Since 1940 pt2
- ASG3: Sex and Sexuality in the 16th through 20th centuries
- ASG4: LGBTQ Activism and Culture in the Global South
- ASG5: Not purchased
- ASG6: Community and Identity in North America *NEW*
Black Studies Center
Black Studies Center brings together essential historical and current material for researching the past, present and future of African Americans, the wider African Diaspora, and Africa itself. It is comprised of several cross-searchable, component databases, which include:
British And Irish Women's Letters And Diaries
British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of women, as revealed through pages of published letters and diaries from 1500 to 1900, including several thousand pages of previously unpublished materials. Drawn journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings, much of the material is in copyright. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous.
The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
British Periodicals
This database provides access to the searchable full text of hundreds of periodicals from the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth, comprising millions of high-resolution facsimile page images. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the social sciences, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
Manuscript material relating to the activities and observations of British and American diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists in China from 1793 to 1980, together with rare periodicals, colour paintings, maps, photographs and drawings. All of the manuscript material has been indexed by person, place and subject. An interactive map encourages searches by city and region.
Defining Gender
This exciting collection of original source material from British and European archives will enrich the teaching and research experience of those studying history, literature, sociology, education and cultural studies from a gendered perspective. Manuscripts, printed works and illustrations combine to address the key issues from both masculine and feminine perspectives.
Canadiana
Canadiana is a bilingual digital library of primary (source) documents of early Canadian printed publications including books, annuals and periodicals. Over 1,300 sources (including 350 titles from outside the U.S.) are indexed and abstracted. Of these, 600 are available in full text.

Formerly known as Early Canadiana Online.
Early Encounters in North America
Early Encounters in North America contains over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Particular care has been taken to index the material so that it can be used in new ways. For example, you can identify all encounters between the French and the Huron between 1650 and 1700.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Bearing witness to what many scholars consider the three most significant events in world history – The American Revolution, The French Revolution and The Industrial Revolution – this resource features: Full-text search capabilities; Canonical titles of the period as well as contemporary works that analyze and debate those titles; Works by both well-known and lesser-known authors. Toronto Metropolitan has both original ECCO and ECCO 2.
Eighteenth Century Journals
This database brings together journals printed between 1693 and 1799 illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. They offer effective coverage of the important issues of the period, and are invaluable to the study of all aspects of the eighteenth century, including crime, sport, advertising, the theatre; fashion; politics, revolution; agriculture; social issues and society life.

Part I contains material from the Hope Collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Part II has titles chosen from the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center which holds one of the finest collections of 17th and 18th century newspapers and periodicals in the world.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.
English Historical Documents
English Historical Documents Online contains over 5,500 indexed and fully searchable primary documents from 500 to 1914. This includes American Colonial Documents, which was previously out of print. The online version of the standard series of primary source documents in British history, conceived in wartime and with volumes published since 1953, can also be found here.Sources include government and cabinet proceedings, military dispatches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, personal and official letters and diaries. It covers political and constitutional topics and social, economic, religious and cultural history.
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
The Fortunoff Archive currently holds more than 4,400 testimonies. The Fortunoff Archive and its affiliates recorded the testimonies of willing individuals with first-hand experience of the Nazi persecutions, including those who were in hiding, survivors, bystanders, resistants, and liberators. Testimonies were recorded in whatever language the witness preferred, and range in length from 30 minutes to over 40 hours (recorded over several sessions).
JSTOR
JSTOR has created a full text digital archive of core scholarly journals with complete back runs of many titles. As part of JSTOR’s agreement with publishers, current issues (usually the last 3 – 5 years) are not digitized by JSTOR and may be obtained elsewhere. The Toronto Metropolitan University Library has access to the entire content of JSTOR’s archival journal collections.
Maclean's Magazine Digital Archive
Maclean’s Magazine Digital Archive, offering content from 1905-2015, a Canadian news and general interest magazine, provides a unique perspective on both national and international affairs. Topics include investigative reporting, opinion and analysis on politics, economy and business, science and technology, society, arts and culture, education and work. It was initially known as then The Busy Man’s Magazine from 1896-1911, with a couple of 1905 issues published as The Business Magazine, and then changed to the current title, Maclean’s, in 1911.
Medieval Travel Writing
The core of the material is a collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries around the world and dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The main focus is accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. These have been reproduced in colour where appropriate. These are augmented by an array of translations and supporting materials (all of which are fully searchable) and interactive maps showing the routes of the travellers.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Nineteenth Century Collections Online is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. Composed of contemporaneous letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives, the series provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines.
North American Indian Thought and Culture
This fifth release of North American Indian Thought and Culture contains over 119,000 pages of text and images. Included are biographies, auto-biographies, personal narratives, speeches, diaries, letters, and oral histories.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries
North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Oral History Online
Oral History Online provides in-depth indexing to more than 2,500 collections of Oral History in English from around the world.
The collection also provides keyword searching of more than 271,000 pages of full-text by some 9,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 3,000 audio and video files and over 17,000 bibliographic records.
Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007
This resource on trans-Atlantic slavery and abolition brings together original manuscript and rare printed material from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Documents are presented alongside contextual essays contributed by leading academics in the field; each essay will have hypertext links to the primary sources it discusses.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 is organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. This collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. women’s history generally. The collection currently includes 124 document projects and archives with more than 5,100 documents and 175,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by 2,800 primary authors. It also includes book, film, and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
Women's Magazine Archive
An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period. Among the research fields served by this material are gender studies, social history, economics/marketing, media, fashion, politics, and popular culture.

Digital Collections (Open Access, Freely Available)

Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Early English Books Online (EEBO) The aim of the Early English Books Online Project is to capture the earliest extant edition of every English-language work published during the first two centuries of printing in England, and converting this material into fully-searchable texts.

United Nations Treaty Collection
This publication provides information on the status of over 500 major multilateral instruments deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations (as of 1 January 2009) and covers a range of subject matter such as Human Rights, Disarmament, Commodities, Refugees, the Environment and the Law of the Sea. The number of treaties deposited with the Secretary-General keeps growing steadily. This publication reflects the status of these instruments, as Member States sign, ratify, accede or lodge declarations, reservations or objections. It is over one thousand pages in length and is published annually in hard copy (three volumes). The on-line version is currently updated daily.