LibGuides: SCWK 210 (All Courses): Biographical Resources

Subject Encyclopedias

Credo This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from 1,000 reference titles such as subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and reference handbooks. Also includes over 1,100 short reference videos and over 450,000 high-resolution art images, photographs and maps.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Full text chapters from over 12,000 books on many general and academic subjects.
Literature (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Citations for hundreds of thousands of books, articles, and dissertations from 1926 to present linked to full text where available. Also includes biographical information, overview essays, full text literary criticism, and reviews on over 130,000 writers including authors and illustrators of children's and young adult literature. Also contains over 5.6 million book reviews, over 150,000 full text poems, over 800,000 poetry citations as well as short stories, speeches, and plays.
Searches four databases:
Book Review Index
Literature Resource Center
LitFinder
Something About the Author

Biography Resources

Biography In Context (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Full text biographical entries on over 640,000 people from all time periods and areas of study including videos, audio selections, images, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles from hundreds of major periodicals and newspapers. Search by name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender.
Biography Reference Source (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Use with caution! This source is great for images, but most of the content is written for children.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Articles, biographical essays, and primary documents about many people.

Books

Unless the person you are researching is exceptionally well-known, it is unlikely that entire books will have been written about him or her. More information will be found in reference books such as the ones in Credo Reference.

To see if information can be found in books other than these electronic resources, search Smart Search and the Ebook Collection.

Article Databases

Article databases like these may provide biographical information on a variety of people.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources including complete runs of over 2,600 journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Also includes over 60,000 DRM-free ebooks and over 2 million primary sources. Supports text mining/analysis and digital humanities research by providing datasets for journals, books, research reports, and pamphlets in the digital library.
SocIndex with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Full text articles and chapters from over 860 journals, 830 books, and 16,800 conference papers from 1908 to present. Also includes over 2.1 million citations.
Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from over 8,500 publications including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Also contains citations for over 25,000 publications including white papers, reports, conference proceedings, etc.

Historical Newspapers

New York Times: 1851-2020 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Digitized pages of every issue of the New York Times from 1851 through 2020 including articles, editorials, ads, and obituaries.
Chicago Defender: 1909-1975 (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Digitized pages of every issue of the Chicago Defender from 1909 through 1975 including articles, editorials, ads, and obituaries.
Gerritsen Women's History Collection of Aletta H. Jacobs This link opens in a new window
Digitized pages of over 4,000 publications from Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand from 1543-1945 on suffrage, feminism, and daily life in the English-speaking world.
HarpWeek This link opens in a new window
Digitized pages of every issue of Harper’s Weekly, America's leading 19th century illustrated newspaper, from 1857 to 1912.
Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from 340 newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press from 1990 to present. Also includes 300,000 full text articles from Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989. Of the total of 2.5 million articles over 625,000 articles (25%) are in Spanish.