Randall Library Home

History of Sexuality in the U.S.

Course Number:

HST 440/518

Instructor:

Berkeley, Kathleen

Articles & eResources

America: History & Life

JSTOR

Project MUSE

PsycINFO

Indexes the psychology literature back to 1870s.

HeinOnline

Useful for legal aspects of sexuality. Includes full text of the Congressional Record and its predecessor titles.

LexisNexis Academic

Use the legal section for court decisions and statutes.

Using the Library Catalog

Click here to search the Library Catalog

Although keyword searching is a powerful tool in searching the library catalog and WorldCat database, it is often useful to use the authorized subject headings catalogers assign to library materials. This is a list of potentially useful headings. Find others by checking the headings on materials your keyword searches retrieve.

Sex customs -- United States -- History
Sex instruction -- United States -- History
Sex role -- United States -- History
Sexology -- United States
Sexual ethics -- United States -- History

Some narrower terms include (add United States -- History to limit results):
Abortion
Birth control
Childbirth
Contraception
Free love
Homosexuality
Interracial marriage
Midwifery
Midwives
Miscegenation
Prostitution
Reproductive rights

Some more general terms may also yield useful sources:
[Classes of persons] -- Sexual behavior
Femininity
Feminism
Girls
Masculinity
Teenage girls
United States -- Social life and customs -- [time period]
Women -- Legal status-- United States

Books & Library Materials

Encyclopedia of American Social History

Part XI in Volume 3 contains essays on family history, including sexual behavior

African American experience : an historiographical and bibliographical guide

See the essay on sexuality and race.

Colonial America : an encyclopedia of social, political, cultural, and economic history

See the essay on Women and Gender issues.

Gay & lesbian biography

ABC-CLIO companion to women's progress in America

Encyclopedia of women in American history

Encyclopedia of women and gender

Men and masculinities : a social, cultural, and historical encyclopedia

Sexuality and the law : an encyclopedia of major legal cases

Women's studies encyclopedia

United States government documents on women, 1800-1990 : a comprehensive bibliography

Girl culture : an encyclopedia

Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement : a bibliography, 1911-1984

Journals

Journal of the history of sexuality

Websites

American Memory Project

The Library of Congress' digital collections are searchable across the entire database or by individual collection.

American Women's History: A Research Guide

This guide from Middle Tennessee State University includes several subject pages of interest, e.g., advice literature, prostitution, sexuality, etc.

American Women Through Time

This chronology is part of the MTSU site on women's history.

Discovering American Women's History Online

Also from MTSU, this page focuses on digital collections.

Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement

An online archive from Duke University's Special Collections

Early Modern Women Database

The University of Maryland Libraries maintains this site, focusing on scholarly internet resources on women in Europe and the Americas, 1500-1800.

Sexbiblio: Bibliography of the History of Western Sexuality

Bibliography of sources on the history of sexuality in Europe and the U.S., 1700-2004.

Lesbian History

This website was created by a course in lesbian history at the University of Michigan

Margaret Sanger Papers Project

This NYU website provides some online documents.

Talking History

This oral history and history lecture collection from the University at Albany, SUNY is keyword searchable.

Primary Sources

North American Women's Letters and Diaries

Searchable and browsable in a variety of ways, including life event.

Readers' Guide Retrospective

Indexes popular magazines 1890-1984.

Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective

Indexes scholarly periodicals, 1901-1984.

American Diaries

A bibliography of published diaries.

Women's Diaries Journals and Letters: An Annotated Bibliography

Classics in lesbian studies

Gender issues and sexuality : essential primary sources

Federal abortion politics : a documentary history

Abortion controversy : a documentary history

We shall be heard : an index to speeches by American women, 1978 to 1985

American women's diaries New England

American women's diaries. Southern

American women's diaries Western women

Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century

Contact Librarian

Sue Cody

codys [at] uncw [dot] edu

962-7409

AIM: sueann53

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