Library Guides: American Studies: Environmental History

Encyclopedias and Guides

The Atlas of U. S. and Canadian Environmental History by Char Miller (Editor)
Publication Date: 2003
The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History by Carolyn Merchant
Call Number: General Collection - GF 501 .M47 2002
A Companion to American Environmental History by Douglas Cazaux Sackman (Editor)
Call Number: General Collection - GE 195 .C655 2010
A Dictionary of Environmental History by Ian Whyte
Publication Date: 2013
Encyclopedia of American Environmental History by Kathleen A. Brosnan Beginning with eight broad thematic essays, this resource highlights the major issues and topics in environmental history and serve as an entryway to other, more specific articles. Arranged alphabetically, more than 750 articles cover every significant issue, event, law, and figure in U.S. environmental history.
Call Number: Hesburgh Library, General Collection - GE 150 .E53 2011 v.1-v.4
ISBN: 9780816067930
Publication Date: 2010-11-01

Encyclopedia of Environment and Society This link opens in a new window
Call Number: Reference, Collection [1st Floor] - HM 856 .E53 2007 [In-Library Use Only]

Exploring Environmental History by T. C. Smout
Call Number: General Collection - GF 13 .S66 2009

Newspapers

Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new window
Full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals from alternative and independent presses.

AlterNet
News source for independent and alternative journalism.

Gale in context. Global issues (formerly Global issues in context) This link opens in a new window
It spans continents and cultures to bring information to researchers across academic disciplines. Integrating news, global viewpoints, reference, country information, primary source documents, videos, statistics in a single search.

Full-text Online Collections

American West :Sources from the Everett D. Graff Collection at the Newberry Library, Chicago This link opens in a new window
Contains manuscripts, maps, ephemera, and rare printed sources about the American West, including tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes, and outlaws, and the growth of urban centers and environmental impact of westward expansion and of life in the borderlands, from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
From the Library of Congress' American Memory Project.
Growing a Nation: The Story of American Agriculture
A dated multi-media website produced by the US Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Its narrative offers an institutional-based history of US agriculture that contrasts with environmental histories of American agriculture.

Health Source - Consumer Edition This link opens in a new window
Provides consumer-oriented information on health topics from consumer health periodicals, reference works, and pamphlets. Covers medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, adult health, behavioral health, cardiology, drug and medication information, pediatric health, senior health, women's health, and sports medicine.
Hurricane digital memory bank This link opens in a new window
Collected first-hand accounts of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, along with archives of blog postings, podcasts, and on-the scene visual documentation.

National Park Service History Electronic Library
A portal to thousands of electronic publications and videos, this site’s materials cover the history of the National Park Service and the cultural and natural history of the national parks, monuments, and historic sites of the U.S. National Park System. The site is independent of the National Park Service but relies on contributions of materials by NPS employees and supporters.
National Park Service LIBrary Resource Information Service (LIBRIS)
The National Park Service's online catalog and portal to resources about the agency, including visitor statistics and more.
Organic Roots Collection
From the National Agricultural Library, the United States Department of Agriculture, historic documents published before 1942--before synthetic chemicals became widely used. Additional documents from this collection are available at the Internet Archive.

Overland journeys: travels in the west,1800-1880 This link opens in a new window
This database is comprised of selections from microfilm collections based on H. L. Wagner’s The Plains and the Rockies: A Bibliography of Original Narratives of Travel and Adventure, 1800-1865 and John M. Townley’s The Trail West: A Bibliography-Index to Western American Trails, 1841-1869.
TRAIL (Technical Report Archive and Image Library) This link opens in a new window
Searchable database of U.S. government technical reports issued primarily prior to 1975, from a collaborative project to digitize, archive, and provide persistent and unrestricted access.

Audio-Visual

Forest History Society YouTube Channel
Features clips of historic films from the Forest History Society’s archives, such as footage of logging operations, forest fire suppression, Smokey Bear television PSAs and much more.
The Fritz-Metcalf Photograph Collection at the Marian Koshland Bioscience & Natural Resources Library, University of California, Berkeley
A group of about 9000 photographs relating primarily to forestry, conservation, and the lumber industry in California and the United States. The photographs were taken from 1906 to 1984 by Emanuel Fritz, Woodbridge Metcalf, and others.
The National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection
A collection of more than two million images, 1,975 of which are available online. They cover Park architecture, Civilian Conservation Corps, Native American heritage, NPS personnel, roads and transportation, scenic views, and more.

Websites about Environmental History

American Society of Environmental History
Offers resources for teaching and research.
The Environment and Society Portal
It offers access to resources about human participation in, and understandings of, the environment. It addresses the community of teachers and researchers in environment-related humanities, and the interested public. The portal is the digital publication platform and archive of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, a nonprofit joint initiative of the University of Munich and the Deutsches Museum.
H-Environment
Part of H-NET, the Humanities & Social Sciences Online initiative, H-Environment is a platform for environmental historians to communicate about new work and resources, and promote discussion in the field.

Archival Research and Collections

This is a very selected list.

The Guide to Environmental History Archival Collections
The Forest History Society offers this database, which contains descriptions of over 7,000 groups of environmental history records located in more than 450 repositories across North America and around the world.
The Denver Public Library Conservation Collections
Dedicated to sharing resources and services about African-American History, Western History, Genealogy and the Conservation Movement in the Rocky Mountain West.
The EPA National Library Network
Provides information resources and services to EPA staff and the public to support the mission of the EPA.
The Forest History Society Research Center
The Forest History Society promotes the study of the history of human interaction with the environment.
The Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Bloomington
The rare books, manuscripts, and special collections library of the Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington holds resources for the study of the American West with particular emphasis on overland narratives and diaries, on the Pacific Northwest, and on the California Gold Rush.
National Park Service Records at the National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) holds records for the National Park Service (NPS), scattered around the country in regional NARA repositories. NARA provides a list of repositories that hold NPS records. Search the regional archives’ sites for details about NPS records held there.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Conservation Library
The library provides a suite of collections and resources that aid in information discovery.
United States Forest Service History Collection at the Forest History Society
The Forest History Society manages a collection of the US Forest Services' records, including a searchable database. This collection should be used in conjunction with the US Forest Service records held by the National Archives.
United States Forest Service Records at the National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) holds records for the National Forest Service (NFS), scattered around the country in regional NARA repositories. NARA provides a list of repositories that hold NFS records. Search the regional archives’ sites for details about NFS records held there.