College of DuPage Library

Finding Books

Use the COD Library's book catalog to find books & videos. Click on the "keyword" tab to search using multiple search terms and limit your results by material type (book, video), date, or language. You'll need a current library card to check out books.

E-book Collections
Most books in these collections can also be located and accessed by searching in the Library's book catalog.

• ebrary

Collection contains many Great Migration-related books. In the search box, type in "great migration" Many e-books can be viewed from your computer or downloaded to your e-book reader. You need to create an account to download e-books to your device.

This collection contains several books that pertain to the Great Migration. Begin your search by typing in the phrase "Great Migration" in the search box. Pages from this collection can be printed and emailed.

Reference Works

Reference works, such as dictionaries and encyclopedias are useful for learning about background information on the Great Migration.

Please note that print reference books may be used while in the library only. Online reference books may be accessed from any on or off-campus computer. You'll need a library card to access online books and articles from off-campus.
Click on the links below to access the online book/website or record/description of the print book.

Encyclopedias

• The African American Encyclopedia
  Reference E185 .A253 1993 v.4

• Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007
  Reference E185.96 .B526 See also the companion web site.

• Black Women in America
  General E185.86 .B542 2005

• Civil Rights in the United States
  Reference E184.A1 C47 2000

• Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History
  Reference E185 E54 1996 v.4

• Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History - the Black Experience in the Americas e-book
  Also in Reference E185 .E54 2006 v.4

• Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. e-book
• The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America
  Reference E185.61 .E544 1998

• Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration e-book
• Freedom Facts and Firsts : 400 years of the African American Civil Rights Experience - e-book
• The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Twenty-First Century. e-book
• Historical Statistics of Black America
  Reference E185 .H543 1995

• The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference
  Reference E185 .N49 1999

• Notable Black American Men
  Reference E185.86 .N68 1999

Databases

The Library subscribes to many databases that provide access to thousands of popular and credible, scholarly journals. Many databases provide access to full-text articles, while some provide information about the article only (citation). Request (for free!) through Interlibrary Loan copies of articles to which the Library doesn't have full-text access.

Databases - Best Bets

• History Study Center
  Find Journal articles, reference materials and multimedia presentations on the Great Migration. Copy and paste into the search box the following text to retrieve information specific to the Great Migration: "Great Migration" AND ("African american" OR Negro OR black)

• JSTOR

Click here to run a search for articles specific to the Great Migration in JSTOR.
JSTOR is an excellent source for credible scholarly, peer-reviewed articles and book reviews. Articles in database were published between the early 1700s and between 1-5 years ago.

• Project MUSE
  Project MUSE offers full-text current and archival articles from 500+ scholarly journals from major university presses covering literature and criticism, history, performing arts, cultural studies, education, philosophy, political science, gender studies, and more. Updated continually.
  To search in Project MUSE, click on the Advanced Search screen, and try using the following search as shown in the image below:
  

Websites

Who can publish on the Internet? Anyone.

You may find a website by doing a web search or through a recommendation of another student. Before you use a website for your assignment, you should evaluate the webpage for credibility, reliability, authority and purpose. Check out the CRAP Test for more information on evaluating websites.

The following websites have been evaluated for their credibility.

• Amistad Digital Resource - The Great Migration
  Brief overview of the Great Migration.

• In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
  Beginning with the 15th century Transatlantic Slave Trade through African Immigration in the 1970s, this site includes images, texts, maps and other educational materials that "...presents a new interpretation of African-American history, one that focuses on the self-motivated activities of peoples of African descent to remake themselves and their worlds."

• The African American Mosaic - Migrations
  This site, hosted by the he Library Of Congress contains maps relating to African American migration. Of particular note is the collection, Chicago: Destination for the Great Migration.

• Digital Harlem - Everyday life 1915-1930
  "The Digital Harlem website presents information, drawn from legal records, newspapers and other archival and published sources, about everyday life in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in the years 1915-1930."

• Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North
  NPR's Terri Gross interview with Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Sons," which looks at the experiences of African Americans migrating north in the United States.

• North by South: The African American Great Migration
  NEH-sponsored three year project conducted by students at Kenyon College that looks at African American migration from the South to the North. This study looks at migration between the following cities: South Carolina to New York City, the Mississippi Delta to Chicago, and Birmingham, Alabama, to Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

• Talking History: Goin' North - Tales of the Great Migration
  Five-part documentary radio series on the Great Migration, produced by Charles Hardy III, Professor of History at West Chester University.