LibGuides: Health Sciences: Historical Health & Medicine Research

Historical Databases

Academic Databases
Freely Accessible

America: History & Life This link opens in a new window Covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to present. Over 1800 journals indexed. Scope: United States and Canada. Dates: 1895 to present.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window Full text collections of legal journals, texts, cases, statutes, regulations, presidential materials, treaties, as well as international and foreign legal journals, cases and materials. Content is in the original page-image (PDF) format, ensuring the authenticity of the original hardcopy document. Content includes historical and current materials. Collections include Law Journal Library, History of International Law, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register Library, Legal Classics, Women and the Law (Peggy), U.S. Treaties and Agreements Library, U.S. Attorney General & Department of Justice Collection, U.S. Federal Legislative History Library, U.S. Presidential Library, U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Supreme Court Library. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: Varies.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from the 15th century to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. This authoritative database provides indexing of more than 2,300 academic historical journals in over 40 languages. Scope: Worldwide (excluding the United States and Canada) Dates: 1953 to present (some titles back to early 20th century).
Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window Quantitative facts of American history. Statistical tables covering population, work and welfare, economic structure and performance, economic sectors, and governance and international relations. The fully searchable and downloadable electronic edition permits users to graph individual tables and create customized tables and spreadsheets reflecting their own particular areas of interest. Scope: United States. Dates: 1700s-2000 (majority of tables falling between 1790-1990).
JSTOR This link opens in a new window Full text scholarly, multidisciplinary, database that currently includes thousands of academic journal articles, along with thousands of monographs and other materials relevant for education. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: Varies.
Nineteenth Century Masterfile: 1106-1930 This link opens in a new window Provides access to primary resources for studies in Anglo-American literature published before 1930. Search across dozens of subject indexes to periodicals, newspapers, books, patents, US and UK government documents and more. Scope: Great Britain, United States. Dates: 1106 to 1930.
Women and Social Movements in the US This link opens in a new window A resource for students and scholars of U.S. History and U.S. Womens History. This collection includes 123 document projects and an archives of over 5,100 documents organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. Scope: United States. Dates: 1600 to 2000.

For more Historical Databases, looking at specific regions or subjects, see our History Databases.

Recommended : Related specifically to Health and Medicine

LitMed The Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed) is a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations in the Medical Humanities. It was created by faculty of the New York University School of Medicine. Use it to find resources to help you with your research.
National Library of Medicine: Digital Collections Digital Collections is the National Library of Medicine's free online resource of biomedical books and still and moving images. All of the content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich resources, including their History of Medicine resources and historical films & video.
National Library of Medicine: History of Medicine NLM’s History of Medicine Division collects, preserves, makes available, and interprets for diverse audiences one of the world's richest collections of historical material related to human health and disease.

Other Resources

American Memory Provides free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. Collections are primarily from the Library of Congress, but also includes material from other institutions as well.
HathiTrust Search across various newspaper collections. Access may vary depending on the partnering institution. Use the advanced search to limit to a specific format.
Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, images, TV news, and more.

Early American Newspapers (1690-1876) This link opens in a new window Includes thousands of U.S. historical newspaper titles from all 50 states. Search through news content in individual publications as well as images and advertisements. Scope: United States. Dates: 1690 to 1876.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window Ethnic NewsWatch contains and searches as one both Ethnic NewsWatch, which is a current collection, and Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which is an historical collection. Ethnic NewsWatch, the current file, covers 1990 to present and Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, covers 1959-1989. Includes newspapers, magazines, and journals of ethnic, minority, and native presses. Scope: United States and Canada. Dates: 1959 to present.
New York Times, ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window Full page and article images with searchable text from 1851-2013. Digital reproductions of every page of the New York Times are available to be searched and researchers can also scan through the front pages, advertisements, editorials, obituaries, and other features of the newspaper. Searches can also be constructed for specific date ranges. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: 1851 to 2013.
Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window Full run of 48 newspapers selected by the British Library including national and regional newspapers, established country and university towns, and industrious areas of the Midlands, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Newspapers which helped lead political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule are also included. Users can magnify or reduce digitized newspaper images and search through the article text. Scope: Great Britain, Worldwide. Dates: 1800 to 1900.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals: Empire This link opens in a new window Full text access to over two million pages of historic newspapers published in Britain from 1800-1900. Nearly all aspects of nineteenth century life are encompassed in the large range of periodical literature, giving an insight to literature and culture, empire, feminism, the history of the book, the creative and performing arts, sport and leisure, science and medicine. Scope: Great Britain. Dates: 1800 to 1900.

British Newspaper Archive A searchable archive containing most of the runs of newspapers published in the UK since 1800.
Brooklyn Newspapers from Brooklyn Public Library This freely available web resource contains approximately 147,000 pages of newspaper in various digital formats. Access is either by date of issue or by keyword search.
California Digital Newspaper Collection Search over 60,000 pages of historical newspapers from California from 1863 - 1922
Chronicling America : Historic American Newspapers Search by newspaper title, state, date, or keyword to search across hundreds of historic American newspapers from 1836 - 1922. Users also have the option to highlight text, download pages as PDFs and more.
HathiTrust Search across various newspaper collections. Access may vary depending on the partnering institution. Use the advanced search to limit to a specific format.
ICON : International Coalition On Newspapers ICON highlights different digitization projects from around the world. Please note, not every collection is freely available.
Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, images, TV news, and more.
New York State Historic Newspapers Search through historic newspapers from New York state, dates vary by title.
US News Map Search historical newspapers from Library of Congress by geographic location.

Images

Recommended
Other Resources

Related specifically to Health and Medicine

California's Old Series Trademarks Search a digitized collection of 3,940 trademark applications filed with the Secretary of State between 1861 and 1900. These "Old Series Trademarks" provide a glimpse of commerce and consumer goods in the Golden State during this time. The archive includes images of patent medicines.
Duke University Historical Images in Medicine Over 3,000 photographs, illustrations, engravings, and bookplates from the history of the health and life sciences from Duke's Medical Center Library.
Historical Anatomies on the Web (National Library of Medicine) A digital repository of high quality images from important anatomical atlases in the Library's collection. The project offers selected images from NLM's atlas collection, not the entire books, with an emphasis on images and not texts. Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM's possession.
Medicine and Madison Avenue Over 600 advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States.
National Library of Medicine: Digital Collections Digital Collections is the National Library of Medicine's free online resource of biomedical books and still and moving images. All of the content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich resources, including their History of Medicine resources and historical films & video.
Public Health Image Library (PHIL) from the CDC Images from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). MeSH is used to organize by hierarchical categories of people, places, and science, and is presented as single images, image sets, and multimedia files.
Seeing is Believing: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration (NYPL) Images from the exhibit of the same name that NYPL had on view from October 23, 1999-February 19, 2000. Reviews advances in scientific and medical illustration techniques.
Wellcome Images A database with over 170 000 historical and contemporary images, covering medical and social history, contemporary healthcare and biomedical science.

American Memory Provides free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. Collections are primarily from the Library of Congress, but also includes material from other institutions as well.
Brooklyn Visual Heritage Brooklyn Visual Heritage makes digitized historic images of Brooklyn easily accessible to a diverse audience. Working with Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library. Search by institution, subject, or location.
Calisphere from University of California A database of the digitized collections from California libraries, archives, and museums. With over 400,000 images, texts, and recordings, highlights from the collections include photographs and other primary sources on: Japanese American Internment, Chinese Exclusion Act, Dust Bowl Migration and more.
Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York Provides online access to digital collections of libraries, archives, museums and historical societies located in and around New York City, including NYC and Westchester. Available images include photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, catalogues, memorabilia, ephemera, and more.
DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) A portal that provides different ways to search across a wide selection of digital collections from libraries, museums, archives, and other institutional repositories in the United States. Search through curated exhibitions, explore by place or date, search through images, text, and more.
Historical Anatomies on the Web From the National Library of Medicine this database is a digital project designed to give access to high quality images from important anatomical atlases in the Library's collection. The project offers selected images from NLM's atlas collection, not the entire books, with an emphasis on images and not texts. Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM's possession.
Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, images, TV news, and more.
NYPL Digital Collections Search through the over 800,000 digitized items from the New York Public Library’s collections, with prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more. Also has a feature in which public domain items have been enhanced and labelled so that they may be used in various ways.
Photogrammar Search through the 170,000 photographs from 1935-1945 by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA –OWI). Use the interactive map to search for photographs, or search by photographer.
Smithsonian Libraries: Galaxy of Images Collection of digitized images from the Smithsonian Libraries.

Welcome!

Use this page to find resources to assist you in the historical research of health and medicine. Whether looking for a place to generate ideas, images, archives, or more this page can help get you started.

A Story About Brian, Images from the History of Medicine, https://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/luna/servlet/s/fe8b03

Videos

National Library of Medicine: Digital Collections Digital Collections is the National Library of Medicine's free online resource of biomedical books and still and moving images. All of the content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich resources, including their History of Medicine resources and historical films & video.

Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials

When searching PubMed you can limit to the publication type: historical article
You can also limit to the MeSH:

Delivery of healthcare/history
History, 20th Century

Example Search: "Delivery of Health Care/history"[Mesh]

Clinical Queries in PubMed
Check out information on how to use Clinical Queries to find medical history citations in PubMed.

Librarian Tip: If you are looking for historical information on a specific topic try to find out if there is an organization or library that has an archives collecting on that topic. The resources might not be digital, but they can be useful. Not sure how to begin? Ask a Librarian!