Law and Capitalism: BLSL's Subscription Databases of Historical Primary Sources

Archives Unbound (provider: Gale) collections available through BLS Library:

• The Legal Battle for Civil Rights in Alabama: Vernon Z. Crawford Records, 1958-1978 Civil Rights Cases and Selections from the Blacksher, Menefee & Stein Records
  • Gale's summary of this searchable collection: "[C]onsists of selected portions of the records of attorney Vernon Z. Crawford (1919–1986) and the Blacksher, Menefee and Stein law firm whose work represents a significant contribution to the shape of the civil rights movement in 20th century Alabama. Documents include legal documentation, complaints, petitions, requests, depositions, handwritten notes, correspondence, exhibits (maps, plans of school buildings, population diagrams), and surveys relating to cases on the following: discriminatory juror selection, civil rights violations (police harassment and brutality), discrimination in employment, school desegregation, and minority vote dilution."
• Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Enforcement of Federal Law in the South, 1871-1884
  • Gale's description of this searchable "law and order" collection: "[D]ocuments the efforts of district attorneys from southern states to uphold federal laws in the states that fought in the Confederacy or were Border States. This publication includes their correspondence with the attorney general as well all other letters received by the attorney general from the states in question during that period, including the correspondence of marshals, judges, [incarcerated persons], and concerned or aggrieved citizens.

Note: Gale provides additional content (to which BLS does not currently subscribe) in its collections: American Studies; Business and Economic History; Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies; and Native American Studies.

HeinOnline (provider: W.S. Hein) databases available through BLS Library often include LibGuides written by Hein's staff which describe database content and provide "Search Tips."

• American Enterprise Institute
  • Provides digital documents of the public policy think tank: American Enterprise Institute (AEI, established in 1936).
  • Tip: Click tab: AEI Publications and Browse by: Policy Area (policy areas include: Economics and Poverty).
  • Tip: To find recent material, visit AEI's website and browse the Policy Areas (includes: Economics) and Products.
• Civil Rights and Social Justice
• Early American Case Law
  • Provides cases "from the late 1700s through the 1920s."
  • Tip: Advanced Search supports searching by Citation & Parties.
  • Tip: Browse by: Subject feature might yield cases.
• [Enslavement] in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
• Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law includes:
  • Indigenous Peoples Treaties - Supports searching by keywords, treaty number, and Tribe.  Supports browsing by Tribe and date.
  • Abridgment of the Indian Affairs: Contained in Four Folio Volumes, Transacted in the Colony of New York, from the Year 1678 to the Year 1751 (1915) by Peter Wraxall, Charles Howard, ed.
    • Research tip: Icon of a magnifying glass supports searching (for example, by keyword: treaty) of a section, page, volume or entire multi-volume title.
  • American State Papers: Indian Affairs (1832) w/ Index
    • Includes treaties and some related documents, for example: Six Nations, Wyandots, and Others: Negotiations, Speeches, and Treaties (1789).
  • Treaty Related Publications - provides 68 publications, including:
    • Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties compiled by Charles J. Kappler. 

• Labor & Employment: The American Worker (provider: HeinOnline).  Provides 10,000+ subject-coded titles "that illuminate the history of labor conditions and employment law in the United States."  Editors assigned each title one (or more) subjects: 

  • Captive Labor; Employment Benefits; Equal Employment; Immigrant Workers & Agriculture; Labor Disputes & Strikes; Labor Laws & Legislation; Labor Market; Labor Unions; Mediation & Labor Relations; Minimum Wage; Occupational Illness & Dangers; Overtime Pay; Pensions & Retirement; Public Sector Employees; Trade & Economy; Unemployment Compensation; Wages; and Workplace Protections.

  • Includes a chart of 24 landmark labor and employment cases (date range: 1842-2018) with links to the case texts.
  • Includes a curated collection of scholarly articles on "employment discrimination, wrongful termination, collective bargaining, how the New Deal shaped labor law, right-to-work laws, labor disputes in major league sports" and additional topics.
  • Includes "thousands" of books from the early 1900s-present.  Examples highlighted by HeinOnline Specialist Stephanie Jacobson in a LibGuide on this database:
    • Jean Trepp McKelvey, AFL Attitudes toward Production, 1900-1932 (1952)
    • History of Organized Felony and Folly: The Record of Union Labor in Crime and Economics (1923)
    • F. J. Stimson, Handbook to the Labor Law of the United States (1896)
    • William B. Johnston et al., Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the Twenty-First Century (1987)
    • Provides legislative histories of labor-related laws.  Examples:
      • Fair Labor Standards Act 1938
      • Legislative History of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, P.L. 92-261
      • Railway Labor Act of 1926: A Legislative History
• Legal Classics Library
• Prestatehood Legal Materials
  • Provides a sourcebook containing overviews of state histories and 657 "other related works."
• State Constitutions Illustrated
• State Constitutions - New York
  • Provides 1492 Articles of Agreement/Letters Patent - New York's Constitution as amended to Jan. 1, 2022.
• State Reports: A Historical Archive 
  • U.S. map links to available court reports for each state.
  • Tip: Citation Navigator tool allows researchers to enter a case reporter's volume, abbreviated title of the case reporter, and page #.
• State Statutes: A Historical Archive
• Taxation & Economic Reform in America, Parts I & II, 1781-2009
  • Provides legislative history sources and additional documents pertaining to taxation, economic reform, and stimulus plans. Offers the Carlton Fox Collection of internal revenue legislation (1909-1950).
• Tax Foundation Archive Publications
  • Provides a "complete archive" of Tax Foundation publications (1937-present).
  • Publications discuss "taxation, fiscal policy and finance."
• U.S. Congressional Documents Library
  • Features the Congressional Record bound volume set (1873-present) + its predecessor titles: Annals of Congress (1789-1824), Register of Debates (1824-1837) and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873).  Also provides the Congressional Record Daily edition from 1980-present.
  • Features House and Senate documents and reports included in the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (scope:1817-2017) + a collection titled: Congressional Documents (2018-present).
  • Also provides collections of Committee Prints and Congressional Hearings.
• U.S. Supreme Court Library
  • Includes U.S. Reports (containing U.S. Supreme Court opinions), vols. 1-577 (1754-2016), landmark cases, selected periodicals about this Court, and many historical books about this Court.
• World Trials
  • Includes trial transcripts and other documents in selected "famous trials" and biographies of trial lawyers.
    • Includes these series: American State Trials: A Collection of the Important and Interesting Criminal Trials Which Have Taken Place in the United States from the Beginning of Our Government to the Present Day and Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

LLMC Digital

• LLMC Digital Open Access Collection (select free sources).
  • Categorizes its open-access sources under headings: U.S. Federal Government; U.S. States and Territories; United Kingdom; Other Countries (= Denmark, Mexico, Spain, and Vatican City); Indigenous Law; and Special Focus Collections (= British Empire Studies, Drew Days III Archive, Early State Records, General Works, Historic Jurisdictions and Military Law Collection).
  • Includes The Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800 and historic U.S. state constitutions, laws and some agency reports.
• LLMC subscription content provided by BLS.  In BLS Library's SARA catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION - (LLMC). 
  • Tip: LLMC provides a "drill down" menu of its collections, categorized as: U.S. Federal Government; U.S. States and Territories; Canada; Germany - Federal/Natl. Government; Germany - States, Kingdoms, Free Cities; United Kingdom; Other Countries; Indigenous Law; International Law and Organizations; and Special Focus Collections.  Many of the titles in LLMC collections also appear in BLS Library's SARA catalog.
  • Tip: On campus through the BLS network or off campus through a web browser that communicates with the BLS proxy server use LLMC's Full-text Search or Citation Search (to find cases).  

Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 (provider: Gale)

• Gale states:"[F]ull-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises....It features casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches, and other works from the most influential writers and legal thinkers of the time....The 22,000 titles that comprise this collection originated as Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century Legal Treatises, a microfilm collection sourced from the holdings of Harvard Law School Library, Yale University, York University, Columbia University, and 21 other institutions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom."
• Tip: Advanced Search supports searching by keyword, subject, author/creator, document title and place of publication.
• Tip: Try Topic Finder (example: contract).
• Tip: Titles of these treatises also appear in BLS Library's SARA catalog.

Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources (provider: Gale)

• Gale states: "Part I, 1620-1926 contains more than 1,300 individual titles comprising over 2,000 volumes sourced chiefly from the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University and the Law Library of Congress.  The 1.8 million pages in Part I span over 300 years of legal history and comprise a variety of key works, including early U.S. state codes, municipal codes, constitutional convention proceedings, legal compilations, and other key primary source documents...."  Tip: Titles of the codes, convention proceedings and other sources in Part I, 1620-1926 also appear in BLS Library's SARA catalog. 
• Gale states: "Part II, 1763-1970 extends the scope and chronological range of this acclaimed archive into the second half of the twentieth century with more than 1.6 million pages drawn from the Harvard Law School Library, the Yale Law Library, and the Law Library of Congress. Comprised of United States codes, constitutional conventions and compilations, and municipal codes, Part II enlarges the range of scholarly access to essential documents in American legal history."
• Tip: Advanced Search supports searching by keyword, subject, author/creator, document title and place of publication.
• Tip: Try Topic Finder.

Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926 (provider: Gale)

• Gale states: "[W]orld's most comprehensive full-text collection of documents from Anglo-American trials...collection of over 10,000 works from the law libraries of Harvard University, Yale University, and the Library of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York."
• Tip: Advanced Search supports searching by keyword, subject, document title and place of publication.
• Tip: Titles of these trial reports and books also appear in BLS Library's SARA catalog.
• Tip: Try Topic Finder.

Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 (provider: Gale)

• From 1832 ("when printed Court records began")-1915: Primarily includes material from the Jenkins Memorial Law Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• From 1915-1978: Includes material from the Library of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
• Tip: Advanced Search supports searching by keyword, case name and case citation.
• Tip: Try Topic Finder.

ProQuest Congressional (provider: ProQuest)

• Provides the full text of many U.S. legislative and executive publications. (remote access requires BLS proxy server).
• Tip: On main screen, click: "browse our Topic Pages" to view publications categorized by topics.
  • Topic Pages include: Antitrust Enforcement, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Coal Mine Health and Safety, Equal Rights Amendment, Fair Labor Standards Act, Federal Prison System, Income Inequality, Juvenile Justice System, Minority-and Women-Owned Businesses, National Labor Relations Act, Securities and Exchange Commission, Social Security, Whistleblowing and Whistleblower Protections, and Women's Suffrage.  
• Tip: Link: Advanced (beneath main screen search box) supports searches by content type + states the date range of available material for each content type (example: Content type: Hearings: 1824-Present).
  • Search example: Researchers can enter the name of a witness/panelist and limit the search by content type: Hearings.

ProQuest Legislative Insight (provider: ProQuest)

• Provides legislative histories of U.S. public laws.  As ProQuest notes here: "[l]egislative histories enable you to trace the development of a public law from early consideration to enactment."  A legislative history links to specific documents (such as versions of pertinent bills, discussions in the Congressional Record, committee hearings, reports, a presidential signing statement, and the pertinent public law).
• Offers a main screen search box, including a link to many Popular Law Names (example: Sherman Antitrust Act).
  • Click: an Act's popular law name (to paste the name into the main screen search box) > click: magnifying glass in main screen search box (to run the search).
• Tip: If you already know the popular name of an Act (example: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), enter: the popular name in the main screen search box > click: magnifying glass to search/obtain a legislative history of the Act.
• Offers an Advanced Search feature to search by number/citation (e.g., by bill number or by public law number).
• Supports searches in the full text of documents associated with a U.S. public law.
• Allows researchers to download documents.

In future, our librarians will add sources to this box.

Federal Cases page

• Click a specific file (examples: U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, Federal District Courts, Federal Bankruptcy Courts) to view coverage dates.

State Cases page

• Click a specific file (examples: New York Court of Appeals, New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division or New York Trial Courts) to view coverage dates.