Try searching for decades in these online databases:

American Decades Gale Virtual Reference Library includes this 10 volume set and other ebooks covering different time periods in American history. These online books are the same as the print versions available at the library.

By entering a year in "Subject Search" you can find overview essays, magazine and newspapers articles, and primary source documents on a decade. For example, 1940 retrieves all dates in the 1940’s. Try adding a topic such as art to your search to find information on art in the forties. "Timeline Events" is also searchable by decades (in "Select one or more decades") and subjects (enter one in "Search Timeline Event Text").

Daily Life through History - includes overviews of different time periods and year by year chronologies.

Web Sites

American Memory Collections

A gateway to the Library of Congress American Memory Collection that includes pathfinders leading to information on particular decades. Click on "Collection Finder."

Bestseller Lists 1900-1995 

Lists bestsellers of the last century by decade.

American Cultural History: The Twentieth Century

A comprehensive collection of Web links for each decade – subjects covered include art, architecture, literature, fashion, education, historic events, technology, and music.

Outline of American History: Chapter 13: Decades of Change

US Information Agency (USIA) outlines major events and social changes of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Chronologies and timelines: year-by-year

These books, found in our Library, provide brief descriptions of the most important events of a given year, usually including such topics as news, politics, the arts and entertainment, and science and technology. Use these books when you want "fast facts." Clicking on the link will tell you more about each book and where to find it in our collection.

American Chronicle: Six Decades in American Life, 1920-1980 

American Chronicle: Year by year through the twentieth century

Chronicle of the 20th Century 

Day by Day, The Forties

Day by Day, The Fifties

Day by Day, The Sixties

Day by Day, The Seventies

Day by Day, The Eighties

Day by Day, The Nineties

Events: A Chronicle of the Twentieth Century

National Geographic Eyewitness to the 20th Century

Timelines of the 20th Century

These works are organized decade-by-decade rather than year-by-year or day-by-day. Each volume contains essays on various aspects of American life and culture, including such topics as politics, entertainment, education, science and technology, and social movements. These books generally contain more sustained analysis or broader coverage than the chronologies listed above. Clicking on the link will tell you more about each book and where to find it in our collection.

America in the 20th Century 

American Decades: 1900-1999

This series is probably the single best source for information on all aspects of a specific decade.

America's Decades

Atlas of the Baby Boom Generation

Covers the late 1940's through the 1990s.

Great Events

Our American Century

Reader's Digest Our Glorious Century

This Fabulous Century

Specific topics

Art of Our Century: The Chronicle of Western Art 1900 to the Present

Chronicle of the Cinema 

Chronicle of 20th Century Conflict 

Collecting Fashion and Accessories 

The Dance Band Era: The Dancing Decades From Ragtime to Swing

Events that Changed America in the Twentieth Century 

Events that Changed the World in the Twentieth Century

Both this book and the preceding one provide detailed examinations of ten key historical events.

Fashionable Food

This combination history and cookbook covers each decade from the twenties to the nineties.

The Food Chronology: A Food Lover's Compendium of Events and Anecdotes, from Prehistory to the Present

Panati's Parade of Fads, Follies, and Manias

Besides fads, this decade-by-decade survey covers books, songs, and television and radio shows.

The Timetables of Science

Twentieth Century Teen Culture by the Decades

Variety Music Cavalcade: 1620-1961: A Chronology of Vocal and Instrumental Music Popular in the United States

This useful reference work provides lists of popular songs and synopses of political and cultural events for each year from colonial times to 1961.

Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century

This decade-by-decade overview focuses on architecture, painting, sculpture, and photography.

Vogue Fashion: 100 Years of Style by Decade and Designer

Annals of America

The Annals are multi-volume collection of primary sources including speeches, formal documents, court decisions, excerpts from books and periodicals, and much more illustrating the period from 1493 to 1976.

Britannica Book of the Year

These annual volumes provide a thorough survey of the preceding year's people, events, and notable developments.

Value of a Dollar

Use this book to find the prices of various items as well as people’s incomes from the Civil War period to the present.

The World Book Year Book

Similar to the Britannica Book of the Year, the Year Book reviews the events and developments of a given year.

1900s

1900s : the first decade
Dawn of the Century: 1900-1910
Songs of the 1900s: 1900-1909
The 1900's

1910s

1910s
The 1910s from World War I to ragtime music
End of Innocence: 1910-1920

1920s

The American Heritage History of the 20's and 30's America in the Twenties: A History
Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans lived through the "Roaring Twenties" and the Great Depression
Everyday Fashions of the Twenties
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1920s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1920s
The Films of the Twenties
More Songs of the Twenties
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties
The Twenties

1930s

1930's - The New Deal Network - A guide to the Great Depression, focusing on the programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.
The Desperate Years: A Pictorial History of the Thirties
The Great Depression: America in the 1930s
Everyday Fashions of the Thirties
Fashions of a Decade: The 1930s
Fashions of the Thirties: 476 authentic copyright-free illustrations
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1930s
More Songs of the Thirties
The Thirties

1940s

Memories of the 1940s - British educational site presents stories of elderly people who lived through World War II and "Food and Recipes of Wartime Europe."

The 1940s: Decade of Triumph and Trouble
Everyday Fashions of the Forties as pictured in the Sears Catalogs
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1940s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1940s
The Films of the Forties
The Forties in Vogue
The Homefront: America During World War II
More Songs of the Forties
Songs of the 1940's

1950s

Fifties Web - Site highlighting popular culture captures the mood of the decade.

The Literature and Culture of the American 1950's - Site focusing on the literature and culture of the 1950's in the United States

The 1950s
The 1950s from the Korean War to Elvis
As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s
Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs: Early 1950s
The Fabulous '50s: The Cars, the Culture
The Fabulous Fifties: As Reported by the New York Times
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1950s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1950s
The Fifties
The Fifties in America
More Songs of the Fifties

1960s

Radical Times: The Antiwar Movement of the 1960s - Presents historical information on United States involvement in the Vietnam War and protest movements of the era.

The Psychedelic 60's - University of Virginia site explores social protest, drugs, hippies, and Woodstock.

60s!
The Angry Decade: The Sixties
Fashionable Clothing from the Sears Catalogs: Late 1960s
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1960s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1960s
Life – the '60s
More Songs of the 1960's
Radical Rags: Fashions of the Sixties
The Sixties in America
Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
Sixties People
Songs of the 1960's

1970s

Illusion and Delusion: The Watergate Decade - Photo essays summarize Watergate and other important issues of the 1970's.

1970s From Watergate to Disco
Architecture in the Seventies
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1970s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1970s
The Films of the Seventies
Precious and Few: Pop Music in the Early Seventies The 70's Punks, Glam Rockers & New Romantics
The Seventies in America
The Seventies: From Hot Pants to Hot Tubs

1980s

The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan
The Eighties: Images of America
Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1980s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1980s
The Films of the Eighties
More Songs of the Eighties

1990s

The 1990s
The 1990s From the Persian Gulf War to Y2K
The Digital Decade: The 90s
Fashions of a Decade: The 1990s
New Forms: Architecture in the 1990s

Updated 7/07