Answered Questions

Hi Goldia,

With a topic as specific as this one, you may or may not find articles that address your idea directly.  Also, rather than use a search engine that searches several databases at one time, like our online catalog, I would search several databases individually.  That's because a federated search may not retrieve all of the articles that you may consider relevant, due to the differences in the ways various databases allow their information to be retrieved.

Even though you are a Business and Mass Comm student and may be used to going to the Business and Mass Comm LibGuides first for your research, you may use other subject Libguides to assist your research.  Start with the History LibGuide to find a list of good databases that contain articles that may be of use to you.  The best database with which to start would be Academic Search Complete.  Click the link for the Advanced Search so that you can insert several search terms at once.  When you have a complicated search, unless you are adept at Boolean searching and know that the database you're using is programmed for Boolean, it's always better to use the Adanced Search and let the search engine separate your terms and phrases rather than piling them all together.  This can improve the results of your searches.

In the first box, type (including the quotation marks) "Andrew Jackson."  In the second box type (NOT including the quotation marks) " presiden* "  The * will tell the search engine to pull up all words that start with presiden-, such as president, presidency, etc.  And in the third box, type (No quotation marks) "review."  To the left of the third box you will see a drop menu that says "And."  Click on it and select "NOT."  That will prevent you from pulling up book reviews, which is not what you want.

In Academic Search Complete, that search brought me 31 results, the first of which was "Cherokees and Congregationalists vs. Georgia and Andrew Jackson: The Attempt to Prevent the Trail of Tears." And the second was "ABUSE OF POWER: ANDREW JACKSON AND THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT OF 1830."  

You may want to consider running this search over several times, replacing "presiden*" with other terms such as:

Cherokee
Indian (As in Indian Removal Act, but sometimes fewer words make for better searches)
politic*

Or other terms you may consider appropriate for your topic.

You may or may not see the term "race" or "racism" in these articles, however, what you may argue is whether the actions taken by the President could be considered so and for what reasons.  What you may have to do is find articles on race as well as articles on the Jackson presidency and express your own understanding based on the information you have discovered.

If you need any additional assistance or information, please respond to this thread or contact someone at the library.  We're happy to help.