How to Search

Quick Search

The Early Republic Quick Search is a simple tool that allows the user to enter a search term to find relevant results. By default, it searches the full text of all documents in The Early Republic.

General Search Guidelines

The use of quotations (“”), Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and the asterisk (*) wildcard are supported.

Advanced Search

Search Strings:

Search strings can be any term a user chooses. You can search for a specific string within the full text of a document, the person(s) mentioned in a document, the places mentioned in a document, or within the caption of any images that exist in a document. More complex searches can be performed by combining search strings using the AND/OR pull-downs.

Limit by Document Type:

Further refine a search by the types of documents in The Early Republic.

Limit by Date Range:

All of the content in The Early Republic is dated. Refine a search to documents that were written or published during a specific date range (down to the day).

Search Options: Results Per Page

Limit the number of search results (before or after the search is performed) by using the pull-down menu in the left-navigation.

Search Options: Sort Order

Order search results in chronological order by date (ascending or descending) or sort by relevance based on the search string entered.

Search Results

Search results are paginated where necessary and can be filtered in the same ways that an initial search can be filtered, with the exception of limiting the results by date range. If necessary, click the Modify Search link to limit the date range. Search results also include citations for each document returned.