There is a print reference set that indexes OLDER scholarly articles in the field of history.  Depending on your topic, you may want to take a look here.

Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974
Z 6205 .C18 (Reference)
This 11-volume set allows the user to search by broad keywords to find articles about history and its related fields in scholarly journals dating as far back as 1838, through 1974. One can also search by author names to get journal citations. No other history index provides access to so many articles from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

There are several other databases that you might search. I strongly recommend you search first in America: History and Life, but the following are other choices for you to find scholarly articles.

Google Scholar sometimes picks up the odd bit of scholarship.

Click here for a brief tutorial of how best to search in Google Scholar.