Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports, and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980.
The launch of apartheid policies by the National Party in 1948 heralded 40 years of legally entrenched white dominance over South African politics, society and business. Punitive restrictions placed on travel, education, work and political activism instigated the formation of organizations such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), saw support increase for the Communist Party and fueled the growth of international anti-apartheid organizations.
These previously restricted letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts of events give unprecedented access to the history of South Africa’s apartheid regime. The files explore the relationship of the international community with South Africa and chart increasing civil unrest against a backdrop of waning colonialism in Africa and mounting world condemnation.
This resource is in three sections: 1948-1966, 1967-1975 and 1976-1980.
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research.
The series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.
The documents in Confidential Print: Africa begin with coastal trading in the early nineteenth century and the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa. They then follow the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy’s defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence. Together they cover the whole of the modern period of European colonization of the continent from the British Government’s perspective.
This collection of Foreign Office files explores the history of Persia (Iran), Central Asia and Afghanistan from the decline of the Silk Road in the first half of the nineteenth century to the establishment of Soviet rule over parts of the region in the early 1920s. It encompasses the era of “The Great Game” - a political and diplomatic confrontation between the Russian and British Empires for influence, territory and trade across a vast region, from the Black Sea in the west to the Pamir Mountains in the east.
Comprised of correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials from the FO 65, FO 106, FO 371 and FO 539 series, this resource forms one of the greatest existing sets of historical documents relating to this region, offering insights not only into the impact of Great Power politics on the region, but also the region’s peoples, cultures and societies.
Explore an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. The resource is full-text searchable, allowing for the collection to be comprehensively explored and studied.
In addition, China: Culture and Society features a host of secondary resources, including scholarly essays, an interactive chronology, mini guides, and editors’ choices from the collection.
With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.
Sources from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London: 1793-1980
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research.
The series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
East India Company offers access to a unique collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947.
This collection of files from the Foreign Office (later the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and Dominions Office focuses on the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 consists of the complete run of documents in the series DO 133, DO 134 and FCO 37, as well as all documents covering the Indian subcontinent in the FO 371 series. Events covered include independence and partition, the Indian annexation of Hyderabad and Goa, war between India and Pakistan, tensions and war between India and China, the consolidation of power of the Congress Party in India, military rule in Pakistan, the turbulent independence of Bangladesh and the development of nuclear weapons in the region.
The files address these events from the standpoint of British officialdom. In addition to high politics, they deal with such issues as economic and industrial development, trade, migration, visits to South Asia by British politicians and by South Asian politicians to Britain and elsewhere, education, administrative reorganisation, conflict over language, aid, political parties, agriculture and irrigation, and television and the press. Together they form a resource of fundamental value to scholars and students of modern South Asia.
Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952.
Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945
Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952
Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Incorporating the Taishō to the Shōwa periods, these papers throw light on Anglo-Japanese ties in a time of shifting alliances. Documenting Japan’s journey to modernity, the files discuss a period in which the country took on an increasingly bold imperialist agenda. Strong relations following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles were tested then ultimately destroyed, and by December 1941, Japan and the United Kingdom were on opposing sides of the Second World War.
These Foreign Office files cover British concerns over colonial-held territory in the Far East, as well as Japanese relations with China, Russia, Germany and the United States. Following surrender at the end of the Second World War, Japan was occupied by foreign forces for the first time in its history. The occupation resulted in disarmament, liberalisation and a new constitution as the country was transformed into a parliamentary democracy. Japan emerged once again as a player on the world stage.
Consisting of diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, maps, summaries of events and diverse other material, this collection from the rich FO 371 and FO 262 series unites formerly restricted Japan-centric documents, and is enhanced by the addition of a selection of FO 371 Western and American Department and Far Eastern sub papers.
Published in two parts, this extensive collection of Foreign Office Files explores South East Asia between 1963 and 1980 in a time of conflict, growth and change.
Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966
Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialisation, 1967-1980
This collection follows the establishment of an independent Malaysia in 1963, following the release of the Cobbold Commission Report. Under President Sukarno, Indonesia strongly opposed this decision and hostilities between the two countries escalated. Alongside tensions with Malaysia, Indonesia would experience growing civil unrest in this period, with anti-Communist sentiments on the rise. Documents featured in this collection cover these fundamental events alongside a number of key themes, including trade, economic development and authoritarian rule in this period.
Consisting of correspondence, maps, government dispatches and press releases from the FO 371, DO 169, DO 187, FCO 15 and FCO 24 series, this resource offers an unparalleled insight into the political and economic challenges faced during this period as the region moved towards industrialisation and establishing the foundations for economic growth.
This collection is an essential resource for understanding the events in the Middle East during the 1970s.
It addresses the policies, economies, political relationships and significant events of every major Middle East power. Conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli War, the Lebanese Civil War and the Iranian Revolution are examined in detail, as are the military interventions and peace negotiations carried out by regional and foreign powers like the United States and Russia.
Commercial interests are also scrutinised, with in-depth analyses of Middle East nations’ economic stability and reviews of international arm sales policies. The activities of oil producing nations such as Saudi Arabia are closely monitored, with particular reference to the Gulf States and members of OPEC.
Utilizing the significant collection of diplomatic correspondence, minutes, reports, political summaries and personality profiles, students and researchers can explore a decade characterized by conflict.
Explore the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, through the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland.
Drawing upon the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be of great value to all those teaching or researching into the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. The material comprises diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works.
To enable wider access to this important and unique material we have created a resource which will allow users to explore the material in a variety of ways.
The documents can be browsed in several ways; by manuscript reference, theme and date order. Each document within the resource has a detailed description providing background and biographical information. To enable users to search and browse with ease across the whole collection each document has been indexed in detail with topics, places and names.
From a detailed study of the material and history we have identified the following thematic areas by which to group the documents, providing a useful starting point for research and a further way in which to approach the material:
The East India Company: Government and Administration c.1750-1857
Agriculture and Trade c.1750-1857
Society, Travel and Leisure c.1750-1857
The Mysore and Maratha Wars
Indian Uprising 1857-58
The Raj: British Government and Administration of India after 1858
Agriculture and Trade after 1858
Society, Travel and Leisure after 1858
India: Literature, History and Culture
Meiji Japan provides digital access to the papers of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925), an American polymath notable for his work in natural history, ethnography, archaeology and art history. Morse was invited to teach at Tokyo Imperial University in the 1870s and travelled extensively in Japan, recording his experiences in great detail and maintaining a deep interest in the country and its culture for the remainder of his life. This resource, a digital edition of Morse's papers, provides insights into Japan during the Mejii Era (1868-1912) along with Morse's numerous and valuable contributions to a wide range of academic disciplines.
The Edward Sylvester Morse papers (ca. 1858-1925, 40 cubic feet), document the numerous and valuable contributions made by Morse to the areas of malacology, zoology, ethnology, archaeology and art history. The range and depth of his interests are reflected in the complexity of the papers. Included are diaries, scrapbooks, correspondence, research files, drawings, manuscripts, publications and teaching materials. Morse utilized his artistic abilities to illustrate his research as well as daily observations and correspondence. Drawings which were particularly fragile and/or on odd shaped pieces of paper have been encapsulated in polyester.
This collection consists of content from fifteen archival series:
Correspondence; Diaries; Scrapbooks; Natural History; Archaeology Field Work; Ethnology; Japanese Pottery; Lectures; Publications; Inventions; Materials Collected by Morse; Financial Records; Noise Abatement; Biographical and Personal; and Miscellaneous. The papers were given to the Peabody Museum in 1926 and processed in 1984 under a grant from Skogakukan of Tokyo, Japan.
Some documents in this collection contain outdated, biased and offensive views, and terminology that is no longer deemed acceptable. Documents identified as including such content include a warning; further content which expresses such views may be found within other documents included in the collection.
A range of important sources from Britain and America, covering key subjects within this historical field, including Keynesian economic policy in post-war Britain; international labour movements; the London Stock Exchange; and the papers of important economists.
Highlights include:
A complete run of the Stock Exchange Official Year-book for 1875-1945, tracing the development of British, Commonwealth and world finance and industry from the heights of the Victorian era to the end of the Second World War
All the working papers of John Maynard Keynes and his private office during his second period of service at the Treasury, from 1940 until his death in 1946
The papers of David A. Morse, Director-General of the International Labour Office in Geneva from 1948 to 1970
The complete manuscript diaries of the British Labour politician Hugh Dalton, 1916-1960, covering his extensive career as an MP and government minister
A complete run of The Mechanical Engineer for 1897-1917, featuring authoritative articles and reports, along with excellent diagrams and illustrations concerning the rapid scientific and technical advances of the period.
A range of important sources from Britain and America, covering key subjects within this historical field, including Keynesian economic policy in post-war Britain; international labour movements; the London Stock Exchange; and the papers of important economists.
Highlights include:
A complete run of the Stock Exchange Official Year-book for 1875-1945, tracing the development of British, Commonwealth and world finance and industry from the heights of the Victorian era to the end of the Second World War
All the working papers of John Maynard Keynes and his private office during his second period of service at the Treasury, from 1940 until his death in 1946
The papers of David A. Morse, Director-General of the International Labour Office in Geneva from 1948 to 1970
The complete manuscript diaries of the British Labour politician Hugh Dalton, 1916-1960, covering his extensive career as an MP and government minister
A complete run of The Mechanical Engineer for 1897-1917, featuring authoritative articles and reports, along with excellent diagrams and illustrations concerning the rapid scientific and technical advances of the period.
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange provides a vast range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world. These original sources will help scholars to explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world.
The fifteen commodities explored in this resource are:People disembarking at a dock
Chocolate
Coffee
Cotton
Fur
Opium
Oil
Porcelain
Silver and Gold
Spices
Sugar
Tea
Timber
Tobacco
Wheat
Wine and Spirits
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 provides a unique insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst, market research pioneer and widely-recognised ‘father’ of Motivational Research.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 provides a unique insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the market research reports and supporting documents of Ernest Dichter; the era’s foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer.
The collection is a treasure trove of information on some of America’s best known brands, containing thousands of reports commissioned by advertising agencies and global businesses in a booming era for consumerism, ‘Madison Avenue’ advertising and global brands on consumer goods ranging from tobacco and broadcasting to cars and hotels.
Immensely influential, Dichter’s Freud-inspired studies put the consumer “on the couch” and emphasised the unconscious motives behind consumer behaviour. The Institute of Motivational Research employed trained social scientists and used established methodologies to conduct psychological research. Dichter’s career reached its peak after Vance Packard’s bestselling exposé The Hidden Persuaders (1957) presented Dichter as a mastermind manipulator who could exploit the emotions of consumers for the benefit of any advertising agency or big brand.
The work of Dichter and his Institute for Motivational Research provided the building blocks for many of the great campaigns of advertising’s golden age – including Exxon’s famous “put a tiger in your tank” campaign and the slogan “bet you can’t just eat one” for Frito-Lays – as well as facilitating the successful introduction of Mattel’s Barbie Doll.
This collection will provide researchers of consumer culture, business, advertising, marketing and psychology with a wealth of documentation. The wide variety of industries featured will allow for diverse – and multilateral – approaches from a range of academic disciplines.
Industries Covered
Advertising Electronics and Technology Non-Profit
Animal and Agriculture Energy and Utilities Office and Stationery
Arts and Crafts Financial Services Public Services
Automotive Food and Drink Personal Products
Broadcasting General Politics
Cleaning Products Hair and Beauty Retail and Wholesale
Clothing and Accessories Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Sport and Leisure
Construction and Real Estate Household Goods Tobacco
DIY and Gardening Manufacturing Travel and Tourism
Education Media and Publishing Toy and Game
Motion Picture
Discover what life was like for the poorest communities in Victorian Britain, and explore the government policy, social reform movements and philanthropic efforts of charitable institutions that sought to alleviate poverty.
Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain introduces users to the interactions between government policy and public philanthropy in Victorian and early twentieth-century society, demonstrating a shift in welfare reform and the social tensions surrounding poverty and public welfare. Discover the conditions of workhouses and the administration of the new poor relief system through the official government correspondence of the Poor Law Office, documenting conditions and providing reports of healthcare, diet, sanitation and employment within the institutions. Aimed at regulating relief to the underprivileged, the workhouse system faced many challenges including workhouse scandals which resulted in their infamous reputations.
As these state efforts to regulate and manage the poor increased with the introduction of a workhouse system, philanthropic initiatives which aimed to educate and empower recipients of relief swiftly emerged. Users can research social reform movements in the period through contemporary pamphlets, newsletters and periodicals published by settlement houses across the country, as they ventured to alleviate poverty across the nation through integration of the rich and poor in society. The collection also includes pamphlets and public notices which contextualise societal concerns regarding welfare and reform from the Family Welfare Association Library, exploring broad topics relating to social conditions and policy.
With essays and case studies from academics and specialists, the resource provides insightful approaches to the complex social climate during the period, focusing on a breadth of topics including workhouses and outdoor relief, health and medicine, disability, housing, sanitation and education.
Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.
This resource is designed as an important portal for slavery and abolition studies, bringing together documents and collections covering an extensive time period, between 1490 and 2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
The project offers:
High-quality color and greyscale images of many thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps and other documents not available elsewhere.
A powerful portal with links to other significant online sources approved by leading scholars. These international sites are a very important aspect of this resource.
A series of contextual essays by leading authorities from around the world. Each essay includes hypertext links to the primary sources it discusses.
It is designed for both teaching and research use. There is extensive coverage of topics such as the African coast; the Middle Passage; the varieties of slave experience (urban, domestic, industrial, farm, ranch and plantation); spiritualism and religion; resistance and revolts; the Underground Railroad; the abolition movement; legislation; education; the legacy of slavery and slavery today.
The project aims to assemble many substantial clusters of material offering in-depth case studies in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba along with important material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade. The illustration to the right, courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, depicts Toussaint L'Ouverture during the rebellion which led to the independence of Haiti.
The history of slavery covers many different forms of human exploitation across many cultures and throughout human history. We take 1490 as our starting date. However, it must be acknowledged that the Arab and Eastern slave trade, during which some 14 million people were sold into slavery, was well established by this time and dates back to the 7th century AD. The Atlantic triangular trade started much later. Slavery as an institution goes back much further to the ancient Mediterranean civilizations of Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire, Assyria and the Islamic Caliphate. A few rare books included within this project will look back to these earlier periods, but our principal focus here will be 1490 to 2007.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections were sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University; these collections allow for unparalleled depth and breadth of content. Scholarly reference materials are drawn from Macmillan Reference USA, Charles Scribner’s Sons, and Gale encyclopedias, among others, and contextual commentary has been created specifically for this archive.
In its entirety, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive consists of more than five million cross-searchable pages sourced from books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, legal documents, court records, monographs, manuscripts, and maps from many different countries covering the history of the slave trade. The archive is not just valuable to researchers in African history, but the wider scope of African studies and African-American studies.
The archive covers a wide spectrum of interests related to the history of slavery. Examples include:
Legal Issues
The Caribbean
The American South, race and the Civil War
Children and women under slavery
Modes of resistance
Emancipation and life thereafter
Additionally, many of the research tools – research guides, subject outlines, and scholarly essays on the subject – highlight the value of the content and facilitate access to the primary materials; introductory essays on sources describe archival collections history and explain their research value.
Explore the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, through the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland.
Drawing upon the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be of great value to all those teaching or researching into the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. The material comprises diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works.
To enable wider access to this important and unique material we have created a resource which will allow users to explore the material in a variety of ways.
The documents can be browsed in several ways; by manuscript reference, theme and date order. Each document within the resource has a detailed description providing background and biographical information. To enable users to search and browse with ease across the whole collection each document has been indexed in detail with topics, places and names.
From a detailed study of the material and history we have identified the following thematic areas by which to group the documents, providing a useful starting point for research and a further way in which to approach the material:
The East India Company: Government and Administration c.1750-1857
Agriculture and Trade c.1750-1857
Society, Travel and Leisure c.1750-1857
The Mysore and Maratha Wars
Indian Uprising 1857-58
The Raj: British Government and Administration of India after 1858
Agriculture and Trade after 1858
Society, Travel and Leisure after 1858
India: Literature, History and Culture
Bringing together unique primary sources drawn from world-class maritime archives and heritage collections Life at Sea takes a sociocultural approach, focusing on the individual experiences and personal narratives of seafarers. Through a broad range of sources, from journals and memoirs to ships’ logs and court records, the lives of ordinary seamen, merchants, whalers and pirates can be explored. This resource offers exciting new insights into three centuries of the Anglo-American maritime world.
Life at Sea explores the lives of seafarers in the Anglo-American maritime world during the period 1600-1900. The emphasis of the resource is largely on narrative content, giving accounts of life onboard a variety of ocean-going vessels, including merchant and naval vessels, whalers, and pirate ships. A large amount of this content is sourced from journals written by sailors at sea but also from memoirs written by sailors reflecting on their lives. Another major source of narrative content are court records, especially from depositions and witness statements, including the examinations of pirates and court martials within the Royal Navy.
Material has been sourced from institutions in both England and the United States, providing collections that reflect the maritime experience on both sides of the Atlantic. The bulk of the material ranges from 1650-1850, reflecting the availability of material and roughly coinciding with the Golden Age of Sail. The end of the 1850s is also the high-water mark of American whaling prior to the discovery of oil in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Material has been sourced from world-renowned maritime archives and heritage collections:
Massachusetts Historical Society
Mystic Seaport Museum
The National Archives, UK
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich UK
From the century of immigration, through to the modern era, Migration to New Worlds charts the emigration experience of millions across 200 years of turbulent history. Explore the rise and fall of the New Zealand Company, discover British, European and Asian migration and investigate unique primary source personal accounts, shipping logs, printed literature and organizational papers supplemented by carefully compiled teaching and research aids.
Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia. Split across two modules, and including collections from 26 archives, libraries and museums, Migration to New Worlds brings together the movement and memories of millions across two centuries of mass migration.
Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures to arrival and permanent settlement. To supplement this, the collection includes early material such as the first emigration ‘round robin’ from 1621 and letters from late eighteenth-century merchants and travellers in the United States. Some later material is also available, including ocean liner and immigration depot photographs from the mid-twentieth century.
The collection presents a unique insight into the personal stories of migrants during this period. Letter collections, travel journals, diaries and oral histories provide a wealth of first-hand accounts for research into emigration experiences and the hardship of settlement. These are supplemented by scrapbooks, government papers, hand-drawn maps, watercolours, objects, emigration pamphlets, shipping papers and rare printed material which provide significant context to government legislation, commercial interests and living conditions for migrants during this period.
Significant material on the movement of Indian and Chinese indentured labourers is included from The National Archives. The complete War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office: Emigration Original Correspondence files cover both the emigration and remigration of indentured labourers and all printed material is fully text-searchable.
Virginia Company Archives provides a comprehensive record of the history of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624. Centered upon the archives of the Ferrar family who played a significant role in the Company's administration, this resource documents the founding and economic development of the Virginia colony, relations between colonists and indigenous peoples, and early trade between Britain and America. It is also a crucial source for London's economic history and the religious and social history of early modern England, with further content documenting the Ferrars' continued interest in the European colonization of North America in the years after 1624.
Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.
This project offers rare and invaluable sources for examining the lived experience of people who witnessed this pivotal era of English history. From 'ordinary' people through to more prominent individuals and families, these documents show how everyday working, family, religious and administrative life was experienced across England.
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.
Section I: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969
Section II: Empire Writing & the Literature of Empire
The First World War portal makes available invaluable primary sources for the study of the Great War, brought together in four thematic modules. From personal collections and rare printed material to military files, artwork and audio-visual files, content highlights the experiences of soldiers, civilians and governments on both sides of a conflict that shook the world.
Personal Experiences
Propaganda and Recruitment
Visual Perspectives and Narratives
A Global Conflict
This digital collection of primary source documents helps us to understand existence on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920. Discover the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas.
The primary source documents collected here in Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters help us to understand existence and consequences on the various frontiers that arose from the movements of Europeans to Africa, Australasia and North America.
When Europeans left their shores in their millions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to settle in faraway Africa, Australasia and North America, they ushered in a new era of global history. The frontier regions that arose from these movements were spaces where people of different backgrounds – cultural, economic, political – encountered, cooperated and competed with one another. The frontiers that came about were dynamic places that resulted in adventure, misery, economic booms, busts and huge extensions of influence. Yet not only wealth but new states and global powers were created as a result of the advances and evolutions of these frontier zones. The European settlers, and for a time Indigenous peoples, then colonial governments and new independent nation states were able to exploit the opportunities that arose as a result of these new dynamics, helping to create a new world order. On the other side was demise for the original incumbents of the lands that these frontiers surpassed. Indigenous peoples were decimated and damaged as a result of these influxes and theirs is a story that is also told here.
The primary source documents digitized and collected here tell the story of some of these frontiers in North America, Australasia and Africa, allowing scholars to better understand the nature and significance of these regions at various points from the eighteenth century up until the twentieth century.
This collection brings to life the teeming streets of Victorian London, inviting students and scholars to explore the gin palaces, brothels and East End slums of the nineteenth century’s greatest city. London Low Life is a full-text searchable resource, containing rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to nineteenth and early twentieth-century London. It is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.
From salacious ‘swell’s guides’ to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London’s bustling thoroughfares offers an insight into the dark underworld of the nineteenth century city. Children’s chapbooks, street cries, slang dictionaries and ballads were all part of a vibrant culture of street literature.
Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963 provides complete coverage of the Cabinet conclusions (minutes) (CAB 128) and memoranda (CAB 129) of Harold Macmillan’s government, plus selected minutes and memoranda of policy committees (CAB 134).
The Cabinet conclusions are taken by the secretary of the Cabinet or one of their assistants and consist of summaries of all discussions in Cabinet, together with a note of decisions reached. Cabinet memoranda consist of all papers circulated to members of the Cabinet and to other ministers for information or as a basis for discussion. These classes provide a distillation of the work of all the other departments of government, ranging in subject matter from agricultural policy and trade to nuclear policy and issues of international diplomacy.
This collection also includes 165 files from the Prime Minister's Private Office (PREM 11). These provide an important supplement to the Cabinet records and cover all aspects of policymaking.
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.
This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation between 1980 and 2010 and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers.
Mass Observation Project consists of all the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation and the responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers.
Addressing topics such as the Falklands War, clothing, attitudes to the USA, reading and television habits, morality and religion, and Britain's relations with Europe, the directives and responses are an essential resource for anyone interested in late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century British social history.
Broad themes covered include current events, friends and family, the home, leisure, politics, society, culture and the media, work, finance and the economy and new technology.
There is also the addition of observer material from the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. This event was seen as a perfect time to attempt a modest revival of the Mass Observation project, before the full reinstitution of the Mass Observation Project in 1981. Volunteers were asked to collect information and observations based on the preparations for Jubilee celebrations, and what these celebrations entailed such as street parties and media responses to the Jubilee.
Popular Culture explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975.
The resource allows users to study this exciting period using manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia. The interactive chronology, extensive visual resources and video footage provide valuable contextual background to the materials included in this collection.
From music and youth culture to politics and fashion, the period from 1950 to 1975 witnessed dramatic changes in society. Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 traces the development from 1950s austerity to the excess of the 1970s through a range of printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera and video footage including:
Pamphlets, letters, government files, and eye witness accounts covering key events of the period.
The renowned Social Protest Collection from University of California, Berkeley.
Underground magazines including OZ and IT; as well as American fanzines and alternative press titles from Bowling Green State University.
Thousands of indexed photographs depicting the people and events of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Ephemera and memorabilia – posters, pins and artefacts.
A collection of carefully selected video footage that brings the sights and sounds of the period to life.
Additional material explores the key issues and events of the period and includes:
Music: artist files, record company documents, chart lists, fan magazines, photographs and posters from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Press kits and lobby cards for popular movies and television from Bowling Green State University.
Full-colour mail order catalogues and advertising proofs.
The complete run of Gandalf’s Garden magazine.
Original video footage spanning 1950-1975 featuring key personalities from John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Photographic material sourced from the Mirrorpix archives.
Documents from the Labour Party archives charting social change and important records on The Troubles in Northern Ireland from The National Archives.
Important documents depicting student unrest from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament archives held at Warwick University.
Provides thorough coverage of Victorian and Edwardian visual entertainments, early optics, magic lantern shows, panoramas, dioramas, early photography, and early motion pictures.
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.
Provides access to a vast body of original British source material that will enrich the teaching and research experience of those studying history, literature, sociology and education from a gendered perspective. A wide range of original primary sources representing five key topics: Conduct and Politeness, Domesticity & the Family, Consumption & Leisure, Education & Sensibility, and The Body.
Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920 showcases unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Everyday Life & Women in America is a resource for the study of American social, cultural and popular history, providing access to rare primary source material from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History, Duke University and The New York Public Library.
Everyday Life & Women in America comprises thousands of fully searchable images of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes. The collection is especially rich in conduct of life and domestic management literature, offering vivid insights into the daily lives of women and men, as well as emphasizing contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Unique primary sources cover the following themes:
Political and Social issues
Race
Religion
Family
Popular Fiction & Sensational Literature
Children's Prescriptive Literature
Periodicals
Women
Fashion & Beauty
Cookery
Medicine
Education
Work
Farming
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Discover manuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University, the project seeks to rediscover early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form.
This resource is produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University. “Perdita” means “lost woman” and the quest of the Perdita Project has been to find early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form. Thanks to the endeavours of the Perdita Project the valuable work of these “lost” women is being rediscovered.
AM has now enhanced this path-breaking research by linking their catalogue descriptions with full digital facsimiles of many of the manuscripts. Over 230 of the entries from the Perdita Project have been carefully selected to digitise for this resource. Many of these entries were chosen for the large amount of detail they contain, all of which has been painstakingly captured by the project's dedicated researchers over a number of years.
The manuscripts in this site were written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and they have been sourced from archives and libraries across the United Kingdom and the USA. One of the key attractions of Perdita Manuscripts is that it brings together little known material from widely scattered locations. The provision of a powerful searching facility, biographical and bibliographical resources, and contextual essays by academics working in the field, makes this an indispensable resource for students and researchers.
This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.
Due to the nature of subjects in discussion, please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit and graphic nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; genital mutilation; surgery and suicide.
Sex & Sexuality provides unprecedented access to a wealth of essential primary sources collated by prominent sex researchers and sexologists, community activists, official organizations, social reformers, and individuals. This resource aims to provide an insight into the wide-ranging breadth and experience of human sexuality from all angles, for example scientific, historical attitudes, sexuality, and sexual behaviours.
Module I: Research Collections from The Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections
A unique collaboration with the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections presents correspondence, research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).
Trace key Institutional developments, the research agendas of leading specialists in diverse fields such as criminology, medicine, anthropology and sexology and discover the evolving public interest in human sexuality and identity.
Module II: Self-Expression, Community and Identity
The second module of Sex & Sexuality is focused upon the lived experiences of individuals from across the spectrum of human sexuality, including heterosexual and LGBTQI+ experiences, at different times in history – specifically from the nineteenth century up to the present day. It also covers the criminalization of sexuality; both in terms of sex work but also the relentless prosecution and persecution of, mostly men, for "homosexual acts". Flashpoints in LGBT history such as the Stonewall riots and the resulting movements for change and grass-roots activism that we are still experiencing today are also represented within these documents. There is coverage on the establishment of Pride parades which were an act of social defiance at the time, as well as interviews with patients and public consciousness-raising efforts from the devastating HIV/AIDs crisis.
Self-Expression, Community and Identity expands the resource with further collections from the Kinsey Institute focusing on eroticism and personal writings, adding the everyday experience alonside the papers of sex researchers and medical practitioners. Partnerships with the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, and The National Archives, UK, plus the Edward Carpenter Papers, the Norman Haire Collection, the National Lesbian and Gay Survey, and the Anne Lister Diaries build a chorus of voices representing a diversity of lived human experience in Sex & Sexuality.
Women and Social Movements currently includes 78 document projects with more than 2,300 documents, 31,000 pages of additional full-text documents, and 1,678 primary authors. It includes as well book, film and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools.
This collection consists of two distinct elements:
A finding aid to women's studies resources in The National Archives
Original documents on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories
The finding aid is the result of a five-year project by staff at The National Archives in the mid-1990s and enables researchers to quickly locate details of documents at TNA relating to women. This finding aid is far more detailed and extensive than anything available elsewhere online and has the benefit of ranging across all of the document classes TNA hold.
The original documents cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.
Digital reproductions of unique and rare eighteenth century periodicals chosen to convey the eclecticism and evolution of the publishing world between 1712 and 1835. Purdue Subscribes to Eighteenth Century Journals V, offering a complete run of one of the greatest periodicals of the age, The Lady's Magazine (1770 to 1832), as well as other relevant titles from the period.
The Lady’s Magazine – an entertaining and educational journal aimed at “the housewife as well as the peeress” – was the first objective and professional effort to create a magazine acceptable for women. Topics include aspects of the social and domestic sciences, as well as health, education, and the humanities.
Interwar Culture showcases popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period. With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a burgeoning media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
The J. Walter Thompson Company Archive documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.
The documents published here range from the late nineteenth century up until the late 1990s with the bulk representing the post-1945 world. The collections included are the Publications, Account Files for nine key clients, Staff Newsletters, Staff Writings & Speeches, Chicago Office Research, New York Office Research, New Business Records, Information Center Records, Corporation Vertical Files, Review Board Records, Staff Meeting Minutes and a selection of Print Advertisements. A huge number of brands, companies, and industries are covered from automobiles to cosmetics and cruises. It includes complete files on some of J. Walter Thompson’s key accounts.
This digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 300 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict.
Journalism played a vital role in keeping those serving in the war informed and connected, wherever in the world they happened to be stationed. Service newspapers acted as a vital mouthpiece, being variously responsible for:
keeping the units apprised of the general progress of the war
providing news local to where the units were stationed
reporting on life back at home
encouraging discussion and intellectual improvement
offering amusing anecdotes, competitions, cartoons and entertainment
The newspapers would be shared between units, often changing hands several times, eagerly anticipated for the morale boost and distraction from the discomforts and uncertainty of wartime military service. The nature of the content varies considerably from title to title, depending on such factors as availability of printing resources and whether the editors were appointed from among the men themselves (often resulting in more light-hearted editorial) or officially commissioned by senior staff (which usually meant a certain element of censorship).
To today’s scholars these newspapers, so rich in social and cultural history, offer a unique perspective on the local and global experience of the war and will enable the research of key historical events through the medium of contemporary publications.
Explore domestic consumerism, life and leisure in America between 1850-1950 with Trade Catalogues and the American Home. This resource presents a wealth of highly illustrated primary source documents that highlight commercial tastes and consumer trends, and provide a valuable visual record for a breadth of interdisciplinary study.
Trade catalogues have been a prominent feature in commerce and manufacturing from the eighteenth century to the present day. Highly illustrated, they are an essential visual record of a variety of products and facilitate research into popular culture, material culture, social norms and attitudes, as well as the history of marketing, business, and technology.
These documents provide evidence of the evolution of distribution and communication systems linking manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers across the emerging United States and beyond. They document the changing commercial tastes and fashions of the consumer over a period of rapid growth, expansion and crisis (both at home and overseas), revealing contemporary prices and economic expenditure for households and individuals on a range of products.
Interrogation of trade catalogues, trade cards and marketing ephemera provides opportunities for interdisciplinary research across the social sciences including:
• Material culture
• Social history
• History of business and marketing
• The rise of mail order and department stores
• The role of women; both within the home and without
• The changing nature of consumerism
• The idea of the ‘American Dream’
• Mass production
• The effects of conflict on business and consumerism
• Consumer habits and purchasing power within this timeframe
Scope of the Collection
The wide range of industries and documents covered within this period allow researchers to explore: gender, class, changing social attitudes towards consumerism, the rise of the American Dream, and the response of American business to conflict. It is possible to explore the shaping of the United States in a century that witnessed the closing of the frontier, the mapping of states, domestic and international conflict, Reconstruction, the Great Depression – and the resulting cultural and societal changes including the role of women and material culture. Users can trace business history, the development of advertising, the rise and popularity of mail order shopping and department stores as well as changes in design, improvements in technology and the impact on domestic life using the material included within this resource.
Manoel de Oliveira Lima was a Brazilian diplomat, journalist, historian, and book collector whose career spanned Brazil's transition from empire to republic. Born in 1867 in Recife, Pernambuco, and educated from the age of six in Portugal, he dedicated himself to the study of Brazilian and Portuguese culture. Brazilian history and literature was the central focus of his writing and collecting. Oliveira Lima's twenty-three-year diplomatic career included postings in five European capitals—Lisbon, Berlin, London, Brussels, and Stockholm—as well as in Washington, Tokyo, and Caracas. His travels in Europe and the Americas afforded him privileged access to dealers in books, manuscripts, works of art, and other materials for the study of Brazil, Portugal, and the Ibero-Americ
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, Colonial Caribbean makes available materials from 27 Colonial Office file classes from The National Archives, UK. Covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870, this extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, and details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.
Colonial Office Files from The National Archives, UK
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research.
The series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.
World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean serves the needs of students and researchers by bringing together in a single place a rich collection of primary source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean; academic journals and news feeds covering the region; reference articles and commentary; maps and statistics; audio and video; and more.
A unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824, and hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays, featuring:
John Larpent Collection of Plays from the Huntington Library
Supplementary documents including Anna Larpent Diaries
The London Stage, 1660-1800
A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800
Delve into the cultural study of music and explore content from across the globe with this diverse and comprehensive collection. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.
Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings is comprised of over 60 field collections from ethnomusicologists dating from the mid-twentieth century to the early twenty-first century. This resource also features material from the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archive relating to prominent ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias.
The audio recordings, videos, field notebooks and journals in this resource document musical traditions and how music interacts with different societies and cultures all over the globe. There are recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
This resource provides a wealth of materials for the interdisciplinary study of ethnomusicology; whether the focus is on music, anthropology, dance, religion or spirituality.
Key themes covered
Education and the teaching of Ethnomusicology
The interaction between music and art
Religion and ritual
The history and development of the discipline
Cultural identity and social norms
Music and gender
Music and conflict
Musical traditions
From feast to famine, explore primary source material documenting the story of food and drink throughout history. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics and power, gender, race and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues around agriculture, nutrition and food production.
Explore a wide range of primary source material, including printed and manuscript cookbooks, advertising ephemera, government reports, films, and illustrated content revealing the evolution of food and drink within everyday life and the public sphere. The unique material in this collection has been sourced from across the globe to reflect a wide range of food cultures and traditions, creating an unparalleled resource for research.
Documents are tagged with one or more themes to help users browse to the most useful content. These themes were identified based on the content of the collection. Click below to find out more about thematic groupings and to discover the documents that are categorised under each:
The Grand Tour was a rite-of-passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young men of the eighteenth century: a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the eighteenth century’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. These accounts of the English abroad, c1550-1850, highlight the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.
This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows scholars to compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections. We include letters; diaries and journals; account books; printed guidebooks; published travel writing; paintings and sketches; architectural drawings and maps.
The Grand Tour is a wonderful source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transportation, money, communications, food and drink, health and sex.
The material also covers European political and religious life, British diplomacy; life at court, and social customs on the Continent, and is an invaluable resource for the study of Europe’s urban spaces.
There is a wealth of detail about cities such as Paris, Rome, Florence and Geneva, including written accounts and visual representations of street life, architecture and urban planning.
This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveler between 1850 and the 1980s. Guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs and personal travel journals provide unique insight into the expansion, accessibility and affordability of tourism for the masses and the evolution of some of the most successful travel agencies in the world.
This collection of documents offers insights into the performance practice in the particular space of the reconstructed Globe Theatre. It details the way in which the theatre was constructed as a place of radical experiment. It documents over 200 performances through prompt books, wardrobe notes, programmes, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.
The documents of the Globe’s performance archive primarily deal with productions from the opening of the theatre in 1997 to the end of Dominic Dromgoole’s tenure as Artistic Director in 2016. It includes materials on ‘Original Practice’ productions that attempted to recreate the acting methods and costumes of Shakespeare’s time. It also includes material on performances at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from 2014-2016. The architectural material includes plans from the 1980s onwards and there are also oral histories discussing the theatre’s early days.
The collection contains information on around 170 different plays, concerts or events and over 400 different productions of these plays.
The archive divides into 14 main collections of document types:
Prompt Books: the stage managers’ notes that documents how a performance was staged and arranged.
Wardrobe Notes and Jottings: containing information on how actors were dressed and costumes conceived and designed.
Music: the sheet music composed or arranged by the music directors and used by the musicians in a performance.
Props: photographs of a selection of props used in productions. This also includes 360 views of some objects.
Performance Photographs: images taken of productions.
Programmes: the information and ancillary essays that accompanied performances plus cast and creatives’ details.
Show Reports: information taken for the Front of House teams detailing audience behaviours and challenges.
Posters: the imagery and artwork used to publicise productions.
Globe Research: papers discussing the findings of particular productions.
Annual Reports: administrative information on the year including financial results.
Around the Globe: the quarterly magazine sent to supporters of Shakespeare’s Globe.
Architectural Material: plans for the building work, correspondence and papers researching the construction and photographs of the building.
June Everett Art: several hundred images drawn and painted by the Globe’s one-time artist in residence.
Oral Histories: interviews with people involved in the early stages of the Globe project.
Shakespeare in Performance showcases rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library. These prompt books tell the story of Shakespeare’s plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
Shakespeare in Performance goes behind the scenes to shine a light on how Shakespeare’s plays have been interpreted by theatre companies, actors and directors across the centuries.
The resource features prompt books from the world-famous collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. These prompt books tell the story of Shakespeare’s plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Socialism on Film is an impressive collection of documentaries, newsreels and features that reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, British and Latin American filmmakers. It ranges from the early twentieth century to the 1980s and examines the themes of War & Revolution, News & Current Affairs plus Culture & Society. The whole spectrum of socialist life is here on film.
Socialism on Film documents the communist world from the Russian Revolution through to the late 1980s. The digitised films cover all aspects of the socialist experience from everyday life and society to culture, the Cold War, memory and current affairs. Footage includes documentaries, newsreels and feature films. Geographically the films deal with the Soviet Union alongside significant groupings of material on Vietnam, China, Korea, the German Democratic Republic and Eastern Europe, Britain, Spain, Latin America and Cuba.
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Students and researchers will find sources covering a variety of topics including architecture, art, the British Empire, climate, customs, exploration, family life, housing, industry, language, monuments, mountains, natural history, politics and diplomacy, race, religion, science, shopping and war.
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Students and researchers will find sources covering a variety of topics, including architecture, art, the British Empire, climate, customs, exploration, family life, housing, industry, language, monuments, mountains, natural history, politics and diplomacy, race, religion, science, shopping and war.
A wide variety of forms of travel writing are included, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource also includes a gallery with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs.
Places visited include the USA and Canada; China, Japan and the Philippines; Europe (very well documented); Russia; Africa; and Australia.
Explore the phenomenon of world's fairs from the Crystal Palace in 1851 and the proliferation of North American exhibitions, to fairs around the world and twenty-first century expos. Through official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts, this resource brings together multiple archives for rich research opportunities in this diverse topic.
World’s fairs are a truly interdisciplinary subject. They engage topics as diverse as globalization and city planning to visual culture, bubble-gum and a global public, and this resource aims to reflect this breadth by including as wide a range of material types as possible. From the governmental records of early financial appeals and delicate international diplomacy, minutes and correspondence of fair committees and plans and design concepts, to contemporary ephemera (tickets, pamphlets, posters), personal accounts and official guidebooks; a huge range of angles of enquiry are made possible.
The first fair represented in this resource is what many consider the first world’s fair, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace in London, 1851. The latest case study is Montreal’s Expo 1967, but there are documents as recent as Milan’s (successful) bid to host Expo 2015. The largest concentration of documents relate to fairs from the late Victorian-early Edwardian era of 1880-1920; the ‘golden age’ of expositions when cities raced to outdo each other – sometimes hosting rival fairs in the same year.
While there are documents for host nations from every continent, the historical focus of international expositions (and therefore this resource) is Northern European, North American, Australian and – in the twentieth century in particular – East Asian. Throughout the centuries, however, countries from all over the world participated in world’s fairs not only as displayed but as active displayers, and can be discovered in this resource.
Explore a stunning collection of rare books, games, ephemera, and artwork from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reveals the socio-cultural history of these times. Showcasing innovative new publishing methods characteristic of the golden age of children’s literature, from mass-produced chapbooks to richly illustrated ‘book-beautifuls’, this resource examines the way in which new concepts were introduced to young readers, encouraging an engagement with the imagination which went on to fundamentally shape established notions of childhood.
Examine complete images of 190 manuscripts of seventeenth and eighteenth-century verse held in the celebrated Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. These manuscripts can be read and explored in conjunction with the Brotherton Collection Manuscript Verse Index, which includes first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content and bibliographic references for over 6,600 poems within the collection.
Alongside original compositions are copied verses, translations, songs and riddles. The whole collection is situated within an assortment of manuscripts, some entirely dedicated to poetry, while others contain medicinal recipes, household accounts, draft letters, musical scores and plays. There are also several printed works, with handwritten verse additions.
The Berg Collection at New York Public Library is recognised as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. Read more about the collection in the Nature and Scope, and uncover the principal authors within the Berg Collection Biographies. Learn about the history of the Berg Collection in commissioned essays, or begin browsing documents.
The Stationers’ Company Archive is one of the most important resources for understanding the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding. Explore extremely rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century in this invaluable resource of research material for historians and literary scholars.
Sourced from the archive of The Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers, located at Stationers’ Hall in the City of London, this resource allows access to a vast and unique collection of primary source documents. The collection is widely regarded as one of the most important primary sources for studying the history of the book as well as publishing history, the history of copyright and the workings of an early London Livery Company. Explore the variety of documents to uncover the story of the role the Stationers’ Company played in the history of the book trade.
Discover the work of one of the world’s most important publishing dynasties through this collection from the historic John Murray Archive. From book history to travel writing, politics to poetry, this newly digitized resource introduces an unparalleled repository for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society makes available more than 1,400 items from the archive of the historic John Murray publishing company. Watch the Introduction to the John Murray Archive here.
Held by the National Library of Scotland since 2006 and added to the UNESCO Register of World Memory in 2011, the Murray collection comprises one of the world’s most important literary archives. Primary source materials span the entirety of the long nineteenth century and document the golden era of the House of Murray from its inception in 1768. Records digitised in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
The John Murray Archive houses the most complete archival collection of the famed poet, Lord Byron; his manuscripts and personal papers are a particular highlight of Nineteenth Century Literary Society, charting both literary triumph and personal scandal.
Through the manuscript collection of the Wordsworth Trust, comprising the primary works, notebooks, correspondence, diaries, and travel journals of the major romantic writers, and images of 2,500 fine art works, Romanticism offers an insight into the working methods of William Wordsworth and the wider social, political and natural environment that shaped much of his work and that of his contemporaries.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape presents the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, offering students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers. We have also included over 2,500 fine art pieces from the Wordsworth Trust’s fine art collection that serve to contextualize the work of the poets and writers represented in this resource. All documents have been digitised in full colour.
The resource is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.
Authors and artists represented in this resource include:
- William Wordsworth
- Dorothy Worsdworth
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Thomas De Quincey
- Robert Southey
- Matthew Arnold
- Charles Lamb
- Benjamin Robert Haydon
- J.M.W. Turner
- John Constable
- John Ruskin
- Thomas Gainsborough
Explore multiple perspectives on the history of injury, treatment and disease on the front line. Chart scientific advances through hospital records, medical reports and first-hand accounts, and discover the evidence of how war shaped medical practice across the centuries.
The content in Medical Services and Warfare has been selected in close collaboration with collection staff at participating libraries, archives and museums and specialist academic editorial board members in the fields of conflict and medical history. Attendance at focused conferences also played a large part in ensuring material is relevant and appropriate for students and scholars.
The resource is provided in two modules, 1850-1927 and 1928-1949. It tells the story of medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918, the discovery of penicillin in 1928, and up to post-war reforms such as the foundation of the British National Health Service. The wealth of documents cover multiple conflicts as well as interwar developments from a range of perspectives.
Material has been sourced from across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Europe to enable comparisons on key areas of systematic reform, improvements to sanitation and the treatment of disease, rehabilitation, nursing care, surgical techniques and wound treatment.
The four conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War. Many other conflicts also have relevant documents and can be discovered via keyword searching, including the Boer Wars, Spanish-American War and the Spanish Civil War. No conflicts within the date range were explicitly excluded, but material was selected based on its contribution to the thematic scope of the project.
This unique collection showcases the development of 'popular' medicine in America during the nineteenth century, through an extensive range of material that was aimed at the general public rather than medical professionals. Explore an array of printed sources, including rare books, pamphlets, trade cards, and visually-rich advertising ephemera.
Popular Medicine in America documents the history of ‘popular’ remedies and treatments in nineteenth century America, through primary source materials drawn from the extensive collections at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The material covers popular trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy, and documents the rise of widespread advertising by commercial manufacturers of medical aids.
We have selected material with a significant emphasis on ephemera and advertising, aimed at the ordinary man in the street rather than medical professionals, with the focus upon enabling him to treat himself and his family at home using an array of inventive methods and fashionable techniques. These popular practices were built upon the earlier traditions of folk medicine and materia medica as dispensed by apothecaries, and help to show the relationships and differences between traditional old-style medicine and newly emerging scientific methods.
This resource consists of full-colour images of the original medieval manuscripts that make up these family letter collections and full-text-searchable transcripts from the printed editions, where they are available.
A plethora of topics are covered in these collections, including trade, warfare, arranging advantageous marriages, arguments between parents and children, matters of inheritance, births and deaths, estate management, legal disputes, domestic finances, women and their role in the family and everyday social and domestic life.
Along with the letter collections themselves there are many additional features useful for teaching and research. These include a chronology, a visual sources gallery, an interactive map, a glossary, and family trees for four of the featured families.
Only five major letter collections exist from fifteenth-century England, and they are all available here in Medieval Family Life.
These letter collections and associated manuscripts take the user into the world of medieval families, businesses, relationships, trade, politics and communities.
A plethora of topics are covered in these collections, from arranging advantageous marriages and inheritances, through estate management and financial dealings to women and their role in the family. Arguments between parents and children, births, deaths, acts of violence, lawsuits and incidents from everyday social and domestic life are all present.
Medieval Family Life presents full-color images of the original medieval manuscripts of which these letter collections are constituted, alongside fully searchable transcriptions drawn from available printed editions.
This collection presents manuscripts of some of the most important works of European travel writing from the later medieval period.
The chief focus is on journeys to central Asia and the Far East, including accounts of travel to Mongolia, Persia, India, China and South-East Asia. It is an indispensable source for scholars of medieval travel, geography, exploration, trade, literature and medieval postcolonial studies.
The travel texts gathered here cover some of the most widely read and influential prose works of the late Middle Ages – notably the books of Marco Polo and ‘Sir John Mandeville’ – but also important items by authors whose names are now less well known to non-specialists, such as John of Plano Carpini and Odoric of Pordenone.
This project provides an extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy. The core of the material is a magnificent collection of medieval manuscripts from libraries around the world, dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and focusing in the main on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India and China. The manuscripts are sourced from the British Library; Bodleian Library; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Cambridge University Library; Trinity College, Cambridge; Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Österreichische Nationalbibliothek; Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen; Beinecke Library, Yale University; Trinity College, Dublin; and thirteen other libraries and archives, to make a truly international collection.
The original documents are in a range of languages including English, Dutch, French, German, Latin and Spanish. Sections particularly relevant to the travellers on which the resource focuses have been highlighted, as for example in MS Bodley 648. Supporting these manuscripts are relevant secondary texts of translations and editions, as well as full catalogue details. The sources included tell us much about the attitudes and preconceptions of people across Europe in the medieval period, shedding light on issues of race, economics, trade, militarism, politics, literature and science. This collection will enrich the experience of all those exploring topics such as the nature of pilgrimage, the origins of global trade, travels to the Holy Land, the Silk Road, and the representation of the ‘East’ and the ‘other’ in the Middle Ages. In addition to the archival and published material there is a gallery of maps and images, a bibliography of published works germane to the manuscripts, and a chronology of the period.
Uncover the stories of American military personnel and civilians during the Second World War through their oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and military records. This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in the conflict, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India.
America: History & Life is an index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. The database indexes 1,700 journals from 1964 to present and also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.
Presents unique materials from the Edward E. Ayer Collection archival collections on American Indian history and culture at The Newberry Library, Chicago. Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
From early contacts between European settlers and American Indians and the subsequent political, social and cultural effects of those encounters on American Indian life, these materials tell both the historical and the personal stories of the colonization of the Americas. Continuing through to the modern era, and told against the backdrop of the 19th century expansion into the ‘Western Frontier’ right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, American Indian Histories and Cultures highlights both the myths and realities of the ‘Wild West’ and American Indian cultural identity.
From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, explore the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Browse a wide range of rare and original documents including printed books, journals, historic maps, broadsides, periodicals, advertisements, photographs, artwork and more.
Sources from the Everett D. Groff collection at the Newberry Library, Chicago.
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.
The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, is a fundamental building block for political, social and economic research.
The series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All items marked ‘Confidential Print’ were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
Explore America’s transformative age of industrialization, expanding wealth, inequality and social change. Personal collections, business records and rich visual content offer fresh perspectives on this influential period.
The period after the Civil War in America became known as the Gilded Age, coined by Mark Twain in his seminal novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, playing on the failure of the expected 'golden era' of Reconstruction. This resource aims to showcase the transformation of America into a modern, urban, industrial global power through business, legal and personal papers. Technological progress and extreme wealth for the few, contrasted with stark inequality and endemic poverty for much of America's population.
The social problems caused by this rapid urbanization led to a widespread reform movement from the 1890s to the 1920s; the period now known as the Progressive Era. These reforms aimed to eliminate political corruption, regulate monopolies, and establish systems of social support. It was also during this period that some of the key Gilded Age captains of industry started donating their profits on a huge scale. They funded scientific research and founded countless public education and arts institutions, creating many of the major museums, libraries and universities in the United States today.
This collection provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files for the entire period of Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Top-level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate these papers. There is also a wealth of material on social conditions, domestic reforms, trade, culture and the environment.
In addition, there is strong coverage of US policy decisions by the FCO and the British embassy in Washington; White House staff appointments and UN discussions; views on Europe; the deployment of F-111 aircraft on US airbases in the UK and Nixon’s battles over funding from Congress; visits to the US by Harold Wilson and Edward Heath; and the internal situation in the US and domestic reform. There are also detailed assessments of all the changes brought about by the presidential election of 1972, in which Nixon beat George McGovern by a record-breaking margin and in every state but one, only to resign two years later in the face of almost certain impeachment.
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.
Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson and Thurgood Marshall.
Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.
Key themes covered include:
Desegregation of schools, industries and public transport – survey material documents the attitudes of the community towards prospective desegregation, as well as analyzing the results. The progress of legislation and legal cases can also be explored within the collection.
Migration of African Americans from the rural South to urban centers, which had a significant impact on American industry and the labor movement, as well as domestic issues such as housing, overcrowding and poverty.
The role of the Church in the Civil Rights Movement and in African American communities, from helping to fund organizations like the Race Relations Institute, to the part played in encouraging integration or segregation among their congregations.
Race riots and other racial tensions, which the Race Relations Department worked to diffuse or prevent by aiding communities to identify and address their problems.
Activities of the Civil Rights Movement, including protest marches, sit-in demonstrations, student movements, and legal cases.
From its roots as an Anglican evangelical movement driven by lay persons, this resource encompasses publications from the CMS, the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and the latterly integrated South American Missionary Society. Documenting missionary work from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, the periodicals include news, journals and reports offering a unique perspective on global history and cultural encounters.
Jewish Life in America provides access to a diverse range of records which can be used to explore the history of Jewish communities in the United States of America, from the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. Sourced from archival collections held by the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City, this rich collection brings communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture to life while tracing Jewish involvement in the life of American society as a whole.
These records are complemented by a wealth of research tools including a chronology of major events, essays by leading scholars, guides to the collections featured, a selection of articles from the American Jewish Year Book, a gallery of visual highlights, and biographies of prominent personalities featured in the resource.
ewish Life in America, c1654-1954 is an indispensable resource for scholars and students interested in understanding and exploring the history of Jewish communities in America from their first arrival in New York in 1654 to the integral part that they play today. It will provide an essential resource for teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.
The material is based on a rich variety of original manuscript collections from the unique holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York; we provide access to six major organisational collections and twenty-four collections of personal papers; all of which have been digitized in their entirety.
The personal collections are a treasure trove of letters, scrapbooks, autobiographies, notebooks and other materials relating to the late 17th through to the mid-20th century. These include the following:
Philip Cowen Papers
Bernard C. Ehrenreich Papers
Bernard Felsenthal Papers
Franks Family Papers
Gomez Family Papers
Gratz Family Papers
Myer S. Isaacs Collection
Philip Jacobs Collection
Solomon Robert Kagan Papers
Marion E. Kenworthy Papers
Emma Lazarus Collection
Isaac Leeser Collection
Levy Family (New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore) Papers
Jefferson Monroe Levy Collection
Jonas Phillips Levy Papers
Uriah P. Levy Collection
Louis Marshall Papers
Moses Family (of New York City) Papers
Moss Family of Philadelphia Papers
Nones Family Papers
Haym Salomon Collection
Seixas Family Papers
