AM Primary Source Collections: Home

About this Guide

Guide content supports the teaching and research goals of multiple departments on campus. Content represents a non-exhaustive selection of essential resources and tools for engaging a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints.

AM Collections

Use AM Explorer to search across the University of Iowa Libraries' 80+ AM collections.

AM Explorer
Access millions of pages of primary source collections across the entire portfolio of AM (Adam Matthew), spanning content from the 15th-21st centuries.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, 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.
Age of Exploration
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.
America in World War Two
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.
American History, 1493-1945
This unique collection of documents brings to life American History from the times of the earliest settlers until the end of World War II. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American history. Its quantity and quality offers a wonderful overview of American history alongside some deep research strands. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
American West
Over 300 manuscripts- ranging from the original manuscript journal and papers of James Audubon, and a twelve page letter of General Custer, to the logbook of a cattle trail driver and the Hinman papers describing the overland trail to California and the Gold Rush. A host of extremely rare or unique ephemeral material including advertisements, claim certificates, cheques, photos, wanted notices and news-sheets. Maps - an important and underutilised resource for teaching the American West - partly due to their size and unwieldy nature - partly due to their rarity. Includes many unique or extremely rare items - ranging from extra-illustrated volumes and association copies to city directories and pamphlets and leaflets.
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980
Contains British government files and maps related to the apartheid government of South Africa, spanning 1948-1980.
Central Asia, Persia & Afghanistan, 1834-1922
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.
Children's Literature and Culture
Explore a 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.
China, America and The Pacific
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 history.
China: Culture and Society
Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available 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.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980
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.
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
From its roots as an Anglican evangelical movement driven by lay persons, this resource encompasses publications from the CMS and the latterly integrated South American Missionary Society. Documenting missionary work from the 19th to the 21st century, the periodicals include news, journals and reports offering a unique perspective on global history and cultural encounter.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make 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.
Colonial Caribbean
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, this resource 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.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 covers the whole of the modern period of European colonization of Africa: from coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to 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. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
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.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 covers the whole of modern British involvement in North Africa and the Middle East: from the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
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.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
Explore gender through a vast body of British source material from the fifteenth to early twentieth century. Through correspondence, advice literature, periodicals, ephemera and government documents, traditional models of gender and contemporary perceptions of these can be explored. This is an interdisciplinary resource that will enrich the teaching and research of gender, history, sociology, education and literature.
Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life, 1500-1700
This project offers rare 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.
East India Company
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 1600 to 1947.
Eighteenth Century Drama
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
Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1835
Bringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and it's 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.
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
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.
Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) 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, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
First World War
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.

Includes modules: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Food and Drink in History
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.
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980. Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
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.

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.
Foreign Office Files For Japan, 1919-1952
Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952. Modules include: Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952; Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Foreign Office Files for Southeast Asia, 1963-1980
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. Modules include: Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966; Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialization, 1967-1980
Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981
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.

Utilizing the significant collection of diplomatic correspondence, minutes, reports, political summaries and personality profiles, students and researchers can explore a decade characterised by conflict.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
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.
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women’s rights, from the 19th century to the present.
Gilded Age and Progressive Era
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.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange
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.
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young Britons of the eighteenth century, and a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the era’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. Study the history of travel with this unique collection of written primary and secondary sources, artworks, photographs and maps, c. 1550-1850, which highlights the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.

This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works, including many from private sources, allows scholars to compare a range of documents on the history of this travel. Together the documents form a rich source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transport, 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.
India, Raj & Empire
Drawing upon the rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be ofvalue 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.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
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.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism in the US and Canada from historic pressings to contemporary periodicals. Developed with, and made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Jewish Life in America, 1654-1954
Jewish Life in America will enable you to explore the history of Jewish communities in America from the arrival of the first Jews in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. This rich collection brings to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole.
J Walter Thompson: Advertising America
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. Documents in this resource date from 1887 to 2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1900 to 2000.
Leisure, Travel & Mass Culture: The History of Tourism
This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveller 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.
Life at Sea
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.
Literary Manuscripts: Berg Collection
This collection traces the genesis of some of the nineteenth century’s greatest literary masterpieces through the unique manuscripts of their authors, many unavailable elsewhere. They are supplemented by rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors.
Literary Manuscripts: Leeds
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.
Literary Print Culture: The Stationers' Company Archive
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.
London Low Life
Rare books, ephemera, maps, periodicals, and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. Chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links. Fast literature, street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides), penny fiction, cartoons, Tallis’ Street Views, chapbooks, Old London Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, tourist guides, and topography, manuscripts of George Gissing.
Macmillan Cabinet Papers 1957-1963
This digital collection casts new light on Britain's relationship with the EEC, Anglo-American ties, the Cold War, Decolonization, and issues of public and political morality.

Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963 provides complete coverage of the Cabinet conclusions (minutes) and memoranda of Harold Macmillan’s government, plus selected minutes and memoranda of policy committees.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965
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.
Mass Observation
Founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge, the aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting a team of observers and volunteers to write about their lives and opinions.

This resource offers revolutionary access to the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering an unparalleled insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years. Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organization, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
Mass Observation Project, 1981-2009
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.
Medical Services and Warfare
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.
Medieval Family Life
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.
Medieval Travel Writing
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.
Meiji Japan
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.
Migration to New Worlds
From government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel, Migration to New Worlds showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories supplemented by carefully selected secondary research aids.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society
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.
Nixon Years, 1969-1974
Covers Richard Nixon's entire presidential term and allows scholars and researchers the opportunity to assess, from a British, European and Commonwealth perspective, Nixon's handling of numerous Cold War crises, his administration's achievements, as well as his increasingly controversial activities and unorthodox use of executive powers culminating in Watergate and resignation. Top level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate this collection, which provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files from The National Archives, Kew
Perdita Manuscripts
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 endeavors of the Perdita Project the valuable work of these “lost” women is being rediscovered.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
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.
Poverty, Philanthropy & Social Conditions in Victorian Britain
This digital resource documents the interactions between government policy and public philanthropy in Victorian and early twentieth-century society, tracing developments in welfare reform and the social tensions surrounding poverty. Discover the conditions of workhouses and the administration of the new poor relief system through the official government correspondence of the Poor Law Commission and explore the demonstrable shift in social conditions and welfare reform through a variety of material.
Race Relations in America
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, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Romanticism: Life Literature and Landscape
Discover the working methods of Romantic poets and trace the evolution of celebrated verse in this digital resource. Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.

All of the documents are digitized in color and include: verse manuscripts, printed manuscripts, prose manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps.
Service Newspapers of World War Two
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.
Sex and Sexuality
This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the twentieth century. Investigate the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading American sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and the public consciousness.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive: Theatres, Players & Performance
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, programs, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.
Shakespeare in Performance
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.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Socialism on Film
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.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
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.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th 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; war.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, inviting users into the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
Victorians on Film
Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, Victorians on Film provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.
Virginia Company Archives
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.
Women in The National Archives
This collection consists of a finding aid to women's studies resources in The National Archives, and of original documents covering the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.
World's Fairs
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.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
Eighteenth Century Drama
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
Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings
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.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive: Theatres, Players & Performance
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, programs, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.
Shakespeare in Performance
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.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, inviting users into the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
World's Fairs
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.

Age of Exploration
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.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980
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.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make 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.
East India Company
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 1600 to 1947.
Food and Drink in History
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.
Gilded Age and Progressive Era
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.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange
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.
J Walter Thompson: Advertising America
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. Documents in this resource date from 1887 to 2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1900 to 2000.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965
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.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
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.

Children's Literature and Culture
Explore a 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.
Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life, 1500-1700
This project offers rare 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.
Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) 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, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Medieval Family Life
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.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
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.

Age of Exploration
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.
American History, 1493-1945
This unique collection of documents brings to life American History from the times of the earliest settlers until the end of World War II. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American history. Its quantity and quality offers a wonderful overview of American history alongside some deep research strands. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980
Contains British government files and maps related to the apartheid government of South Africa, spanning 1948-1980.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make 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.
Colonial Caribbean
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, this resource 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 Caribbean
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, this resource 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.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 covers the whole of the modern period of European colonization of Africa: from coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to 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. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
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.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 covers the whole of modern British involvement in North Africa and the Middle East: from the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
East India Company
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 1600 to 1947.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and it's 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.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
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.
India, Raj & Empire
Drawing upon the rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be ofvalue 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.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
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.

Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 covers the whole of the modern period of European colonization of Africa: from coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to 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. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
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.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 covers the whole of modern British involvement in North Africa and the Middle East: from the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
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.

Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Socialism on Film
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.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, inviting users into the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
Victorians on Film
Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, Victorians on Film provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.

Central Asia, Persia & Afghanistan, 1834-1922
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.
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980. Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
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.

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.
Foreign Office Files For Japan, 1919-1952
Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952. Modules include: Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952; Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Foreign Office Files for Southeast Asia, 1963-1980
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. Modules include: Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966; Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialization, 1967-1980
Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981
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.

Utilizing the significant collection of diplomatic correspondence, minutes, reports, political summaries and personality profiles, students and researchers can explore a decade characterised by conflict.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910
Explore gender through a vast body of British source material from the fifteenth to early twentieth century. Through correspondence, advice literature, periodicals, ephemera and government documents, traditional models of gender and contemporary perceptions of these can be explored. This is an interdisciplinary resource that will enrich the teaching and research of gender, history, sociology, education and literature.
Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) 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, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, and the struggle for women’s rights, from the 19th century to the present.
Perdita Manuscripts
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 endeavors of the Perdita Project the valuable work of these “lost” women is being rediscovered.
Sex and Sexuality
This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors throughout the twentieth century. Investigate the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading American sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and the public consciousness.
Women in The National Archives
This collection consists of a finding aid to women's studies resources in The National Archives, and of original documents covering the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.

Children's Literature and Culture
Explore a 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.
Literary Manuscripts: Berg Collection
This collection traces the genesis of some of the nineteenth century’s greatest literary masterpieces through the unique manuscripts of their authors, many unavailable elsewhere. They are supplemented by rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors.
Literary Manuscripts: Leeds
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.
Literary Print Culture: The Stationers' Company Archive
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.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society
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.
Perdita Manuscripts
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 endeavors of the Perdita Project the valuable work of these “lost” women is being rediscovered.
Romanticism: Life Literature and Landscape
Discover the working methods of Romantic poets and trace the evolution of celebrated verse in this digital resource. Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.

All of the documents are digitized in color and include: verse manuscripts, printed manuscripts, prose manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive: Theatres, Players & Performance
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, programs, publicity material, annual reports, show reports, photographs and architectural plans.
Shakespeare in Performance
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.

Medical Services and Warfare
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.
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
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.

Medieval Family Life
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.
Medieval Travel Writing
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.

Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1835
Bringing together rare journals printed between c.1685 and 1835, this resource illuminates all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Topics covered are wide-ranging and include colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, the French and American revolutions, reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe, political debates, and London coffee house gossip and discussion.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism in the US and Canada from historic pressings to contemporary periodicals. Developed with, and made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Service Newspapers of World War Two
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.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, 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.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
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.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism in the US and Canada from historic pressings to contemporary periodicals. Developed with, and made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.
Race Relations in America
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, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.

Church Missionary Society Periodicals
From its roots as an Anglican evangelical movement driven by lay persons, this resource encompasses publications from the CMS and the latterly integrated South American Missionary Society. Documenting missionary work from the 19th to the 21st century, the periodicals include news, journals and reports offering a unique perspective on global history and cultural encounter.
Jewish Life in America, 1654-1954
Jewish Life in America will enable you to explore the history of Jewish communities in America from the arrival of the first Jews in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. This rich collection brings to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young Britons of the eighteenth century, and a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the era’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. Study the history of travel with this unique collection of written primary and secondary sources, artworks, photographs and maps, c. 1550-1850, which highlights the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.

This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works, including many from private sources, allows scholars to compare a range of documents on the history of this travel. Together the documents form a rich source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transport, 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.
Leisure, Travel & Mass Culture: The History of Tourism
This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveller 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.
Medieval Travel Writing
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.
Migration to New Worlds
From government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel, Migration to New Worlds showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories supplemented by carefully selected secondary research aids.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society
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.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th 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; war.

America in World War Two
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.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make 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.
First World War
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.

Includes modules: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Medical Services and Warfare
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.
Service Newspapers of World War Two
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.
Socialism on Film
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.

Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966 covers the whole of the modern period of European colonization of Africa: from coastal trading in the early nineteenth century, through the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa, to 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. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980
Contains British government files and maps related to the apartheid government of South Africa, spanning 1948-1980.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.

Central Asia, Persia & Afghanistan, 1834-1922
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.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
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.

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.
Foreign Office Files for Southeast Asia, 1963-1980
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. Modules include: Cold War in the Pacific, Trade Relations and the Post-Independence Period, 1963-1966; Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialization, 1967-1980
India, Raj & Empire
Drawing upon the rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be ofvalue 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.

China, America and The Pacific
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 history.
China: Culture and Society
Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available 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.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980
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.
Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980. Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.
Foreign Office Files For Japan, 1919-1952
Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952. Modules include: Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952; Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Meiji Japan
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.

Colonial Caribbean
Stretching from Jamaica and the Bahamas to Trinidad and Tobago, this resource 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.
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
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.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
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.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.

Central Asia, Persia & Afghanistan, 1834-1922
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.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969 covers the whole of modern British involvement in North Africa and the Middle East: from the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c. 1820 and 1970, originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Documents range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties.
Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981
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.

Utilizing the significant collection of diplomatic correspondence, minutes, reports, political summaries and personality profiles, students and researchers can explore a decade characterised by conflict.

Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life, 1500-1700
This project offers rare 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.
East India Company
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 1600 to 1947.
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young Britons of the eighteenth century, and a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the era’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. Study the history of travel with this unique collection of written primary and secondary sources, artworks, photographs and maps, c. 1550-1850, which highlights the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.

This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works, including many from private sources, allows scholars to compare a range of documents on the history of this travel. Together the documents form a rich source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transport, 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.
India, Raj & Empire
Drawing upon the rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be ofvalue 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.
London Low Life
Rare books, ephemera, maps, periodicals, and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. Chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links. Fast literature, street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides), penny fiction, cartoons, Tallis’ Street Views, chapbooks, Old London Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, tourist guides, and topography, manuscripts of George Gissing.
Macmillan Cabinet Papers 1957-1963
This digital collection casts new light on Britain's relationship with the EEC, Anglo-American ties, the Cold War, Decolonization, and issues of public and political morality.

Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963 provides complete coverage of the Cabinet conclusions (minutes) and memoranda of Harold Macmillan’s government, plus selected minutes and memoranda of policy committees.
Mass Observation
Founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge, the aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting a team of observers and volunteers to write about their lives and opinions.

This resource offers revolutionary access to the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering an unparalleled insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years. Explore original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organization, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
Mass Observation Project, 1981-2009
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.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Poverty, Philanthropy & Social Conditions in Victorian Britain
This digital resource documents the interactions between government policy and public philanthropy in Victorian and early twentieth-century society, tracing developments in welfare reform and the social tensions surrounding poverty. Discover the conditions of workhouses and the administration of the new poor relief system through the official government correspondence of the Poor Law Commission and explore the demonstrable shift in social conditions and welfare reform through a variety of material.
Romanticism: Life Literature and Landscape
Discover the working methods of Romantic poets and trace the evolution of celebrated verse in this digital resource. Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.

All of the documents are digitized in color and include: verse manuscripts, printed manuscripts, prose manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, inviting users into the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
Victorians on Film
Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, Victorians on Film provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.
Virginia Company Archives
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.
Women in The National Archives
This collection consists of a finding aid to women's studies resources in The National Archives, and of original documents covering the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, 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.
America in World War Two
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.
American History, 1493-1945
This unique collection of documents brings to life American History from the times of the earliest settlers until the end of World War II. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American history. Its quantity and quality offers a wonderful overview of American history alongside some deep research strands. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.
American West
Over 300 manuscripts- ranging from the original manuscript journal and papers of James Audubon, and a twelve page letter of General Custer, to the logbook of a cattle trail driver and the Hinman papers describing the overland trail to California and the Gold Rush. A host of extremely rare or unique ephemeral material including advertisements, claim certificates, cheques, photos, wanted notices and news-sheets. Maps - an important and underutilised resource for teaching the American West - partly due to their size and unwieldy nature - partly due to their rarity. Includes many unique or extremely rare items - ranging from extra-illustrated volumes and association copies to city directories and pamphlets and leaflets.
China, America and The Pacific
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 history.
Colonial America
Colonial America will make 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.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
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.
Everyday Life & Women in America, c1800-1920
This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) 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, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.
Gilded Age and Progressive Era
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.
Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America
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.
Indigenous Newspapers in North America
Nearly 200 years of Indigenous print journalism in the US and Canada from historic pressings to contemporary periodicals. Developed with, and made possible by, the permission and contribution of the newspaper publishers and Tribal Councils concerned.
Jewish Life in America, 1654-1954
Jewish Life in America will enable you to explore the history of Jewish communities in America from the arrival of the first Jews in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. This rich collection brings to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole.
J Walter Thompson: Advertising America
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. Documents in this resource date from 1887 to 2014, with the bulk of the material dating from 1900 to 2000.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965
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.
Nixon Years, 1969-1974
Covers Richard Nixon's entire presidential term and allows scholars and researchers the opportunity to assess, from a British, European and Commonwealth perspective, Nixon's handling of numerous Cold War crises, his administration's achievements, as well as his increasingly controversial activities and unorthodox use of executive powers culminating in Watergate and resignation. Top level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate this collection, which provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files from The National Archives, Kew
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Race Relations in America
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, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
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.
Virginia Company Archives
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.

Age of Exploration
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.
Empire Online
This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and it's 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.
First World War
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.

Includes modules: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Food and Drink in History
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.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
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.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange
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.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Life at Sea
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.
Migration to New Worlds
From government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel, Migration to New Worlds showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories supplemented by carefully selected secondary research aids.
Nixon Years, 1969-1974
Covers Richard Nixon's entire presidential term and allows scholars and researchers the opportunity to assess, from a British, European and Commonwealth perspective, Nixon's handling of numerous Cold War crises, his administration's achievements, as well as his increasingly controversial activities and unorthodox use of executive powers culminating in Watergate and resignation. Top level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate this collection, which provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files from The National Archives, Kew
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007
This digital collection documents key aspects of the history of slavery worldwide over six centuries. Topics covered include the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. The collection also includes case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Socialism on Film
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.
World's Fairs
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.

1980s Culture and Society
An eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, grassroots materials produced by left-wing organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
America in World War Two
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.
Food and Drink in History
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.
Interwar Culture (Module I: the 1920s)
Interwar Culture comprises runs of both prominent and lesser-known periodicals published throughout the interwar period, covering various facets of culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues. These historically significant and visually rich magazines provide an important insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a growing media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Life at Sea
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.
London Low Life
Rare books, ephemera, maps, periodicals, and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. Chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links. Fast literature, street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides), penny fiction, cartoons, Tallis’ Street Views, chapbooks, Old London Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, tourist guides, and topography, manuscripts of George Gissing.
Perdita Manuscripts
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 endeavors of the Perdita Project the valuable work of these “lost” women is being rediscovered.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950 - 1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Rock and Roll explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history. Topics include student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, inviting users into the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
World's Fairs
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.