All Adam Matthew collections are historical, so "history" has not been included as a category in this list.
Includes rare manuscript and early printed material, illustrated maps and documents, diaries and ships' logs. Covers the earliest voyages of Vasco da Gama, the opening of trade with the Spice Islands, the colonization of the Americas and Australasia, the search for the Northwest and Northeast Passages, and finally the race for the Poles.
From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, explore the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Within this resource you can use the chronology and data maps to discover facts and events in the history of the American West and view visual resources in bespoke, searchable galleries.
Digital access to the records of Amnesty International from the second half of the twentieth century. Includes minutes, reports, correspondence, first-hand accounts, publicity materials and circulars relating to human rights violations of all kinds in all parts of the world. Amnesty International’s remit of campaigning for an end to human rights abuses means that this archival material inherently relates to the themes of oppression, cruelty and degradation. Note that the content includes material users may find distressing. This includes descriptions of persecution, disappearances, capital punishment, violence and torture. This content contains both written descriptions and images.
Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.
Primary source documents covering the history of the various territories under British colonial governance. 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.
Includes access to Module 1: Settlement, Slavery and Empire, 1624-1832, Module 2: Colonial Government and Abolition, 1833-1849, and Module 3: Economic Change and Indentured Labour, 1850-1870.
Includes interactive maps and original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969. The images are sources from the British Library, including the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library; the University of Birmingham Library; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the Public Record Office and the State Records, New South Wales, Australia.
Includes recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
Includes access to Modules 1 and 2. The bulk of the material ranges from the sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Module 2 includes six rare Apicius cookbooks, the earliest of which dates from the ninth century.
The bulk of the titles were founded in the 1970s, documenting the proliferation of Indigenous journalism that grew out of the occupation of Wounded Knee, meeting the demand for objective reporting from within Indian Country. Subjects covered include: self-determination era and American Indian Movement (AIM), education, environmentalism, land rights and cultural representation from an Indigenous perspective.
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Documents the communist world from the Russian Revolution until the 1980s. The digitized film covers all aspects of socialist life from society, war, culture, the Cold War, memory and contemporaneous views on current affairs. Footage includes documentaries, newsreels and feature films. Geographically the films deal with the Soviet Union alongside significant groupings of material on Vietnam, China, Korea, the German Democratic Republic and Eastern Europe, Britain, Spain, Latin America and Cuba. Includes access to three modules: Module I: Wars & Revolutions, Module II: Newsreels & Cinemagazines, and Module III: Culture & Society.
Trade catalogs have been a prominent feature in commerce and manufacturing from the eighteenth century to the present day. They are a visual record of a variety of products and facilitate research into popular culture, material culture, social norms and attitudes, as well as the history of marketing, business, and technology.
Women's travel diaries and correspondence from the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. A wide variety of forms of travel writing is represented, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource includes visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs. Sources cover a variety of topics including: architecture; art; British Empire; climate; customs; exploration; family life; housing; industry; language; monuments; mountains; natural history; politics and diplomacy; race; religion; science; shopping; war.
Includes travel accounts by: Mary Adams Abbott, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Annie Ware (Winsor) Allen, Mary Almy, Philinda Parsons (Rand) Anglemyer, Jessie Anglum, Valina Blake, Rettie Downer Blanchard, Mary Anderson Boit, Sarah (Knowles) Bolton, Tabitha Moffett Brown, Cannon Family, Cornelia James Cannon, Eleanor Cobb, Marion Osborne (Graves) Code, Catherine Coyne, Mary (Gardiner) Davis, Freda Mae (Rustemeyer) De Pillis, Julia Coolidge Deane, Josephine (Jackson) Driggs, Mary Reed Eastman, Maria Fay, Lucy H. Fosdick, Mehetable May (Dawes) Goddard, Eve Grantham Kingsland, Florence Ledyard (Cross) Kitchelt, Rowena (Morse) Langer, Lily Larkin, Elizabeth (Stone) May, Edna Bertha (Rankin) Mckinnon, Eva Alberta Mooar, Alice (Rich) Northrop, Chloe Owings, Harriet (Newell Felton) Parker, Helen Jackson Piper, Ida Pruitt, Ruth Elspeth Raymond, Mrs Edward H. Reeves, Lucile (Osborn) Rust, Lillian Schoedler, Grace (Gallatin) Seton-Thompson, Catherine (Filene) Shouse, Sarah Anne (Keegan) Shurtleff, Corinna Haven Lindon (Putnam) Smith, Louise Stoughton, Marie (Barrows) Streeter, M.L. Sullivan, Rosamond Thaxter, Ella Frances Thayer, Sarah Ann Walker, Evelyn Wendt. (OCLC)
Offers insight into the phenomenon of international expositions by presenting official records, monographs, personal accounts and ephemera for more than 200 fairs. The first fair represented in this resource is what many consider the first world’s fair, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace in London, 1851. The latest case study is Montreal’s Expo 1967, but there are documents as recent as Milan’s (successful) bid to host Expo 2015. The largest concentration of documents relate to fairs from the late Victorian-early Edwardian era of 1880-1920; the ‘golden age’ of expositions when neighboring cities raced to outdo each other – sometimes hosting rival fairs in the same year. While there are documents for host nations from every continent, the historical focus of international expositions (and therefore this resource) is Northern European, North American and – in the twentieth century in particular – East Asian.
Includes documents from the late nineteenth century up until the late 1990s with the bulk representing the post-1945 world. The collections included are the Publications, Account Files for nine key clients, Staff Newsletters, Staff Writings & Speeches, Chicago Office Research, New York Office Research, New Business Records, Information Center Records, Corporation Vertical Files, Review Board Records, Staff Meeting Minutes and a selection of Print Advertisements. A number of brands, companies, and industries are covered from automobiles to cosmetics and cruises. It includes complete files on some of J. Walter Thompson’s key accounts.
Contains thousands of reports commissioned by advertising agencies and global businesses in a booming era for consumerism, ‘Madison Avenue’ advertising and global brands on consumer goods ranging from tobacco and broadcasting to cars and hotels. Dichter’s Freud-inspired studies put the consumer “on the couch” and emphasized the unconscious motives behind consumer behavior.
Trade catalogs have been a prominent feature in commerce and manufacturing from the eighteenth century to the present day. They are a visual record of a variety of products and facilitate research into popular culture, material culture, social norms and attitudes, as well as the history of marketing, business, and technology.
Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.
Eighteenth Century Drama features three distinct areas:
Primary source documents; the focus of which is the Larpent collection of plays and Anna Larpent's Diaries
John Larpent was the English Inspector of Plays from 1778-1824 and responsible for executing the Licensing Act of 1737, a landmark act of censorship which required the Lord Chamberlain's office to approve any play before it was staged. The main focus of Eighteenth Century Drama is the John Larpent plays from the Huntington Library; this is the collection of plays that Larpent preserved from the original licence submissions. There are over 2,500 plays which make up the majority of the collection. Also included are the diaries of Larpent's wife and professional collaborator Anna, recording her criticisms of plays as well as insights into theatrical culture and English society. The resource also features correspondence between key theatrical figures, biographical information, portraits, advertisement, historical information, and visual material.
The London Stage Database
The companion text, The London Stage 1660-1800, which lists every traceable performance 1660-1800, has been made available as a searchable database. The information from this database has been used to power the text analysis tool, The London Stage Data Associations in order to illustrate trends within and between theatres, across years, between works performed, roles enacted and actors included in The London Stage. Users can also view The London Stage in its original printed format.
The Biographical Dictionary Database
The companion text A Biographical Dictionary of Actors etc. 1660-1800 has also been made available as a searchable database.
Includes interactive maps and original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969. The images are sources from the British Library, including the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library; the University of Birmingham Library; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the Public Record Office and the State Records, New South Wales, Australia.
Digital facsimiles from the manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland. Includes diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works. The collection documents the relationship between Britain and India in an empire where the Scots played a central role as traders, generals, missionaries, viceroys, governor-generals and East India Company officials. The dates of the documents range from 1710 to 1937.
The Berg Collection is recognized as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature. Most of these unique manuscripts are unavailable in any medium elsewhere. Supplemented by some rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors. Each author collection is included in its entirety, allowing users to browse and search the manuscripts. Authors include Matthew Arnold, the Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray.
The database includes first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content and bibliographic references for over 6,600 poems within the collection. Additional features include interactive essays, biographies, a palaeography section with transcriptions and alphabets, and a large selection of color images demonstrating over 320 examples of 17th and 18th century English handwriting.
Records in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
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.
In addition to William Wordsworth, the resource also includes documents by Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey. There are also works by such artists as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Benjamin Robert Haydon. The documents (manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps) are digitized in color.
The Folger Shakespeare Library has collected prompt books (scripts of the plays marked up for performance) of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as prompt books of other plays performed by influential Shakespearean actors, since the library’s founders, Henry and Emily Folger, purchased their first copy. Alongside these prompt books, the Folger has acquired other material related to performance, such as playbills, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, theatrical account books, photographs, sketches, costumes, props, cue sheets, lighting plots, musical scores, and the correspondence and writings of Shakespearean actors, directors, and managers.
This resource features over 1,000 prompt books of 34 of Shakespeare’s plays, including editions owned by notable actors and directors such as Charles and John Philip Kemble, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Laurence Olivier. Of these 1,000 prompt books, approximately 10% are for Hamlet, and 6% are for Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, respectively. Seventeen performances of particular cultural importance have been selected as case studies, featuring additional archival material such as photographs, costume designs and music scores. These case studies include David Garrick’s revised 1772 production of Hamlet, Henry Irving’s famous 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice, and Laurence Olivier’s Academy Award-winning cinema release of Hamlet in 1948.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is a ‘best guess’ reconstruction based on modern scholarship of the 1599 theater of the same name that William Shakespeare part owned, wrote for and played in. The new theater stands not far from the original Globe on London's Southbank. The performance archive shows how productions at the reconstructed Globe and Sam Wanamaker Playhouse were conceived, rehearsed, dressed, marketed, sound tracked, how props were used, how the audiences behaved and the theater history and performance lessons that were observed and learned. The architectural archive contains material on how the reconstruction of the theater was designed and planned and some of the conversations and debates that informed construction decisions.
China, America and the Pacific offers an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
This full-text digital collection is based primarily on manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Library in London, and supplemented by additional sources from seven institutes, such as the Cambridge University Library. Covers multiple perspectives from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people, and tourists. In addition, there are over 400 color paintings, maps and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as many photographs, sketches and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, customs, and events.
From sixteenth century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise a powerful company and de facto ruler of India, to its demise amid allegations of greed and corruption, the East India Company was an extraordinary force in global history for three centuries.
Includes business accounts, mercantile papers and correspondence, government reports, rare pamphlets and dock records, and material from specialist collections such as the George Arent’s Tobacco Collection at the New York Public Library, the Braga Brothers Collection from the University of Florida, and the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Explores fifteen commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea,timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits.
Includes access to guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs, personal travel journals posters, and ephemeral items.
Contains thousands of reports commissioned by advertising agencies and global businesses in a booming era for consumerism, ‘Madison Avenue’ advertising and global brands on consumer goods ranging from tobacco and broadcasting to cars and hotels. Dichter’s Freud-inspired studies put the consumer “on the couch” and emphasized the unconscious motives behind consumer behavior.
Access to materials related to the history of retail, with access to company archives, trade journals and union records. Chronicles stores and shopping habits in industrialized society during a period of transformation of consumer needs, social expectations, and technological advancements.
Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.
The bulk of the titles were founded in the 1970s, documenting the proliferation of Indigenous journalism that grew out of the occupation of Wounded Knee, meeting the demand for objective reporting from within Indian Country. Subjects covered include: self-determination era and American Indian Movement (AIM), education, environmentalism, land rights and cultural representation from an Indigenous perspective.
The Berg Collection is recognized as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature. Most of these unique manuscripts are unavailable in any medium elsewhere. Supplemented by some rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors. Each author collection is included in its entirety, allowing users to browse and search the manuscripts. Authors include Matthew Arnold, the Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray.
The database includes first lines, last lines, attribution, author, title, date, length, verse form, content and bibliographic references for over 6,600 poems within the collection. Additional features include interactive essays, biographies, a palaeography section with transcriptions and alphabets, and a large selection of color images demonstrating over 320 examples of 17th and 18th century English handwriting.
Documents are sourced from the archive of The Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers, located at Stationers’ Hall in the City of London. Includes materials related to the history of the book as well as publishing history, the history of copyright and the workings of an early London Livery Company. Also includes rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century.
London Low Life is "A full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London."(OCLC)
London Low Life (subtitled on the site as Street Culture, Social Reform and the Victorian Underworld) includes Fast literature, Street ephemera, posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides, Penny fiction, Cartoons, Chapbooks, Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, Reform literature, andMaps and views of London. Among its topics are the underworld, slang, working-class culture, street literature, popular music, urban topography, ‘slumming’ , Prostitution, the Temperance Movement, social reform, Toynbee Hall andpolice and criminality.
Listed as themes, you can explore:
Street Literature and Popular Print
Politics, Scandal and the News
Disreputable London
Sex, Prostitution and Obscenity
Religion, Charity and Social Reform
Crime and Justice
Geography and the Built Environment
Tourism
Leisure and Entertainment
Work, Industry and Commerce
Women and Gender
The database has a basic and advanced search. Pdfs of the items received may be downloaded and saved.Citations also will download into citation managers, including EndNote.
Records in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
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.
In addition to William Wordsworth, the resource also includes documents by Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey. There are also works by such artists as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Benjamin Robert Haydon. The documents (manuscripts, printed verse, correspondence, diaries, travel journals, autograph albums, guide books, fine art and maps) are digitized in color.
Digital access to the archives of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Includes access to production records including costume bibles, sheet music, photographs and other materials relating to 53 groundbreaking or otherwise significant productions. Also includes access to prompt books representing the performance of not only the works of William Shakespeare, but also plays dating from classical Greece to the modern day.
The Folger Shakespeare Library has collected prompt books (scripts of the plays marked up for performance) of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as prompt books of other plays performed by influential Shakespearean actors, since the library’s founders, Henry and Emily Folger, purchased their first copy. Alongside these prompt books, the Folger has acquired other material related to performance, such as playbills, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, theatrical account books, photographs, sketches, costumes, props, cue sheets, lighting plots, musical scores, and the correspondence and writings of Shakespearean actors, directors, and managers.
This resource features over 1,000 prompt books of 34 of Shakespeare’s plays, including editions owned by notable actors and directors such as Charles and John Philip Kemble, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Laurence Olivier. Of these 1,000 prompt books, approximately 10% are for Hamlet, and 6% are for Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, respectively. Seventeen performances of particular cultural importance have been selected as case studies, featuring additional archival material such as photographs, costume designs and music scores. These case studies include David Garrick’s revised 1772 production of Hamlet, Henry Irving’s famous 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice, and Laurence Olivier’s Academy Award-winning cinema release of Hamlet in 1948.
Primary source collection documenting children's literature and print culture. Includes titles from European publishers and some written in French or German but focuses primarily on American literature and culture.
Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.
Defining Gender is a collection of fully digitized rare primary source advice literature covering five centuries between 1450 through 1910. The documents have been selected from a European perspective with an emphasis on British and European sources.
Defining Gender contains complete scanned books, pamphlets, periodicals, collections of letters, biographies, short stories, novels, and poetry, as well as recent thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Gender Studies which place the documents within a broad historical, literary and cultural context.
Currently containing sections on Conduct and Politeness and Domesticity and the Family, Defining Gender includes some of the seminal texts used in Gender studies from authors such as Christine De Pisan, Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, Margery Kempe, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Some key areas of behavior of men and women addressed include cookery, health, courtship, marriage and role of husband and wife, sexuality, courtly behavior, children, education, class, and religion and morality.
Also includes contextual essays by leading academics, as well as an interactive chronology.
Includes access to Modules 1 and 2. The bulk of the material ranges from the sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Module 2 includes six rare Apicius cookbooks, the earliest of which dates from the ninth century.
Material has been sourced from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Key areas represented in the material include: employment and labor, education, government and legislation, the body, domesticity and the family. Includes records from men’s and women’s organisations and pressure groups, detailing twentieth-century lobbying and activism on a wide array of issues to reveal developing gender relations and prevalent challenges.
Access to footage, interviews, photographs and movie posters related to Hindi cinema, the industry producing Hindi/Urdu language films in Mumbai, India (formerly known as Bombay), and now popularly known as ‘Bollywood’.
Includes full interview rushes and actuality footage with leading personalities from the Hindi film industry, originally produced by Hyphen Films Ltd between 1986 and 2011 for inclusion in various Channel 4 UK television series. Also includes selected interviews from the documentary Bollywood Dancing produced for BBC 2 in 2001. The film footage are supplemented by photographs by Peter Chappell and movie posters from the collection at the British Film Institute.
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.
Users will be prompted to confirm that they are over the age of consent to access this resource. Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; surgery and suicide.
Includes research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).
Trade catalogs have been a prominent feature in commerce and manufacturing from the eighteenth century to the present day. They are a visual record of a variety of products and facilitate research into popular culture, material culture, social norms and attitudes, as well as the history of marketing, business, and technology.
Access to materials related to the history of retail, with access to company archives, trade journals and union records. Chronicles stores and shopping habits in industrialized society during a period of transformation of consumer needs, social expectations, and technological advancements.
Includes rare manuscript and early printed material, illustrated maps and documents, diaries and ships' logs. Covers the earliest voyages of Vasco da Gama, the opening of trade with the Spice Islands, the colonization of the Americas and Australasia, the search for the Northwest and Northeast Passages, and finally the race for the Poles.
The four conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War. Many other conflicts also have relevant documents and can be discovered via keyword searching, including the Boer Wars, Spanish-American War and the Spanish Civil War. Includes access to two modules, 1850-1927 and 1928-1949. It covers medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918, the discovery of penicillin in 1928, and up to post-war reforms such as the foundation of the British National Health Service.
Records in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
The material covers popular trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy, and documents the rise of widespread advertising by commercial manufacturers of medical aids. Materials have an emphasis on ephemera and advertising, aimed at the ordinary man in the street rather than medical professionals. These popular practices were built upon the earlier traditions of folk medicine and materia medica as dispensed by apothecaries, and help to show the relationships and differences between traditional old-style medicine and newly emerging scientific methods.
Users will be prompted to confirm that they are over the age of consent to access this resource. Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; surgery and suicide.
Includes research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).
Documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms, the J. Walter Thompson Company. Covers aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history.
Includes documents from the late nineteenth century up until the late 1990s with the bulk representing the post-1945 world. The collections included are the Publications, Account Files for nine key clients, Staff Newsletters, Staff Writings & Speeches, Chicago Office Research, New York Office Research, New Business Records, Information Center Records, Corporation Vertical Files, Review Board Records, Staff Meeting Minutes and a selection of Print Advertisements. A number of brands, companies, and industries are covered from automobiles to cosmetics and cruises. It includes complete files on some of J. Walter Thompson’s key accounts.
Access to materials related to the history of retail, with access to company archives, trade journals and union records. Chronicles stores and shopping habits in industrialized society during a period of transformation of consumer needs, social expectations, and technological advancements.
Supplied by the British Film Institute and Imperial War Museums, this resource provides access to a large collection of early 20th century newsreels covering everything from everyday interests, such as sport and fashion, to coverage of key events, such as the First World War, the Suffragette Movement, and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
Access to primary source material chronicling the expansion of radio and television technology, and the rise of mass media empires in America. Includes access to the papers of David Sarnoff, President of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and other industry papers. The bulk of the material spans the 1920s to the 1970s, representing the decades of David Sarnoff’s career at RCA. Some additional content covers pre-1920s broadcasting developments, and the final years of RCA before its sale in 1986.
Includes recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
Access to footage, interviews, photographs and movie posters related to Hindi cinema, the industry producing Hindi/Urdu language films in Mumbai, India (formerly known as Bombay), and now popularly known as ‘Bollywood’.
Includes full interview rushes and actuality footage with leading personalities from the Hindi film industry, originally produced by Hyphen Films Ltd between 1986 and 2011 for inclusion in various Channel 4 UK television series. Also includes selected interviews from the documentary Bollywood Dancing produced for BBC 2 in 2001. The film footage are supplemented by photographs by Peter Chappell and movie posters from the collection at the British Film Institute.
Documents are sourced from the archive of The Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspaper Makers, located at Stationers’ Hall in the City of London. Includes materials related to the history of the book as well as publishing history, the history of copyright and the workings of an early London Livery Company. Also includes rare documents dating from 1554 to the 21st century.
Documents the communist world from the Russian Revolution until the 1980s. The digitized film covers all aspects of socialist life from society, war, culture, the Cold War, memory and contemporaneous views on current affairs. Footage includes documentaries, newsreels and feature films. Geographically the films deal with the Soviet Union alongside significant groupings of material on Vietnam, China, Korea, the German Democratic Republic and Eastern Europe, Britain, Spain, Latin America and Cuba. Includes access to three modules: Module I: Wars & Revolutions, Module II: Newsreels & Cinemagazines, and Module III: Culture & Society.
Access to to the work of early British film pioneers and innovators. Films include everything from national events and people’s everyday lives to variety acts and fantastical stories. Collections are supported by a number of contextual essays, video interviews and exhibitions written by Victorian Studies and Film History experts.
Access to audio recordings, videos, field notebooks and journals documenting the musical traditions of different societies and cultures.
Includes recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
Access to footage, interviews, photographs and movie posters related to Hindi cinema, the industry producing Hindi/Urdu language films in Mumbai, India (formerly known as Bombay), and now popularly known as ‘Bollywood’.
Includes full interview rushes and actuality footage with leading personalities from the Hindi film industry, originally produced by Hyphen Films Ltd between 1986 and 2011 for inclusion in various Channel 4 UK television series. Also includes selected interviews from the documentary Bollywood Dancing produced for BBC 2 in 2001. The film footage are supplemented by photographs by Peter Chappell and movie posters from the collection at the British Film Institute.
Access to original archival materials related to popular culture in the U.S. and U.K. from 1950-1975. Includes color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia.
Digital access to the archives of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Includes access to production records including costume bibles, sheet music, photographs and other materials relating to 53 groundbreaking or otherwise significant productions. Also includes access to prompt books representing the performance of not only the works of William Shakespeare, but also plays dating from classical Greece to the modern day.
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980. Includes access to sections I through IV.
Includes letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts.
Collection of Foreign Office files, including correspondence, intelligence reports, agents’ diaries, minutes, maps, newspaper excerpts and other materials. Covers 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.
Documents encompass 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.
Digital access to documents covering key events across Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during a period of political upheaval, civil unrest and escalating conflict. Includes correspondence, maps, photographs and memoranda. Documents reveal the growing intervention from foreign powers, as China and the Soviet Union sought to expand their influence over communist parties in the region. Includes access to Section I: Crisis and Upheaval, 1959-1964 and Section II: Escalation, Reunification and Withdrawal, 1965-1979.
Sourced from The National Archives, the UK government's official archive. The resource casts new light on Britain's relationship with the EEC, Anglo-American ties, the Cold War, decolonization, and issues of public and political morality.
Provides access to primary source material recounting the varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration, from government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel. Includes Colonial Office files on immigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolors, oral histories, as well as secondary research aids.
Module 1: Migration to New Worlds: The Century of Immigration
This module concentrates on the period 1800 to 1924 and covers all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures to arrival and permanent settlement. To supplement this, the collection includes early material such as the first emigration ‘round robin’ from 1621 and letters from late eighteenth-century merchants and travelers in the United States. Some later material is also available, including ocean liner and immigration depot photographs from the mid-twentieth century.
Module 2: Migration to New Worlds: The Modern Era
This module begins with the activities of the New Zealand Company during the 1840s and presents thousands of unique original sources focusing on the growth of colonization companies during the nineteenth century, the activities of immigration and welfare societies, and the plight of refugees and displaced persons throughout the twentieth century as migrants fled their homelands to escape global conflict.
Documents the communist world from the Russian Revolution until the 1980s. The digitized film covers all aspects of socialist life from society, war, culture, the Cold War, memory and contemporaneous views on current affairs. Footage includes documentaries, newsreels and feature films. Geographically the films deal with the Soviet Union alongside significant groupings of material on Vietnam, China, Korea, the German Democratic Republic and Eastern Europe, Britain, Spain, Latin America and Cuba. Includes access to three modules: Module I: Wars & Revolutions, Module II: Newsreels & Cinemagazines, and Module III: Culture & Society.
Includes access to two modules:
Module 1: Global Missions and Contemporary Encounters, 1804-2009: features publications from the Church Missionary Society and the South American Missionary Society between 1804 and 2009.
Module 2: Medical Journals, Asian Missions and the Historical Record, 1816-1986: focuses on the publications of CMS medical mission auxiliaries, the work of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society among women in Asia and the Middle East, newsletters from native churches and student missions in China and Japan, and 'home' material including periodicals aimed specifically at women and children subscribers.
Also includes contextual essays by leading academics, as well as an interactive chronology.
Includes recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
Includes access to the entirety of six major organisational collections and twenty-four collections of personal papers from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Themes covered include: business, industry and enterprise; civil rights and liberties; culture, literature and the arts; early Jewish experience; everyday life: personal and family narratives; immigration and settlement; politics and the law; reflections on the Jewish experience; religion, tradition and community; war, conflict and persecution; and Welfare, health and education.
Drawing on archival resources from the late 1970s through to the early 1990s, this resource focuses on the voices of under-represented groups, grassroots organizations, and countercultural movements, addressing themes such as sexuality and identity, Black resistance movements, Indigenous land rights, subcultures, and health and social issues.
From the rise of Conservatism, the threat of nuclear war, and the AIDS crisis, to rampant consumerism, economic crises, and technological advancements, the 1980s was a turbulent and complex decade in which some individuals reaped significant benefits whilst others experienced severe poverty and hardship. Resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.
Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
Digital access to oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and military records relating to military personnel and civilians during the Second World War. Covers both the United States home front and deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma, and India.
Includes collections sourced from The National WWII Museum, New Orleans. Covers American military and civilian participation in all major theaters of operations, including the army, navy and air force, marines, merchant marines, coast guard, women’s forces and medical personnel.
Includes letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts.
Includes access to two modules:
Module 1: Global Missions and Contemporary Encounters, 1804-2009: features publications from the Church Missionary Society and the South American Missionary Society between 1804 and 2009.
Module 2: Medical Journals, Asian Missions and the Historical Record, 1816-1986: focuses on the publications of CMS medical mission auxiliaries, the work of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society among women in Asia and the Middle East, newsletters from native churches and student missions in China and Japan, and 'home' material including periodicals aimed specifically at women and children subscribers.
Defining Gender is a collection of fully digitized rare primary source advice literature covering five centuries between 1450 through 1910. The documents have been selected from a European perspective with an emphasis on British and European sources.
Defining Gender contains complete scanned books, pamphlets, periodicals, collections of letters, biographies, short stories, novels, and poetry, as well as recent thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Gender Studies which place the documents within a broad historical, literary and cultural context.
Currently containing sections on Conduct and Politeness and Domesticity and the Family, Defining Gender includes some of the seminal texts used in Gender studies from authors such as Christine De Pisan, Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, Margery Kempe, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Some key areas of behavior of men and women addressed include cookery, health, courtship, marriage and role of husband and wife, sexuality, courtly behavior, children, education, class, and religion and morality.
Material has been sourced from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Key areas represented in the material include: employment and labor, education, government and legislation, the body, domesticity and the family. Includes records from men’s and women’s organisations and pressure groups, detailing twentieth-century lobbying and activism on a wide array of issues to reveal developing gender relations and prevalent challenges.
Includes documents from the late nineteenth century up until the late 1990s with the bulk representing the post-1945 world. The collections included are the Publications, Account Files for nine key clients, Staff Newsletters, Staff Writings & Speeches, Chicago Office Research, New York Office Research, New Business Records, Information Center Records, Corporation Vertical Files, Review Board Records, Staff Meeting Minutes and a selection of Print Advertisements. A number of brands, companies, and industries are covered from automobiles to cosmetics and cruises. It includes complete files on some of J. Walter Thompson’s key accounts.
Contains thousands of reports commissioned by advertising agencies and global businesses in a booming era for consumerism, ‘Madison Avenue’ advertising and global brands on consumer goods ranging from tobacco and broadcasting to cars and hotels. Dichter’s Freud-inspired studies put the consumer “on the couch” and emphasized the unconscious motives behind consumer behavior.
A pioneering social research organisation, Mass Observation was founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge. Their aim was to create an 'anthropology of ourselves', and by recruiting a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers they studied the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain. This resource covers the original Mass Observation project, the bulk of which was carried out from 1937 until the mid-1950s, offering insight into everyday life in Britain during these transformative years.
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. It is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK.
Users will be prompted to confirm that they are over the age of consent to access this resource. Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; surgery and suicide.
Includes research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).
Access to materials related to the history of retail, with access to company archives, trade journals and union records. Chronicles stores and shopping habits in industrialized society during a period of transformation of consumer needs, social expectations, and technological advancements.
Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
The four conflicts robustly represented are the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War. Many other conflicts also have relevant documents and can be discovered via keyword searching, including the Boer Wars, Spanish-American War and the Spanish Civil War. Includes access to two modules, 1850-1927 and 1928-1949. It covers medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918, the discovery of penicillin in 1928, and up to post-war reforms such as the foundation of the British National Health Service.
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Eighteenth Century Drama features three distinct areas:
Primary source documents; the focus of which is the Larpent collection of plays and Anna Larpent's Diaries
John Larpent was the English Inspector of Plays from 1778-1824 and responsible for executing the Licensing Act of 1737, a landmark act of censorship which required the Lord Chamberlain's office to approve any play before it was staged. The main focus of Eighteenth Century Drama is the John Larpent plays from the Huntington Library; this is the collection of plays that Larpent preserved from the original licence submissions. There are over 2,500 plays which make up the majority of the collection. Also included are the diaries of Larpent's wife and professional collaborator Anna, recording her criticisms of plays as well as insights into theatrical culture and English society. The resource also features correspondence between key theatrical figures, biographical information, portraits, advertisement, historical information, and visual material.
The London Stage Database
The companion text, The London Stage 1660-1800, which lists every traceable performance 1660-1800, has been made available as a searchable database. The information from this database has been used to power the text analysis tool, The London Stage Data Associations in order to illustrate trends within and between theatres, across years, between works performed, roles enacted and actors included in The London Stage. Users can also view The London Stage in its original printed format.
The Biographical Dictionary Database
The companion text A Biographical Dictionary of Actors etc. 1660-1800 has also been made available as a searchable database.
Includes recordings from Alaska to the Pacific Islands, West Africa to Indonesia, including religious music, secular music, celebrations and funerals. There are interviews with musicians, slides and photographs of field sites and photographs of instruments being played and in isolation.
Digital access to the archives of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Includes access to production records including costume bibles, sheet music, photographs and other materials relating to 53 groundbreaking or otherwise significant productions. Also includes access to prompt books representing the performance of not only the works of William Shakespeare, but also plays dating from classical Greece to the modern day.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is a ‘best guess’ reconstruction based on modern scholarship of the 1599 theater of the same name that William Shakespeare part owned, wrote for and played in. The new theater stands not far from the original Globe on London's Southbank. The performance archive shows how productions at the reconstructed Globe and Sam Wanamaker Playhouse were conceived, rehearsed, dressed, marketed, sound tracked, how props were used, how the audiences behaved and the theater history and performance lessons that were observed and learned. The architectural archive contains material on how the reconstruction of the theater was designed and planned and some of the conversations and debates that informed construction decisions.
The Folger Shakespeare Library has collected prompt books (scripts of the plays marked up for performance) of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as prompt books of other plays performed by influential Shakespearean actors, since the library’s founders, Henry and Emily Folger, purchased their first copy. Alongside these prompt books, the Folger has acquired other material related to performance, such as playbills, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, theatrical account books, photographs, sketches, costumes, props, cue sheets, lighting plots, musical scores, and the correspondence and writings of Shakespearean actors, directors, and managers.
This resource features over 1,000 prompt books of 34 of Shakespeare’s plays, including editions owned by notable actors and directors such as Charles and John Philip Kemble, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Laurence Olivier. Of these 1,000 prompt books, approximately 10% are for Hamlet, and 6% are for Merchant of Venice and Macbeth, respectively. Seventeen performances of particular cultural importance have been selected as case studies, featuring additional archival material such as photographs, costume designs and music scores. These case studies include David Garrick’s revised 1772 production of Hamlet, Henry Irving’s famous 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice, and Laurence Olivier’s Academy Award-winning cinema release of Hamlet in 1948.
Primary source collection documenting children's literature and print culture. Includes titles from European publishers and some written in French or German but focuses primarily on American literature and culture.
Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.
Searchable full-text of advice literature covering household management, education, leisure, shoppping, sexuality, consumption and sport.
Defining Gender is a collection of fully digitized rare primary source advice literature covering five centuries between 1450 through 1910. The documents have been selected from a European perspective with an emphasis on British and European sources.
Defining Gender contains complete scanned books, pamphlets, periodicals, collections of letters, biographies, short stories, novels, and poetry, as well as recent thematic essays by leading scholars in the field of Gender Studies which place the documents within a broad historical, literary and cultural context.
Currently containing sections on Conduct and Politeness and Domesticity and the Family, Defining Gender includes some of the seminal texts used in Gender studies from authors such as Christine De Pisan, Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, Margery Kempe, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Some key areas of behavior of men and women addressed include cookery, health, courtship, marriage and role of husband and wife, sexuality, courtly behavior, children, education, class, and religion and morality.
Literary research collection of a broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century.
The Berg Collection is recognized as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature. Most of these unique manuscripts are unavailable in any medium elsewhere. Supplemented by some rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors. Each author collection is included in its entirety, allowing users to browse and search the manuscripts. Authors include Matthew Arnold, the Brontes, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Searchable collection of color digital images of rare books, ephemera and other materials relating to popular culture in 19th and early 20th century London.
London Low Life is "A full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London."(OCLC)
London Low Life (subtitled on the site as Street Culture, Social Reform and the Victorian Underworld) includes Fast literature, Street ephemera, posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides, Penny fiction, Cartoons, Chapbooks, Street Cries, Swell’s guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens, Reform literature, andMaps and views of London. Among its topics are the underworld, slang, working-class culture, street literature, popular music, urban topography, ‘slumming’ , Prostitution, the Temperance Movement, social reform, Toynbee Hall andpolice and criminality.
Listed as themes, you can explore:
Street Literature and Popular Print
Politics, Scandal and the News
Disreputable London
Sex, Prostitution and Obscenity
Religion, Charity and Social Reform
Crime and Justice
Geography and the Built Environment
Tourism
Leisure and Entertainment
Work, Industry and Commerce
Women and Gender
The database has a basic and advanced search. Pdfs of the items received may be downloaded and saved.Citations also will download into citation managers, including EndNote.
Primary source documents from the archive of the historic John Murray literary publishing company. Materials span the entirety of the long nineteenth century and document the golden era of the House of Murray from its inception in 1768.
Records in this resource predominantly focus on the tenure of John Murray II and his son, John Murray III, as they rose to prominence in the publishing trade, launching long-running series including the political periodical Quarterly Review, and publishing genre-defining titles such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Austen’s Emma and Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.
Primary source materials documenting the interactions between government policy and public philanthropy in Victorian and early twentieth-century society. Covers a shift in welfare reform and the social tensions surrounding poverty and public welfare.
Covers the complex social climate of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain between the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 and the eventual abolition of the workhouse system in 1930. Includes materials covering the conditions of workhouses and the administration of the new poor relief system through the official government correspondence of the Poor Law Office, documenting conditions and providing reports of healthcare, diet, sanitation and employment within the institutions.
Popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe during the years from 1779 to 1930.
Contains four modules:
Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic
This section explores the relationship between the popularity of Victorian magic shows and conjuring tricks and the emergence of séances and psychic phenomena in Britain and America. Contains material from the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature at Senate House, University of London, as well as the Harry Houdini archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.
Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks
This section focuses on the world of travelling entertainment, which brought spectacle to vast audiences across Britain, American and Europe in the 19th and early 20th century. From big tops to carnivals, fairgrounds and dime museums, it covers the history of popular shows and exhibitions from both audience and professional perspectives. The collection features hundreds of posters, postcards, photographs, cabinet cards and illustrations, in addition to handbills, pamphlets, manuscripts, printed ephemera, memorabilia, rare books, children’s literature and memoirs of celebrity showpeople.
Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment
This section features material on music halls, theatre (legitimate and illegitimate), pantomime, pleasure gardens, exhibitions, scientific institutions, and magic lanterns shows and dioramas. Also includes rare books, periodicals aimed at industry and fans, titles from the scarce popular series ‘Dicks’ Standard Plays’, posters and playbills, visual ephemera, and the archives of May Moore Duprez, the American music hall star who topped international bills with her ‘Jolly Little Dutch Girl’ act.
Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema
Provides thorough coverage of Victorian and Edwardian visual entertainments, early optics, magic lantern shows, panoramas, dioramas, early photography, and early motion pictures. The source material is drawn from the collections of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. Based at the University of Exeter, the UK’s largest research center for the history of international cinema and pre-cinema.
Access to to the work of early British film pioneers and innovators. Films include everything from national events and people’s everyday lives to variety acts and fantastical stories. Collections are supported by a number of contextual essays, video interviews and exhibitions written by Victorian Studies and Film History experts.
Provides access to official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts, covering 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.
Offers insight into the phenomenon of international expositions by presenting official records, monographs, personal accounts and ephemera for more than 200 fairs. The first fair represented in this resource is what many consider the first world’s fair, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations at the Crystal Palace in London, 1851. The latest case study is Montreal’s Expo 1967, but there are documents as recent as Milan’s (successful) bid to host Expo 2015. The largest concentration of documents relate to fairs from the late Victorian-early Edwardian era of 1880-1920; the ‘golden age’ of expositions when neighboring cities raced to outdo each other – sometimes hosting rival fairs in the same year. While there are documents for host nations from every continent, the historical focus of international expositions (and therefore this resource) is Northern European, North American and – in the twentieth century in particular – East Asian.