Dates: 1420 - 1920
Document Types: Audio; Correspondence; Diaries; Film; Government Documents; Logbooks; Maps; Printed Books; Scientific Papers and Surveys
Description: Primary source documents covering five centuries of colonization, journeys, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts.
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.
Dates: 1493 - 1945
Document Types: Artwork; Book; Business and finance documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Maps; Military and Government Documents; Newspapers and Magazines; Objects
Description: Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, American History, 1493-1945 provides access to documents on American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
Dates: 1500-1998
Document Types: Art; Correspondence; Diaries; Finance and Business Documents; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Photographs; Printed Books; Treaty; Tribe Records
Description: Covers interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, to the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection.
Dates: 1648-1997
Document Types: Accounts; Business Records; Correspondence; Ephemera; Journals; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Illustrations and Photographs; Printed Books
Description: Explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
Dates: 1606-1822
Document Types: Charter; Correspondence; Diaries; Business and Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Legislation; Newspapers; Speeches; Treaties; Warrants
Description: Collection of material from the archives of the British government covering all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.
Includes access to the following modules:
Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries
The first module of Colonial America documents the early history of the colonies, and includes founding charters, material on the effects of 1688’s Glorious Revolution in North America, records of piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish, and copious military material from the French and Indian War of 1756-63.
Module 2: Towards Revolution
This module focuses on the 1760s and 1770s and the social and political protest that led to the Declaration of Independence, including legal materials covering the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. It is also particularly rich in material relating to military affairs and Native Americans.
Module 3: The American Revolution
This module charts the upheavals of the 1770s and 1780s which saw the throwing off of British rule in the Thirteen Colonies. Contents include volumes of intercepted letters between colonists, the military correspondence of the British commanders in the field and material produced by the Ordnance Office and the office of the Secretary at War, as well as two copies of the ‘Dunlap’ edition of the Declaration of Independence printed on the night of the 4th-5th July 1776.
Module 4: Legislation and Politics in the Colonies
This module traces the colonies' legal and political evolution between 1636-1782. Includes access to council and assembly minutes and court journals.
Module 5: Growth, Trade and Development
Consists of correspondence with the Board of Trade. There are also details of land grants, financial accounts and documents focusing on American Indian relations, as well as George Vancouver’s dispatches to London from his 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest.
Dates: 1500-1700
Document Types: Court Records; Annotated Editions; Government Documents; Commonplace Books; Family Papers; Correspondence; Diaries; Administrative Records; Financial Documents; Manuscript
Description: Primary source documents covering the everyday lived experience in England from 1500-1700. Includes legal records, family correspondence, administrative records, wills, inventories and commonplace books, and images of everyday objects used in early modern households.
Also includes contextual essays by leading academics, as well as an interactive chronology.
Dates: 1600-1947
Document Types: Charter; Consultations; Correspondence; Diaries; Business and Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Printed Books; Trading Journals; Treaties
Description: Collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Includes royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types. Charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1600 to 1947.
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 access to modules I-V.
Dates: 1737-1824
Document Types: Artwork; Correspondence; Diaries; Financial and Legal Documents; Interludes; Plays; Prologues and Epilogues; Interludes and Preludes; Playbills; Songs
Description: Archive of almost every play submitted for license between 1737 and 1824. Also includes hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays.
Dates: 1750s-1960s
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Illustrations; Manuscripts; Maps; Missionary Papers; Printed Books; Reports
Description: Contains over 70,000 images of original manuscripts (including biographies and chronologies) and printed materials covering Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceana, and South Asia.
Dates: 1650-1920
Document Types: Art; Books; Broadsides; Business and Financial Documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Legal documents; Maps; Photographs
Description: Primary source documents covering the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in the European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia.
The earliest documents in this collection are from the seventeenth century but the majority of the material originates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material covering North America covers the varied frontier regions from fur trappers in Canada to cowboys in Texas and government in Baja California. It is divided into the frontier regions of the American East, the American Midwest, the American Southwest, California & Mexico and Canada. It covers the exploration of these regions followed by trade with Native peoples, colonial rivalries, expansion of government and new nations and the final settlement and 'closing' of the frontier.
Africa is mainly represented by its frontiers of the south with the British colonial expansion into modern day South Africa. There is also material relating to the exploration of West Africa and the colonial administration of Lagos.
The beginnings of European Australia and New Zealand are covered by British government documents, starting with Arthur Phillip and the penal colony at Sydney. The frontiers of other parts of Australia are also covered by documents from the UK National Archives and some material from Australian archives.
Finally, there is some material relating to Central America, specifically British Honduras (Belize), in the form of the George Arthur Papers. George Arthur’s career here relates to the other regions featured here as he spent time on the Canadian and Australian frontiers.
Dates: 1575-2014
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Newspapers Periodicals; Printed books; Speeches
Description: Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
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.
Dates: 1600s-2010
Document Types: Advertisements; Catalogues; Business documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Manuscripts; Mercantile Papers; Prices Current; Private Papers
Description: Provides a range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world.
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.
Dates: 1550-1850
Document Types: Correspondence; Itinerary; Manuscript; Journal; Rare book; Sketchbook; Newsletter; Travel Diary
Description: Collection of primary and secondary resources, including writings, artworks, photographs, and maps for the study of travel, c. 1550-1850.
The Grand Tour was a rite-of-passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young men of the eighteenth century: a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the eighteenth century’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. These accounts of the English abroad, c.1550-1850, highlight the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.
The Grand Tour includes the travel writings and works of some of Britain’s artists, writers and thinkers, revealing how interaction with European culture shaped their creative and intellectual sensibilities. It also includes many writings by forgotten or anonymous travelers, including many women, whose daily experiences offer an insight into the experience and practicalities of travel over the centuries.
Dates: 1710-1944
Document Types: Diaries: Official Papers; Private Papers; Correspondence; Drawings and Illustrations; Histories; Literary Works
Description: Provides access to digitized diaries, journals, official papers, letters, sketches, paintings, and original documents containing histories and literary works
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.
Dates: 1654-1954
Document Types: Correspondence; Scrapbooks; Autobiographies; Notebooks; Rare books; Pamphlets
Description: 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.
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.
Dates: 1500-1700
Document Types: Financial Papers; Diaries; Treatise; Notebooks; Speeches; Manuscripts
Description: Provides digital access to manuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sourced from archives and libraries across the United Kingdom and the USA.
Dates: 1700s-1800s
Document Types: Annotations; Correspondence; Diaries; Financial and Legal Records; Manuscripts; Printed Books; Research Notes
Description: Manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust
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.
Dates: 1400s-2000s
Document Types: Court Records; Diaries; Lists of Slaves; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Registers; Reports; Ships Logs; Statistics
Description: Designed as a portal for slavery and abolition studies, this resource provides access to documents and collections covering 1490-2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Dates: 1420 - 1920
Document Types: Audio; Correspondence; Diaries; Film; Government Documents; Logbooks; Maps; Printed Books; Scientific Papers and Surveys
Description: Primary source documents covering five centuries of colonization, journeys, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts.
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.
Dates: 1493 - 1945
Document Types: Artwork; Book; Business and finance documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Maps; Military and Government Documents; Newspapers and Magazines; Objects
Description: Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, American History, 1493-1945 provides access to documents on American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
Dates: 1500-1998
Document Types: Art; Correspondence; Diaries; Finance and Business Documents; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Photographs; Printed Books; Treaty; Tribe Records
Description: Covers interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, to the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection.
Dates: 1830-1939
Document Types: Broadside; Correspondence; Diaries; Drawings and Illustrations; Ephemera; Financial Records; Maps; Periodicals; Photographs; Rare Books
Description: Collection of primary sources such original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material and rare printed sources, that cover social, political, and economic aspects of the American West.
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.
Dates: 1648-1997
Document Types: Accounts; Business Records; Correspondence; Ephemera; Journals; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Illustrations and Photographs; Printed Books
Description: Explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
Dates: 1600-1947
Document Types: Charter; Consultations; Correspondence; Diaries; Business and Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Printed Books; Trading Journals; Treaties
Description: Collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Includes royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types. Charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1600 to 1947.
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 access to modules I-V.
Dates: 1750s-1960s
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Illustrations; Manuscripts; Maps; Missionary Papers; Printed Books; Reports
Description: Contains over 70,000 images of original manuscripts (including biographies and chronologies) and printed materials covering Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceana, and South Asia.
Dates: 1910-1920
Document Types: Audio; Correspondence; Diaries; Diagrams; Film; Maps; Newspapers; Official Papers; Personal Collection; Printed Books; Trench Literature
Description: Primary source documents related to the First World War, covering personal experiences of men and women, recruitment, the development and dissemination of various forms of propaganda, women's war work, the Home Front and international perspectives.
Document types include: personal narratives, diaries, newspapers, posters, postcards, photographs, printed books, military and government files, ephemera, artwork, personal artifacts and film. Also includes secondary source materials such as interactive maps, and chronologies.
Modules include: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Dates: 1650-1920
Document Types: Art; Books; Broadsides; Business and Financial Documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Legal documents; Maps; Photographs
Description: Primary source documents covering the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in the European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia.
The earliest documents in this collection are from the seventeenth century but the majority of the material originates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material covering North America covers the varied frontier regions from fur trappers in Canada to cowboys in Texas and government in Baja California. It is divided into the frontier regions of the American East, the American Midwest, the American Southwest, California & Mexico and Canada. It covers the exploration of these regions followed by trade with Native peoples, colonial rivalries, expansion of government and new nations and the final settlement and 'closing' of the frontier.
Africa is mainly represented by its frontiers of the south with the British colonial expansion into modern day South Africa. There is also material relating to the exploration of West Africa and the colonial administration of Lagos.
The beginnings of European Australia and New Zealand are covered by British government documents, starting with Arthur Phillip and the penal colony at Sydney. The frontiers of other parts of Australia are also covered by documents from the UK National Archives and some material from Australian archives.
Finally, there is some material relating to Central America, specifically British Honduras (Belize), in the form of the George Arthur Papers. George Arthur’s career here relates to the other regions featured here as he spent time on the Canadian and Australian frontiers.
Dates: 1575-2014
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Newspapers Periodicals; Printed books; Speeches
Description: Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
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.
Dates: 1600s-2010
Document Types: Advertisements; Catalogues; Business documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Manuscripts; Mercantile Papers; Prices Current; Private Papers
Description: Provides a range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world.
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.
Dates: 1550-1850
Document Types: Correspondence; Itinerary; Manuscript; Journal; Rare book; Sketchbook; Newsletter; Travel Diary
Description: Collection of primary and secondary resources, including writings, artworks, photographs, and maps for the study of travel, c. 1550-1850.
The Grand Tour was a rite-of-passage for many aristocratic and wealthy young men of the eighteenth century: a phenomenon which shaped the creative and intellectual sensibilities of some of the eighteenth century’s greatest artists, writers and thinkers. These accounts of the English abroad, c.1550-1850, highlight the influence of continental travel on British art, architecture, urban planning, literature and philosophy.
The Grand Tour includes the travel writings and works of some of Britain’s artists, writers and thinkers, revealing how interaction with European culture shaped their creative and intellectual sensibilities. It also includes many writings by forgotten or anonymous travelers, including many women, whose daily experiences offer an insight into the experience and practicalities of travel over the centuries.
Dates: 1710-1944
Document Types: Diaries: Official Papers; Private Papers; Correspondence; Drawings and Illustrations; Histories; Literary Works
Description: Provides access to digitized diaries, journals, official papers, letters, sketches, paintings, and original documents containing histories and literary works
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.
Dates: 1654-1954
Document Types: Correspondence; Scrapbooks; Autobiographies; Notebooks; Rare books; Pamphlets
Description: 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.
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.
Dates: 1850-1927
Document Types: Medical Notes and Records; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Studies; Periodicals; Plans; Printed Books; Statistics
Description: Provides access to primary source documents related to the history of injury, treatment and disease, and medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927.
Dates: 1858-1925
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Research Files; Drawings; Lecture Notes; Scrapbooks; Manuscripts; Printed media
Description: Contains content from the Edward Sylvester Morse collection from the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum.
Dates: 1768-1900
Document Types: Advertisements; Correspondence; Diaries; Draft; Financial Records; Illustrations; Company Records; Manuscript
Description: 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.
Dates: 1700s-1800s
Document Types: Annotations; Correspondence; Diaries; Financial and Legal Records; Manuscripts; Printed Books; Research Notes
Description: Manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust
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.
Dates: 1400s-2000s
Document Types: Court Records; Diaries; Lists of Slaves; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Registers; Reports; Ships Logs; Statistics
Description: Designed as a portal for slavery and abolition studies, this resource provides access to documents and collections covering 1490-2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Dates: 1779-1930
Document Types: Audio; Catalogues; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Films; Illustrations; Periodicals; Printed Books; Music; Object Images
Description: Popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe during the years from 1779 to 1930.
Dates: 1850-2000s
Document Types: Artifacts; Catalogues; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Reports and Records; Illustrations and Photographs; Maps; Periodicals; Printed Books; Sound Recordings
Description: 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.
Dates: 1493 - 1945
Document Types: Artwork; Book; Business and finance documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Maps; Military and Government Documents; Newspapers and Magazines; Objects
Description: Sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, American History, 1493-1945 provides access to documents on American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
Dates: 1500-1998
Document Types: Art; Correspondence; Diaries; Finance and Business Documents; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Photographs; Printed Books; Treaty; Tribe Records
Description: Covers interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, to the civil rights movement of the mid- to late-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection.
Dates: 1830-1939
Document Types: Broadside; Correspondence; Diaries; Drawings and Illustrations; Ephemera; Financial Records; Maps; Periodicals; Photographs; Rare Books
Description: Collection of primary sources such original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material and rare printed sources, that cover social, political, and economic aspects of the American West.
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.
Dates: 1648-1997
Document Types: Accounts; Business Records; Correspondence; Ephemera; Journals; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Illustrations and Photographs; Printed Books
Description: Explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.
Dates: 1600-1947
Document Types: Charter; Consultations; Correspondence; Diaries; Business and Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Printed Books; Trading Journals; Treaties
Description: Collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Includes royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types. Charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1600 to 1947.
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 access to modules I-V.
Dates: 1750s-1960s
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Illustrations; Manuscripts; Maps; Missionary Papers; Printed Books; Reports
Description: Contains over 70,000 images of original manuscripts (including biographies and chronologies) and printed materials covering Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceana, and South Asia.
Dates: 1910-1920
Document Types: Audio; Correspondence; Diaries; Diagrams; Film; Maps; Newspapers; Official Papers; Personal Collection; Printed Books; Trench Literature
Description: Primary source documents related to the First World War, covering personal experiences of men and women, recruitment, the development and dissemination of various forms of propaganda, women's war work, the Home Front and international perspectives.
Document types include: personal narratives, diaries, newspapers, posters, postcards, photographs, printed books, military and government files, ephemera, artwork, personal artifacts and film. Also includes secondary source materials such as interactive maps, and chronologies.
Modules include: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict
Dates: 1575-2014
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Newspapers Periodicals; Printed books; Speeches
Description: Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. Includes sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
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.
Dates: 1600s-2010
Document Types: Advertisements; Catalogues; Business documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Manuscripts; Mercantile Papers; Prices Current; Private Papers
Description: Provides a range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world.
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.
Dates: 1710-1944
Document Types: Diaries: Official Papers; Private Papers; Correspondence; Drawings and Illustrations; Histories; Literary Works
Description: Provides access to digitized diaries, journals, official papers, letters, sketches, paintings, and original documents containing histories and literary works
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.
Dates: 1654-1954
Document Types: Correspondence; Scrapbooks; Autobiographies; Notebooks; Rare books; Pamphlets
Description: 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.
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.
Dates: 1937-1972
Document Types: Diaries; Day Surveys; Directive Respondents; Directive Questionnaires; Topic Collections Publications; File Reports; Worktown Collection
Description: Field research into the cultural and social life of Britain from 1937 to 1965.
Dates: 1850-1927
Document Types: Medical Notes and Records; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Studies; Periodicals; Plans; Printed Books; Statistics
Description: Provides access to primary source documents related to the history of injury, treatment and disease, and medical advances during warfare from the mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927.
Dates: 1400s-2000s
Document Types: Court Records; Diaries; Lists of Slaves; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Registers; Reports; Ships Logs; Statistics
Description: Designed as a portal for slavery and abolition studies, this resource provides access to documents and collections covering 1490-2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Dates: 1850-2000s
Document Types: Artifacts; Catalogues; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Reports and Records; Illustrations and Photographs; Maps; Periodicals; Printed Books; Sound Recordings
Description: 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.