History

Most texts included are from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, American Broadsides and Ephemera offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The diverse subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.

Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945

While they are in Black and White, instead of the original color, the Digital Sanborn Maps allow researchers to view and download the maps, integrate them in various GIS applications, and access them remotely. Sanborn maps provide house by house or business by business details for cities and towns throughout Indiana. They show the development of water works, school and government buildings, and transportation systems.

The LC Online Catalog contains over 20 million records describing these collections. You can search Catalog records by keyword or browse by authors/creators, subjects, names/titles, series/uniform titles, and call numbers. Browse lists also include searching aids such cross-references and scope notes.

Digital facsimiles of literature on economics and business published from the last half of the 15th century to the mid-19th century. The collection documents the dynamics of Western trade and wealth. Includes facsimiles of rare books and primary source materials such as political pamphlets and broadsides, government publications, proclamations, and a wide range of ephemera.

Searchable and cross-searchable, full text collection of primary and secondary materials that include The Adams Papers, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, The Dolley Madison, The Papers of James Madison, The Papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Harriott Pinckney Horry, The Papers of George Washington, The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, and Founders Early Access.

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.

Includes a wide variety of material types, including maps, textbooks, songs and novels. The texts are searchable and browsable by type.

From the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia this collection contains a range of recently uncovered books, pamphlets and broadsides, most of which were not included in either Charles Evans' monumental work or Roger Bristol's supplement. Printed during a 130-year period spanning the colonial era and the formation of the new nation, full text is available for the items in this collection.

Among the topics covered by are the slave trade, piracy, French in American, British colonies, commerce, exploration, Dutch in America and the Jesuits. Other subjects include botany, shipping, natural history, mines, minerals, law, navigation and named areas like Chile, Hispaniola, Jamaica, New York, Peru and other individual countries, islands, cities, colonies and regions.The original bibliography was co-developed by John Alden and Dennis Landis, Curator of European Books at The John Carter Brown Library.

Among the collections on the Colonial Era, one notable collection is the Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774. This collection consists of 276 diaries written by 112 people. Highlights of the Revolutionary War and Early National Period are the Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Revere Family Papers, Elbridge Gerry Papers, and Artemas Ward Papers.

This is an essential source for the study of the Atlantic World and Early Colonial Period. It documents the founding and economic development of Virginia as seen through the papers of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624. It then shows the continuing interest of the Ferrar family in the settlement of North America from Jamestown to the Bermudas. This collection provides a rich source for the study of trade between Britain and America. There is valuable evidence on the ethnic and gender composition of Virginia and new evidence of tensions amongst the colonists and of early relations with Native Americans. It is also a crucial source for London’s economic history and will be welcomed by religious and social historians of Early Modern England. The project is made up of four constituent parts:

Previously unpublished transcripts by Dr David Ransome of over 500 documents from the Virginia Company Archives. These will be fully searchable and are linked to the original manuscripts.

A fully searchable text of The Records of the Virginia Company of London (4 vols, Washington DC, Government Printing Office, 1906-1933).

The complete Ferrar Papers from Magdelene College, Cambridge, together with a fully searchable listing linked directly to the manuscripts.

An extensive contextual introduction to the Ferrar papers and a wide range of maps, illustrations and other works.

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together diaries, letters, and memoirs from more than 2,000 authors to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, including what was happening at home. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also. The materials originate from all regions of the country and are from people who played a variety of roles.

The 25 million+ records in C19 Index include the following sources: Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, The Nineteenth Century publishing program, ProQuest’s American Periodicals, ProQuest’s British Periodicals, Cotgreave's Index, An Index to Legal Periodical Literature, Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 1811–1849, Periodicals Index Online, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Stead's Index to Periodical Literature, The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, The U.S. Serial Set, Archive Finder, Palmer's Index to The Times, The "Bookman" Directory of Booksellers, Publishers and Authors, and Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism.

Based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker and supplemented by thousands of additional items.  Allows students and scholars to explore the development of the American nation through a variety of genres and formats, from folk art to politics. Offers fully searchable text and a browse feature with topical indexes.

Taken from the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, the resource includes a range of recently uncovered books, pamphlets and broadsides, most of which were not included in Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker's American Bibliography. These items were printed during the Early Republic, and span the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson and the passage of the Indian Civilization Act.

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.

Another prominent subject covered is the fair administration of the election process. Troubles often arose as African Americans prepared to exercise their newly won rights to vote and run for office; many letters in the collection call for military intervention to secure these rights. Also included are Letters Received by the Attorney General pertaining to law and order in southern states from 1871-1884 and records of the Freedmen's Hospital and the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company.

Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia. In modern times, as well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through Afghanistan, temporarily establishing local control and often dominating Iran and northern India. Islam has played a key role in the formation of Afghanistan as well. Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade for over two millennia, Afghanistan did not become a truly independent nation until the twentieth century. In much of the twentieth century, Afghanistan remained neutral. It was not a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the U.S. vied for influence by building such infrastructure works as roads, airports, water and sewer systems, and hospitals. The U.S. State Department Central Classified Files are the definitive source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout the world in the twentieth century.

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. 

Kennedy files include documents from the 1960 presidential campaign and cover the major issues of the Kennedy presidency. The Johnson administration collections chronicle the seven years of tumult and unparalleled change from the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the War on Poverty to civil unrest and fighting in Vietnam. Of particular note is the Confidential File from the Johnson White House Central Files. Nixon administration materials consist of Nixon's White House files as well as a collection of the official transcripts of proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the four major Watergate-related trials.

Beginning in the 1940s, a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA, monitored, recorded and translated any item related to the Cold War from foreign mass media and government publications. The scope of this effort was vast: over time it covered newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts and more from every corner of the world. 

During the 1920s, The Washington Post estimated the Klan’s membership as high as 9,000,000 and in the Midwest, a particular strong point of Klan support, one in three white protestant males in the state of Indiana were dues-paying members of the Klan.  The collection is currently available only to funding institutions, but will eventually be made open access.

Another key collection included consists of the records of the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). The SACB files constitute one of the most valuable resources for the study of left-wing radicalism during the 1950s and 1960s.

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

Collection primarily concern the U.S. government's prosecution of these nationalists in the "Hindu Conspiracy Case" (as it was called in the press and Department of Justice correspondence) for violations of the Espionage Act (40 Stat. 217-231) arising from two major incidents. In the first incident, the German government provided funds with which the nationalists purchased arms for shipment to Indian rebels. In the second incident, several Indians (some of whom were U.S. citizens) and others were arrested for attempted fraud involved in soliciting funds for and calling themselves representatives of the "Nationalists Government" of India. In the spring of 1918, the "Hindu Conspiracy Case" trial was held in San Francisco, at which 29 people were convicted in indictments arising from the arms shipment. Indictments arising from the fraud case were dismissed. The trial ended with a sensational climax when Ram Chandra was shot to death in the courtroom by fellow defendant, Ram Singh.

The collection includes primary and secondary materials across multiple media formats and content types for each selected event, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than thirty additional subjects.

Contains reports gathered every day between the early 1940s and 1996 by a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA . These include translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals and government documents, as well as an analysis of the reports.

Includes files of the American ambassadors to India and Pakistan during this time, and thousands of official records on the conflict and competition between India and Pakistan during a key period in the Cold War era. Subjects covered: political parties and elections, unrest and revolution, human rights, government administration, fiscal and monetary issues, national defense, foreign policy-making, wars and alliances, religion, culture, trade, industry, natural resources, and more.

The National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome was an independent body created in 1989 by federal statute (Public Law 100-607). The mission of the National Commission was to advise Congress and the President on the development of "a consistent national policy" concerning the HIV epidemic. The statute created the Commission for a period of up to four years, which expired on September 3, 1993.

The collection is comprised of four series: Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, 1987-1988; Briefings and Transcripts of Hearings and Meetings, 1989-1992; Press Coverage and Reports, 1989-1993; and Reports on AIDS from External Institutions and Government Agencies, 1983-1992.
 

Documents reflect the social, artistic and cultural dynamism that characterized the 'Roaring Twenties' in fashion, music, literature, dance and entertainment as well as post-war intellectual thought and modernism.

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.

Also documents some of the most important Latino organizations of the time, including LULAC, TELACU, La Raza, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the American G.I. Forum.

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.

Includes primary source documents curated by a U.S. government organization that was part of the CIA monitoring publications from around the world and translating the material into English.

During World War II and the first decade and a half of the Cold War, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the State Department assigned leading scholars to write special, classified reports about Asia, Europe, the Soviet Union, Latin America, and Africa. These reports helped to shape U.S. foreign policy decisions.  Topics covered include: the occupation of Japan by the U.S. following World War II; the Nationalist-Communist struggle for China and Mao's consolidation of power in the 1950s; independence for India; the Korean War; and the outbreak of war in Indochina, the German war effort, occupation and division of Germany, reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan, de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic, formation of the Common Market, and Soviet control of Eastern Europe.  Major developments covered include Palestine, African nationalism as well as economic stagnation and famine, Communist movements in South America and U.S. intervention in Central America.

The Children's Bureau played an active role in the design and administration of many important social welfare measures including the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act to reduce infant mortality and the campaign to reduce child labor in the 1930s. Documents trace the various stages of Federal involvement in the welfare of children and the development of family law.

The documents found in these files are predominantly instructions to – and dispatches from – diplomatic and consular officials and are often accompanied by enclosures. Notes between the Department of State and foreign diplomats in the United States, memoranda prepared by State Department officials, and correspondence with officials of other government departments, as well as with private businesses and persons, are also included.

Includes diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary covering the history, culture, and politics of the 1960s. Themes include: arts, music, and leisure ; civil rights ; counter-culture ; law and government ; mass media ; new left and emerging neo-conservative movement ; student activism ; Vietnam War ; women's movement.

The following countries or cities are represented in this module: Japan; Cuba; El Salvador; Honduras; Nicaragua; Iran; Iraq; Beirut; Jerusalem; Aden; Lebanon; Russia and the Soviet Union.

Contains the U.S. Military Intelligence reports for China, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Soviet Union, Biweekly Intelligence Summaries, and Combat Estimates.

Contains the U.S. Military Intelligence reports for China, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Argentina, Mexico, Soviet Union, Biweekly Intelligence Summaries, and Combat Estimates.

Includes materials on political affairs, Jewish people, refugee and relief activities, German-owned property in Rome, property rights, and the Vatican Bank. In addition, there are materials on Axis diplomats, war criminals, protocols and religious statements, and records of the peace efforts of the Vatican.

Covers U.S. involvement in the region from the early days of the Kennedy administration, through the escalation of the war during the Johnson administration, to the final resolution of the war at the Paris Peace Talks and the evacuation of U.S. troops in 1973. Traces the actions and decisions at the highest levels of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, as well as events on the ground in Vietnam, from the perspective of State Department officials, Associated Press reporters, and members of the U.S. Armed forces, including the Marines and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam. Collections also highlight all of the most important foreign policy issues facing the United States between 1960 and 1975. -- OCLC

The first series documents the role of the Women's Bureau as an investigative agency, as a clearinghouse for proposed changes in working conditions, and as a source of public information and education. Items in this first series include reports of the bureau director to the secretary of labor, records of bureau-sponsored conferences, and speeches and articles by women officials of the bureau. The second series of Women's Bureau records consists of a detailed study on the treatment of women by unions in several midwestern industrial centers, complete with extensive background interviews and other research materials; community studies conducted nationwide on the influx of women to industrial centers during the war; and subject files and correspondence on women's work in war industries, including issues like equal pay and child care.

Other notable collections include: Select Reports of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace and Reparations Papers of the Allied Powers Reparations Commission, and Records of the Conference on Limitation of Armament, 1921-1922. Also includes an important collection on diplomacy and the intelligence work of the U.S. State Department during World War I and in the decade after: State Department Collection of Intelligence, 1915-1927: Records of the Office of the Counselor, Undersecretary of State, and the Chief Special Agent.

Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina. 

The collection also contains items on numerous law enforcement and civil rights organizations across the country; materials on the suspension of AAPL executive director Renault Robinson from the Chicago Police Department and related lawsuits; and materials pertaining to the National Black Police Association (NBPA).

Created from the Library Company of Philadelphia's acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection, this collection covers the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought, including political protest and resistance to racism; descriptions of African American life -- slave and free -- throughout the Americans; and slavery and race in fiction and drama. Also featured are printed works of African American individuals and organizations.

Includes firsthand reporting on the rise of Indigenous rights in countries around the world; covers African American history, the Civil Rights movement, Hispanic American history, Asian American history, and the evolution of racial justice in America.

Created from the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Black Authors, 1556-1922. Major subject areas addressed in Black Authors include Literature, Ethnic History, Colonialism, Gender Studies, Slavery, and Diaspora Studies. Authors included are Leo Africanus, Ignatius Sancho, Benjamin Banneker, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, David Ruggles, William Wells Brown, Solomon Northrup, Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Alexander Crummell, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass, Bethany Veney, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson, and hundreds of others.

Booker T. Washington believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. He established the League "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. The League promoted the commercial endeavors and economic advancement of African Americans mainly, but not solely in the South, via a network of state and local Negro Business Leagues, and affiliated professional and trade organizations.

The BLA arose in reaction to the political, social, and economic oppression of African American people. Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the organization’s program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of Black people in the United States."  

The collection includes documentaries on leading artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, and performers, such as Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Huey P. Newton, Frantz Fanon, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, August Wilson, Bobby Seale, Ethel Waters, Amiri Baraka, and Robert F. Williams.  The database also draws from the Hatch-Billops Collection, a critically acclaimed archive of primary and secondary resource materials focused on Black American art, drama, and literature. Additional content planned for inclusion are the SNCC archives, the NAACP archives, and archives from select Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The collection includes the words of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ida B. Wells, Nikki Giovanni, Mary McLeod Bethune, Carl Rowan, Roy Wilkens, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, Constance Baker Motley, Walter F. White, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, Bobby Seale, Gwendolyn Brooks, Huey P. Newton, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Randall Kennedy, Cornel West, Nelson George, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and hundreds of other notable people.

Black Women Writers includes fiction, poetry, and essays. Among the authors are Nikki Giovanni, Maryse Condé, Barbara Ransby, Angela Davis, Rhoda Reddock, Margaret Walker, Ama Ata Aidoo, Rosa Guy, Sonia Sanchez, Olive Senior, and Barbara Ransby. Works are in their original languages, although an English translation executed by the original author may be available. Works are reproduced in their entirety and when possible, an image of the original page accompanies the text. The dates of the material range from the 1700s to contemporary pieces.

Also includes Forman’s involvement with the "Black Manifesto" and the Bureau’s "COINTELPRO" investigations into "Black Nationalist - Hate Groups / Internal Security," which include information on the activities of SNCC.  Forman acted as Executive Secretary of SNCC until 1966, arranging transportation, food, and housing for volunteers, and raising funds. From 1967-1969, Forman served as SNCC’s International Affairs Director and became involved with linking SNCC to the black power movement.  He authored a memoir, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, and founded the Unemployment and Poverty Action Committee (UPAC), a nonprofit social action organization, serving as its president from 1974-2003. 

Many of the documents originated with Black "confidential special informants" enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate a variety of organizations. In addition to infiltration, the FBI contributed to the infringement of First Amendment freedoms by making its agents a constant visible presence at radical rallies and meetings. This archive is based on original microfilm.

Contents: COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist "Hate" Groups -- FBI file on A. Philip Randolph -- FBI File on Adam Clayton Powell -- FBI file on the Atlanta child murders (ATKID) -- FBI file on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina -- FBI file on the Committee for Public Justice -- FBI file on Elijah Muhammed -- FBI file on the Highlander Folk School -- FBI file on the Ku Klux Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo -- FBI file on Malcolm X -- FBI file : MIBURN (Mississippi Burning) -- FBI file on the Moorish Science Temple of America -- FBI File on the Murder of Lemuel Penn -- FBI file on Muslim Mosque, Inc. -- FBI file on the NAACP -- FBI file on the National Negro Congress -- FBI file on the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) -- FBI file on Paul Robeson -- FBI file on the Reverend Jesse Jackson -- FBI file on Roy Wilkins -- FBI file on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- FBI file on Thurgood Marshall -- FBI file on W. E. B. Du Bois -- FBI investigation file on Communist infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- FBI surveillance file: Malcolm X -- FBI investigation file on Marcus Garvey. (OCLC)

Includes interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present. Rather than focus on one particular part of a person’s life or a single subject, such as a career or participation in the civil rights movement, the interviews are life oral histories covering the person’s entire span of memories as well as his or her own family’s oral history.

Composed of FBI surveillance files on the activities of the African Liberation Support Committee and All African People's Revolutionary Party; this collection provides two unique views on African American support for liberation struggles in Africa, the issue of Pan-Africanism, and the role of African independence movements as political leverage for domestic Black struggles. (OCLC)

A variety of materials comprise this collection, including:
FBI surveillance and informant reports and correspondence from a variety of offices including, NYC, Baltimore, New Haven, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Newark, Kansas City, and Cleveland; Intercepted correspondence; Ephemera from NGO support groups; Justice Department memoranda, correspondence, and analyses; Newsclippings and articles; Copies of handbills, pamphlets, and newsletters; Witness statements; Extremist Intelligence Section reports; Domestic Intelligence Division reports and memoranda; Transcriptions of wiretaps, typewriter tapes, and coded messages; Speech excerpts; Transcripts of conversations.

Date range of documents: 1970-1985

Contents: Series I: Black arts movement, 1961-1998 -- Series II: Black nationalism, 1964-1977 -- Series III: Correspondence, 1967-1973 -- Series IV: Newark (New Jersey), 1913-1980 -- Series V: Congress of African People, 1960-1976 -- Series VI: National Black conferences and National Black Assembly, 1968-1975 -- Series VII: Black Women's United Front, 1975-1976 -- Series VIII: Student Organization for Black Unity, 1971 -- Series IX: African Liberation Support Committee, 1973-1976 -- Series X: Revolutionary Communist League, 1974-1982 -- Series XI: African socialism, 1973 -- Series XII: Black Marxists, 1969-1980 -- Series XIII: National Black United Front, 1979-1981 -- Series XIV: Miscellaneous materials, 1978-1988 -- Series XV: Serial publications, 1968-1984 -- Series XVI: Oral histories, 1984-1986 -- Series XVII: Komozi Woodard's office files, 1956-1986.
--OCLC

The Freedom Riders rode various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.

Includes access to six modules: LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 1;  LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 2 ; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century ; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture ; L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France Digital Archive ; Community and Identity in North America.

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.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters. Also includes biographies and an annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.

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).

Originally a committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the National Woman's Party (NWP) was founded in 1913 when Alice Paul and her colleagues broke away from NAWSA in dissent over strategy and tactics. The Women's Action Alliance, established in 1971 as a grass-roots organization, concerned itself with issues such as employment and employment discrimination, childcare, health care, and education. The League of Women Voters collection documents almost every facet of women's involvement in U.S. politics from 1920 to 1974.

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)

National leaders covered include: Carrie Chapman Catt, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Helen Hamilton Gardener, Julia Ward Howe, Alma Lutz, Anna Howard Shaw, and Lucy Stone. Papers of regional and local leaders include Harriet Burton Laidlaw, Helen Barten Owens, Clementina Rhodes Hartshorne, Mary Garrett Hay, Nellie Nugemt Somerville, Lucy Somerville Howorth, Margaret Foley, Grace Allen Johnson, and Olympia Brown. On the topic of national politics, major collections are those of Molly Dewson, Emma Guffey Miller, Sue Shelton White, Jeannette Rankin, and Jessica Weis.

Explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality. Includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.

Documents are divided into nine categories:

Asian Empires, 1842-2001
European Empires, 1820-2005
Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Empires in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1860-2015
Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Empires in the Balkans, 1820-1990
Native Women in North America, 1915-2010
Settler Society in North America, 1805-1940
South Africa, 1899-1987
United States Empire, 1820-2004
Women’s Global Networks in Colonial and Post-Colonial Worlds, 1883-2007

Includes 130 document projects that interpret and present documents, a dictionary of social movements and organizations, and a chronology of U.S. Women's History. Also includes access to teaching tools with lesson ideas and document-based questions related to the website's document projects. Includes access to all new content updates through 2024.

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.

Early Encounters in North America contains letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of the peoples, cultures and the environment of North America between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among the documents are such items as: Baegert, Jacob, 1717-1772, An Account of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Californian Peninsula, Ordway, John, 1775(?)-1817(?), The Journals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway Kept on the Expedition, 1803-1806, and Colden, Lord Cadwallader, 1688-1776, Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, vol. 8: 1715-1748. The full text of the sources in the database is searchable. Images are included as well as text, and a search of Audubon, John James yields 594 of his wildlife paintings.

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.

The period after the Civil War in America became known as the Gilded Age, coined by Mark Twain in his seminal novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, playing on the failure of the expected 'golden era' of Reconstruction. This resource tracks the transformation of America into a modern, urban, industrial global power through business, legal and personal papers. Technological progress and extreme wealth for the few, contrasted with stark inequality and endemic poverty for much of America's population.

Under a La Follette's leadership, the Wisconsin state legislature enacted sweeping reforms including railroad regulation and the primary election law which replaced the old caucus and convention system. These important pieces of legislation then served as the models for similar reforms by other states and by the federal government.

The records in this module are sourced from the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina; Maryland Historical Society; Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University; Louisiana State Museum; and the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Louisiana State University Libraries. James Henry Hammond Papers are a highlight of Part 1.

Part 2 comes from the holdings of the University of Virginia and Duke University. Major collections include the Tayloe Family Papers, Ambler Family Papers, Barbour Family Papers, and Randolph Family Papers. 

Part 3 is from the holdings of the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Major collections include Cameron Family Papers, and Pettigrew Family Papers.

Major series document tobacco and cotton plantations in the Tidewater, Coastal Plains, and Piedmont regions of North Carolina. Throughout these collections, the lives of enslaved people and the work performed by them is documented in extensive lists of enslaved people, purchase of and sale agreements for enslaved people, plantation diaries, account books, correspondence, and financial and legal papers.

Collections are sourced from the Rhode Island Historical Society, Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the U.S. National Archives. In addition to records on the slave trade, the resource also includes a series of letters received by the Attorney General on law and order in nineteenth century America. These letters cover the slave trade, general slavery matters including runaway slaves and rights of slaves, and other legal issues.

In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, the resource includes documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm. Includes the following sections: Part I: Debates Over Slavery and Abolition ; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World ; Part III: The Institution of Slavery ; Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

The petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with candor.

The collection includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Also contains hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery, in addition to every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920. Provides word searchable access to all Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880. Also includes access to modern histories of slavery, and a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject.

The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide insight into slave life. The collections document slavery in such enterprises as gold, silver, copper, and lead mining; iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brickmaking, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and heavy construction; and building of railroads and canals.

European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Allows users to analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action. Also includes access to the African Names Database, which provides personal details of Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites. It displays the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of each individual.

Includes documentation of Gompers' own activities. Gompers’ general correspondence, speeches and writings, conferences, and congressional testimony make up a major portion of the collection. In addition, the National and International Union Correspondence consists largely of letters to and from Gompers. 

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.

Includes historical context and resources, representing both personal and institutional perspectives, for the growing fields of border(land) studies and migration studies, as well as history, law, politics, diplomacy, area and global studies, anthropology, medicine, the arts, and more. At completion, the collection will include 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images

Brevier Legislative Reports are a comprehensive record of the debate and speeches delivered from the floor of the Indiana Senate chamber and the Hall of the House of Representatives. They contain a record of each bill introduced in the House and the Senate. At times, the full text of the bill was recorded if it was read on the floor, and was accompanied by the sponsor's statement. The volumes also include veto statements and other messages from the Governor.

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.

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.

Covers a number of geographic areas, including Europe, North America, India, and the Antipodes and includes material in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

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.

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.

The files cover Asian immigration, especially Japanese and Chinese migration, to California, Hawaii, and other states; Mexican immigration to the U.S. from 1906-1930; and European immigration. There are also extensive files on the INS's regulation of prostitution and white slavery and on suppression of radical aliens.

Also includes U.S. military analyses and recommendations for halting the illegal drug trade; strategy reports from the Department of State Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs; and reports from the Congressional Research Service. Topics covered include terrorism and drug trafficking; money laundering and financial crimes; individual country reports and actions against drugs; U.S. policy initiatives and programs; U.S. bilateral and regional counterdrug initiatives.

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.

Includes access to guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs, personal travel journals posters, and ephemeral items.

Events covered include: the use of the death penalty; the history of correctional institutions for juvenile offenders; internment camps; prison gangs and riots; the loss of rights for prisoners. Some materials focus on specific prisons such as Alcatraz, Sing Sing, Rikers, Norway’s prison, Halden fengsel and its rehabilitation within the prison system.

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.

Personal narratives including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories dating from around 1840 through the present, focusing heavily on the period from 1920 to 1980, with much of the material being previously unpublished. Also includes indexed and searchable Ellis Island Oral History interviews, and some image and audio files.

The Criminal Case Files constitute the bulk of the collection. The criminal case files consist of correspondence regarding the cases, reports from operatives, mug shots, reward notices, and wanted posters. The Criminal Case File includes files on some of the Pinkerton's most well-known cases including the Pinkerton's pursuit of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), and the Wild Bunch Gang; the work of agent James McParland in infiltrating the Molly Maguires; and Allan Pinkerton's role in thwarting the 1861 assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln; and investigations of train robberies, bank robberies, murder, fraud, and forgeries throughout the United States.

Includes access to four modules: Political Extremism & Radicalism, 20th Century Part 1: Far-Right and Left in US, Europe, and Australia ; Political Extremism & Radicalism in the 20th Century- Part 2: Far-Right in America ; Political Extremism and Radicalism, Part 3: Communist and Socialist Movements ; Political Extremism & Radicalism: 20th Century - Far-Right in America.

The collection highlights works from legendary filmmakers such as Georges Méliès, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Charles Chaplin, F.W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Sjostrom, Erich von Stroheim, Carl T. Dreyer, Edwin S. Porter, and many others. And the perspective is global, delivering examples of the silent film movement from Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. Alongside the feature films and shorts is a selection of related documentaries. Silent Film Online is essential for all areas of cinema studies, a fundamental resource for students in theoretical, technical, editing, and production concentrations.

An important segment of the material focuses on the 1950s and 1960s, when the party's momentum was aided by social unrest and the concomitant increase in civil rights activities. These were also the years when the Socialist Party of America finally received widespread attention from intellectuals and influential government leaders in President Johnson's War on Poverty. The files from 1963 to 1976 document the Socialist Party’s new alignment with the Democratic Party as it worked to forge a labor-liberal coalition. Documents the changes that occurred within the party during the 1960s and early 1970s: the formation of the Social Democrats, U.S.A., of the "Debs Caucus," and the Socialist Party, U.S.A.

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.

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.