HIST A302 Revolutionary America

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.

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.

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.

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.

Founded in 1812 by Revolutionary War printer Isaiah Thomas, the American Antiquarian Society is both a learned society and a major independent research library. The AAS library contains books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, and digital resources and reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.

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.

Based on a collection of rare newspapers held by the American Antiquarian Society, with contributions from the Boston Athenaeum, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Connecticut State Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia; the Library of Congress, the libraries of universities such as Brown and Harvard, and private collections. Fully text-searchable; browseable by newspaper title.

Collections included: African American Newspapers, Series 1 ; African American Newspapers, Series 2 ;  Caribbean Newspapers ; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection ; Hispanic American Newspapers ; Early American Newspapers, Series 1-7, 11-12, and 17-19.

Based on a very comprehensive microfilm collection of American magazines and journals, 1740-1940. Contains searchable full text of all extant issues of over 1000 titles, ranging from children's magazines to professional journals. Can be cross-searched with historical newspaper archives.