Primary Source Collections - A.M. Explorer

Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.

The digital archive of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which holds one of the outstanding collections on American History. It is full of spectacular individual items, but it also has rich veins of manuscript research material. This makes it ideal for teaching survey courses on American History, but equally valuable as a platform for undergraduate essay work and postgraduate research.

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. Browse a wide range of rare and original documents including printed books, journals, historic maps, broadsides, periodicals, advertisements, photographs, artwork and more.

Covering the 18th and 19th centuries, China, America and the Pacific provides primary source materials for the study of the history of North American trade and cultural exchange with China. This collection also provides coverage of China’s and the United States' economic dealings with the whole of East Asia and the Pacific.

Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this digital collection makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from the Charles W Wason Collection on East Asia, at Cornell University Library; one of the oldest and most distinctive collections of its kind, and a very rich source for research on China.

With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People's Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.

Discover two hundred years of worldwide missionary history. This online portal makes available periodicals from the Church Missionary Society Archive, a vital collection for students, researchers and teachers of missiology and world Christianity. It also contains valuable material on wider themes in global history, in particular the history of global education, healthcare and medicine.

The complete CO 5 files from the National Archives, UK, 1606-1822, Colonial America is a 'game changing' development for historians and researchers of early America, the Atlantic world, the Caribbean and the nascent British Empire. Colonial America enables online access to the vast archive of circa 70,000 documents of manuscript materials that tell the story of British involvement in North America.

Colonial Caribbean covers the history of the various territories under British colonial governance from 1624 to 1870. This extensive resource includes administrative documentation, trade and shipping records, minutes of council meetings, as well as details of plantation life, colonial settlement, imperial rivalries across the region, and the growing concern of absentee landlords.

The Confidential Print series originated from a need for the British Government to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Some of these were single page letters or telegrams, others were large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked 'Confidential Print' were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to Heads of British missions abroad. This resource brings together materials relating to events in Africa. It includes files on most countries and territories of Africa, both independent and those ruled by colonial powers.

The Confidential Print series originated from a need for the British Government to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Some of these were single page letters or telegrams, others were large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked 'Confidential Print' were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to Heads of British missions abroad. This resource brings together materials relating to events in Latin America.

The Confidential Print series originated out of a need for the Government to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices, from one-page letters or telegrams, to large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked "Confidential Print" were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the cabinet, and to heads of British missions abroad. This collates the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Confidential Print series originated out of a need for the Government to preserve all of the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Some of these were one page letters or telegrams, others were large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked 'Confidential Print' were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet, and to Heads of British missions abroad. This resource brings together materials relating to Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.

Primary sources including, correspondence, college records, commonplace books, conduct and advice literature, diaries, ephemera, government papers, account books, literature, pamphlets and periodicals. These sources document the changing representations and lived experiences of gender from the fifteeneth to early twentieth century. This collection offers sources for the study of masculinity, femininity, the body, family, education, conduct and leisure.

From 16th century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise as the world’s most 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.

Delve into the theatrical world of eighteenth-century society and explore how the Larpent plays reflect the politics of the time, the role of women, views on race and religion, opinions on empire, and European and British history.

Unique and extremely rare eighteenth-century periodicals, each chosen to convey the eclecticism and evolution of the publishing world between 1685 and 1835. Highlights include a complete run of The Lady's Magazine, and rare titles missed out of other collections focused on the Eighteenth Century.

Spanning five centuries and charting the rise and fall of empires around the world, Empire Online is a digital archive enabling research of colonial history, politics, culture and society. There is a focus on the British Empire, but documents also give information on other European empires and the experience of colonised people.

American social, cultural, and popular history during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.

Through a large array of unique documents, this multi-archive collection captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of people living at the edges of the Anglophone world from 1650-1920. It ranges across the various colonial frontiers of North America before touching on the settlers of Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Explore the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations.

Discover the histories of fifteen key commodities that changed the world through a wide range of manuscript sources, rare books, maps, advertising memorabilia, paintings, photographs and ephemera. Explore themes of exploration and discovery; imperialism and attempts at monopoly, trade Wars, translocation and economic geography, slavery, mass production, luxury, taste and the evolution of global branding.

A digital collection of manuscript, visual and printed works that allows students and researchers to explore and compare a range of sources on the history of travel. Many come from private or neglected collections.

The National Library of Scotland has wonderful collections documenting this history from the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 to the granting of independence for India and Pakistan in 1947. They are made available online through this collection.

From early contacts between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples and the subsequent political, social and cultural effects of those encounters on Indigenous American life, these materials tell both the historical and the personal stories of the colonisation of the Americas.

Discover North American Indigenous journalism spanning two centuries with this major digital resource. Featuring publications from a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.

Material is sourced from the American Jewish Historical Society, New York. It contains primary sources on the history of Jewish immigration to the United States, life and culture among the Jewish population there, and records of business and trade from Jewish-owned companies.

Primary sources on the history of tourism. Bringing together collections from multiple archives, including Thomas Cook, this resource presents an untapped multi-national perspective on the evolution of affordable tourism around the world.

The digital version of the Stationers' Company Archives, London. Explore the history of printing, publishing and bookselling dating from 1554 to the 20th century. Includes a complete run of the Stationers' Register, an essential resource for book history and a record publications prior to 1927.

From salacious ‘swell’s guides’ to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London’s bustling thoroughfares offers an unparalleled insight into the dark underworld of the Victorian city.

Explore the history of illness, treatment and disease on international front lines from 1850 to 1949.

Manuscripts for the study of Meiji society, culture, ethnology and education from the papers of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925).

A selection of original documents that tell the story of European and Asian migration to North America, Australia and New Zealand during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Official records from governments, shipping lines and agencies are found alongside the letters, oral histories and diaries of the migrants themselves. The resource includes material on life for successive generations, refugees and displaced persons, and those who were transported as criminals.

Explore the medicine chests and bookshelves of the everyday nineteenth-century American through a colourful array of advertisements, popular texts and much more. This resource offers access to an outstanding collection of highly visual primary source material, together with supplementary features designed to aid research and teaching.

A digital version of the single largest collection of working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers anywhere in the world. Highlights include annotated full manuscripts of such notable works as The Prelude and Michael, or Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode.

This resource brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world covering an extensive time period from 1490. Close attention has been given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.

Rare diaries and correspondence describing the travel experiences, destinations and desires of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American women travelling the world.

Discover the British Film Institute's Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, as well as a selection of special early large format films. This material provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured between 1895 and 1913 by some of Britain's earliest film pioneers and innovators.

Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930, and shows how interconnected these worlds were. Taking its cue from the source material, Victorian Popular Culture welcomes readers into the darkened halls, small backrooms and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to magic and spiritualist séances.

Primary source material from hundreds of fairs, including London’s Great Exhibition of 1851, American fairs of the 19th and 20th centuries and 21st century EXPOs. A vital resource for students, teachers and researchers of a huge range of subjects including imperialism, race relations, gender studies, science and technology, consumer culture, architecture and design.