Primary Sources
Digitized Collections Online
- British History Online
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Includes some of the primary printed and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. The site was created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust. Much of the content is available free online, but there are certain collections available only to those who subscribe to the premium content version. - Empire Online
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Over 60,000 manuscripts and documents covering the reach of the British Empire, all the way to Australasia, South Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Also includes references to biographies and chronologies. - Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674 to 1913
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Searchable digitized collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913 and of the Ordinary of Newgate's Accounts between 1676 and 1772. Access to over 197,000 trials and biographical details of approximately 2,500 men and women executed at Tyburn. Includes digital images of all 190,000 original pages of the Proceedings, 4,000 pages of Ordinary's Accounts, information on the historical and legal background to the Old Bailey court and its Proceedings, and descriptions of published and manuscript materials relating to the trials covered. Contemporary maps and images have also been provided.
- Tracing London Convicts in Britain & Australia, 1780-1925This website allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey. Use this site to search individual convict life archives, explore and visualise data, and to learn more about crime and criminal justice in the past.
- U.K. Parliamentary Papers
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British parliamentary documents, including Command Papers. All areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy. Searchable full-text, with detailed subject indexing. - Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
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Includes documents from the United States and Europe as well as other parts of the world. In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, this resource also includes documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm.
- Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British SlaveryThe Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery has been established at UCL with the generous support of the Hutchins Center at Harvard. The Centre builds on two earlier projects based at UCL tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain: the ESRC-funded Legacies of British Slave-ownership project (2009-2012), and the ESRC and AHRC-funded Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership 1763-1833 (2013-2015).
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) w/Text Creation Partnership (TCP) transcriptions
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Digital facsimile page images of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and manuscripts of works printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America as well as works in English printed elsewhere. From the first book published in English through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare, this collection contains the texts of about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard and Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Coverage includes English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. - Defining Gender, 1450-1910
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"Advice Literature for men and women." Access to approximately 50,000 images of original manuscript and printed material, including a strong core of documents from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Ephemeral material such as ballads, cartoons and pamphlets are featured alongside diaries, advice literature, medical journals, conduct books and periodicals.
- Manuscripts OnlineManuscripts Online enables you to search a diverse body of online primary resources relating to written and early printed culture in Britain during the period 1000 to 1500. The resources include literary manuscripts, historical documents and early printed books which are located on websites owned by libraries, archives, universities and publishers.
- The Folger ShakespeareRead the full texts of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, and poems for free from the Folger Shakespeare Library! You can also learn more about Shakespeare’s language, life, and the world he knew.
- Connected Histories: British History Sources, 1500-1900Connected Histories brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates, as well as the ability to save, connect and share resources within a personal workspace.
- British Library LabsExperiment with digital collections from the British Library. As part of the British Library's aim to open its data to wider use, a selection of digital datasets are available for download for research and creative purposes.
- Europeana CollectionsEuropeana provides access to millions of cultural heritage items from institutions across Europe. Discover artworks, books, music, and videos on art, newspapers, archaeology, fashion, science, sport, and much more.
- London Low Life
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From salacious ‘swell’s guides’ to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London’s bustling thoroughfares offers insight into the dark underworld of the city. Children’s chapbooks, street cries, slang dictionaries and ballads were all part of a vibrant culture of street literature. This collection, drawn from the holdings of the Lilly Library, will be of interest to 19th century scholars researching: working-class culture, street literature, popular music, urban topography, ‘slumming’, prostitution, the Contagious Diseases Act, the Temperance Movement, social reform, Toynbee Hall, police and criminality. - Victorian Popular Culture
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This resource 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. Modules cover spiritualism, sensation and magic; circuses, sideshows and freaks; music hall, theatre and popular entertainment; and moving pictures, optical entertainments and the advent of cinema. - Mass Observation Online
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Mass Observation Online provides digital access to a life-writing archive, capturing the everyday experiences, thoughts and opinions of people living in the UK through this time period. Writing in response to directives (questionnaires), hundreds of Mass Observers provide a unique insight into an extraordinary range of subjects, from the deeply personal (sex, family) to everyday life (shopping, holidays) to global affairs.
Center for Research Libraries
The Center for Research Libraries has a number of microfilmed collections, international newspapers, and official documents from countries outside the U.S.
- Center for Research Libraries Catalog (CRL)
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Over 600,000 titles held at CRL are searchable through the catalog, including collections of newspapers, microform, journals, and dissertations. Coverage for all formats is international. Holdings are often unique and hard to find elsewhere. - Ethnic Newspapers (CRL)
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Indexes periodicals and newspapers published by various ethnic groups in North America.
Each guide includes a short writeup on the landscape of the field of study, links to relevant primary source collections at CRL, and links out to related sources.
- Great Britain
- CRL collects and maintains extensive archival collections related to Great Britain. In addition to major microform sets, CRL holds numerous historical newspaper runs and dissertations acquired on deposit and in response to schoar requests. British material represents one of the strongest areas of CRL's international collections.
- Great Britain. Foreign Office
- The Center has an extensive collection of microfilm of Foreign Office records, acquired from the Public Record Office and from various commercial micropublishers. The following presents a sample of what may be found in CRL's catalog. Notable collections may also be listed in the respective regional Topic Guides.
Periodicals & Newspapers
- Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
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Full color facsimile run of over 260,000 pages, including specials and presentation pieces. Full-text searchable and browsable individual issues, including specials and supplements. Articles and pages can be saved in the marked list then bookmarked, e-mailed and printed. - London Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
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Over two centuries on-line for full-text searching of the London publication, more than 7 million articles, from 1785-1985. Widely recognized as the source for authoritative reports on politics, law, business and society. Extensive coverage of parliamentary debates, royal doings, obituaries, official appointments. Does not include the Sunday Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Times Educational Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement. Also available in the Gale NewsVault, a searchable collection of historical newspapers. - 19th Century British Library Newspapers
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Digital facsimile images of both full pages and clipped articles from hundreds of 19th century U.S. newspapers. - 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers Digital Archive Backfile
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Newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides and books from London, the British Isles and the colonies gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817): "the largest and most comprehensive collection of early English news media." The present digital collection totals almost 1 million pages and contains approximately 1,270 titles. Title list Also available in the Gale NewsVault, a searchable collection of historical newspapers. - Access World News
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Full-text of over 600 U.S. newspapers. Access World News also covers over 1,300 foreign English-language news resources. Spanish-language editions of the newspapers are also included. - Early American Newspapers
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Full-text, mostly late 18th/early 19th century, covering colonial and early American history, with titles from 23 states and DC. With issues from over 700 titles (for most titles the holdings are scattered). Includes some Kentucky titles. - Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2015
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Searchable facsimile edition of The Economist, published weekly since 1843. In 8,000 issues and more than 600,000 pages, EHA offers full-colour images, multiple search indexes, topic and area supplements and surveys, together with a gallery of front covers and a selection of exportable financial tables. - Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2010
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Searchable run of every item ever printed in the paper through 2016. Special supplements and the FT Magazine are included. - Newspaper Source
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Newspaper Source provides selected full-text for nearly 35 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times (London), and The Toronto Star. Also contains selected full-text for more than 375 regional (U.S.) newspapers, including The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit Free Press, The Miami Herald, The New York Daily News, and The San Jose Mercury News. In addition, full-text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, FOX News, NPR, and other sources.
- Punch (Digital Access)Punch may also be accessed through the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/).
- Punch (Print Access)Punch began publication in 1841. In its early years, it was subtitled "The London Charivari", after a Parisian magazine that it was originally patterned on. It ceased publication in 1992. In 1996, the magazine was revived under new ownership, but the revival folded in 2002.
UK Libraries' Special Collections Research Center has the following volumes:
v.1(1841)-v.49(1865),
v.60(1871)-v.67(1874),
v.81(1881:July-Dec.),
v.86(1884)-v.87(1884),
v.92(1887)-v.93(1887),
v.100(1891)-v.225 (1953)
UK Special Collections and Research Center
Finding Aids
Darbishire Family Papers, 1751-1948, 1883-1919 (bulk dates)
The Darbishire family papers (dated 1751-1948, bulk 1883-1919; 7.5 cubic feet; 21 boxes) consist of correspondence, essays, articles, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and diaries from six generations of the Shelby family of Kentucky and four generations of the Darbishires of England and America.
William Cassius Goodloe Civil War Scrapbooks, 1860-1865
The William Cassius Goodloe Civil War scrapbooks (dated 1860-1865; 0.6 cubic feet; 2 items) consists of two scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings about the Civil War. Important European events of the period are also represented in the scrapbooks, including the liberation of serfs in Russia and the death of Albert, the British Prince Consort.
Oral Histories - (Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History)
American Veterans: World War Two Oral History Project
World War II veterans from Kentucky discuss campaigns in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific; the attack on Pearl Harbor; Anzio, Italy; the Battle of the Bulge; the United States Army Air Force; bombing raids; Iwo Jima, Japan; Saipan; Guam; kamikaze attacks; submarine warfare; the Bataan Death March in the Philippines; the Palawan Massacre in the Philippines; and the experiences of prisoners of war. Also included are interviews with women veterans of various services and organizations. The interviews with General William R. Buster are also at the Kentucky Oral History Commission (see Collection Number 18-15). *See interview with Patricia Fitzgerald Smith, November 29, 1994 (Includes British Red Cross).