by Michael Lines
Last Updated Jan 26, 2024
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Primary source databases owned by UVic Libraries (Require login):
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection NewspapersA digital archive of nearly 1,270 newspapers and news pamphlets of the 17th and 18th centuries from the United Kingdom. This collection includes: British Journal; Daily Courant; Daily Gazetteer; Daily Post; Evening Post; General Advertiser; Lloyd's Evening Post and British Chronicle; London Chronicle; London Evening Post; London Gazette; Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser; St. James' Chronicle or, British Evening Post; Whitehall Evening Post, or London Intelligencer.
19th Century British NewspapersCollection of national and regional newspapers of Victorian Britain. This full-text, fully searchable digital archive includes 50 papers originating in England, Scotland and Ireland, carefully selected by an editorial board from the British Library and providing a broad yet detailed view of British life in the 19th century. The collection is made up of daily and weekly publications and reflects Britain's growing role as a superpower in the 19th century world.
American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Collection Series 1-5 (1684-1912)EBSCO partners with American Antiquarian Society (AAS), the premier library documenting the life of America's people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction, to provide digital access to the most comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1684 and 1912.
More information and title lists can be found here https://www.ebscohost.com/archives/aas-historical-periodicals-collection
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760-1900Based on the American Antiquarian Society’s landmark collection of American broadsides and ephemera, this full-color digital edition 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.
American State Papers 1989-1838Legislative and executive documents, many originating from the important period between 1789 and the beginning of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in 1817.
Music Online: American MusicA history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests and more.
American WestFrom 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.
America's Historic NewspapersSearchable American newspapers enable users to explore America's past. Available here: Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876.
Archives UnboundTopically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students. Collections cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history.
ARTstorImages from some of the world’s leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists in one easily-navigated repository. Artstor facilitates research and education in numerous disciplines, including art and visual studies, architecture, religion, anthropology and archaeology, global studies, fashion and costume, classics, world history, and more.
Associated Press Collections OnlineTreasures of the Associated Press Corporate Archives, AP Images, and AP Archive. Explores the history and back story of the Associated Press—decades' worth of wire copy, correspondence, memos, internal publications, and more.
Berg Fashion LibraryFashion history including the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, images, and much more.
British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries 1500-1950Collection of British and Irish women's diaries and correspondence spanning more than 300 years, illuminating the personal experiences of nearly 500 women. Includes 100,000 pages of published letters and diaries from individuals writing from 1500 to 1900. Represented are all age groups and life stages, all ethnicities, many geographical regions, the famous and the not so famous.
British Literary Manuscripts OnlineFacsimile images of literary manuscripts, including letters and diaries, drafts of poems, plays, novels, and other literary works, and similar materials. Searching is based on tags and descriptive text associated with each manuscript. Images of the complete manuscript can be viewed, manipulated and navigated on screen. Contains British Literary Manuscripts Online, Medieval and Renaissance & British Literary Manuscripts Online, c. 1660-1900.
British Newspapers 1600-1950Digital historic newspaper archive including 17-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers and 19th Century British Newspapers. Also includes over 3 million pages of historic newspapers, newsbooks, ephemera, and national and regional papers from the British Isles.
Chatham House Online ArchivePublications and archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the world-leading independent international affairs policy institute founded in 1920 following the Paris Peace Conference. The Institute's analysis and research, as well as debates and speeches it has hosted, can be found in this online archive, subject-indexed and fully searchable.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966Provides scholars access to the United Kingdom’s Colonial, Dominion and Foreign Offices’ confidential correspondence relating to Africa between 1834 and 1966. This resource provides researchers with a searchable collection of scores of official documents covering almost the entire period of European conquest and colonisation of Africa.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969From the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the nineteenth century, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post-Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Confidential Print: Middle East is a fundamental resource for academics, students and researchers studying the modern Middle East. These historical documents inform the volatile situation in the region today.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
Daily Mail Historical ArchiveAn online archive of every headline, article, editorial, announcement, image and advertisement published in the Daily Mail (London), 1896-2004.
U.S. Declassified Documents OnlineU.S. Declassified Documents Online fills an important gap in post-World War II domestic and foreign policy studies and provides unique opportunities for undergraduate and graduate comprehensive research in a rich primary source. In addition, It provides basic research for journalism, public policy studies, international law and security, and other disciplines.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910Collection of original source material from British and European archives will enrich the teaching and research experience of those studying history, literature, sociology, education and cultural studies from a gendered perspective.
DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music)A scholarly resource of recordings, including CD quality audio, liner notes and essays from New World, Composers Recordings, and other important labels.
Digital Library of Classic Protestant TextsA uniquely exhaustive resource for historians, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts gives researchers immediate, Web-based access to an extensive range of seminal works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras.
Digital Library of the Catholic ReformationA uniquely exhaustive resource for historians, theologians, political scientists, and sociologists studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation gives researchers immediate, Web-based access to an extensive range of seminal works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras.
Early American Imprints - Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819Covering every aspect of American life during the early decades of the United States, Early American Imprints, Series II (1801-1819) provides full-text access to American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the first nineteen years of the nineteenth century. The continuation of Readex's Early American Imprints: Series I, this rich primary source database, based on the authoritative bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
Early European BooksHistory of printing in Europe from its origins through to the close of the seventeenth century, offering full-colour, high-resolution facsimile images of rare and hard-to-access printed sources.
Early Encounters in North AmericaEarly Encounters in North America contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Particular care has been taken to index the material so that it can be used in new ways. For example, you can identify all encounters between the French and the Huron between 1650 and 1700. The collection is centered on present-day Canada and the United States with some limited coverage of Mexico.
Place index
Early English Books Online (EEBO)Contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War.
Economist Historical ArchiveThe Economist Historical Archive 1843-2011 (EHA) is the fully searchable complete facsimile edition of The Economist, the weekly paper which is essential reading for anyone engaged in politics, current affairs and all aspects of business and trade worldwide.
Eighteenth Century Journals PortalMakes available digitally for the first time unique or extremely rare eighteenth century periodicals, each chosen to convey the eclecticism and evolution of the publishing world between 1685 and 1835.
Electronic EnlightenmentPhilosophy and writing of the founders of the modern world. 18th-century primary sources and correspondence: read letters between the founders of the modern world and their friends and families, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers.
European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750This bibliographic database is a valuable index for libraries, scholars and individuals interested in European works that relate to the Americas. EBSCO Publishing, in cooperation with the John Carter Brown Library, has created this resource from European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed In Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1750, the authoritative bibliography that is well-known and respected by scholars worldwide.
Empire OnlineThis project has been developed to encourage undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers to explore colonial history, politics, culture and society. Material in the collection spans five centuries, charting the story of the rise and fall of empires; from the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century and debates over American Imperialism.
Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2010Complete searchable run of the the Financial Times, a daily business newspaper. Every item ever printed in the paper, from 1888-2010, can be searched and browsed article by article and page by page.
First World War: Personal ExperiencesDrawn from archival collections around the world, The First World War: Personal Experiences offers remarkable glimpses at how people lived their lived during the Great War. Contains diaries, autograph books, candid snapshots, souvenirs, sketches and jottings, and other artifacts that are all too often lost to history.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) daily reports 1974-1996Records of the United States' political and historical open source intelligence for nearly 75 years. The original mission of the FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. FBIS Daily Reports constitutes a one-of-a-kind archive of transcripts of foreign broadcasts and news that provides fascinating insight into the second half of the 20th century.
Foreign Office Files for China, 1949-1980Available in three sections covering the periods 1949-1956; 1957-1966; and 1967-1980; this project addresses a crucial period in Chinese history, from the foundation of the People’s Republic, in 1949, to the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao, the arrest of the Gang of Four and the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980Sourced from the British Foreign Office files, this is a resource for the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1947-1980. There is an immense variety of material including diplomatic dispatches, telegrams, newspaper cuttings and transcripts, maps, photographs, political and economic reports, accounts of visits and tours, minutes of meetings, conference proceedings, letters, leaflets and other ephemera.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural ExchangeProvides a vast range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world. These original sources will help scholars to explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world
Independent Digital Archive, 1986-2012A major British daily newspaper, with a long-time tagline of "free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence." It is known for its unabashed editorial stance on such issues as the legalization of drugs, the war on terrorism, and environmental issues. Despite its left-centrist social and political positioning, the paper has featured a number of conservative columnists and is broadly pro-market on economic issues.
India, Raj and EmpireDrawing upon the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland this resource will be of great value to all those teaching or researching into the History of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.
Indigenous Peoples: North AmericaEnabling exploration of the political, social, and cultural history of Native Peoples from the 16th century well into the 20th century, Indigenous Peoples: North America illustrates the fabric of the North American story with unprecedented depth and breadth. The collection covers the history of American Indian tribes and supporting organizations.
Past Masters (Intelex)InteLex Past Masters is comprised of 117 full-text humanities databases that make available cohesive collections of editions, in both original language and in English translation, of seminal figures in the humanities and social sciences. Much of the content is licensed from Oxford University Press, with significant collections from other major scholarly publishers including Harvard University Press, Indiana University Press and Pickering & Chatto.
Liberty Magazine Historical Archive (1924 - 1950)Complete online facsimile edition of every issue of the weekly, general-interest magazine, Liberty. With a circulation of over three million, it charted the moods, attitudes, lifestyles, fads, and fortunes of middle America. Its prominence and willingness to pay for the best attracted original contributions from some of the greatest artists, writers, celebrities, and statesmen of the age.
Libris CanadianaIndex to Canadian periodicals of historical significance, including Maclean's Magazine, The Financial Post, The Monetary Times of Canada, Massey's Magazine, The Canadian Bookman, The Canadian Magazine, Saturday Night and The University Magazine.
Listener Historical Archive 1929-1991The Listener was a weekly publication, established by the BBC in 1929 as the medium for reproducing radio - and later, television - programmes in print. It is our only record and means of accessing the content of many early broadcasts.
Literary Manuscripts from the Brotherton Library17th and 18th Century poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. The focus of this collection is to provide direct access to facsimile images of verses as catalogued in the Brotherton Library’s BCMSV database. The manuscripts range from contemporary copies of poems by writers like Colvil, Dryden, Fairfax and Pope to popular tags and epitaphs.
London Low LifeThis digital collection brings to life the teeming streets of Victorian London, inviting students and scholars to explore the gin palaces, brothels and East End slums of the nineteenth century’s greatest city. 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 nineteenth century city.
Medieval Travel WritingThis project provides direct access to a widely scattered collection of original medieval manuscripts that describe travel - real and imaginary - in the Middle Ages. These sources tell us much about the attitudes and preconceptions of people across Europe in the medieval period, shedding light on issues of race, economics, trade, militarism, politics, literature and science. They will be welcomed by scholars in both literature and history as well as by French and German studies departments.
Making of Modern Law Legal Treatises 1800 - 1926This digital collection covers the watershed period of legal development during the 19th and early 20th centuries and is a full-text collection of Anglo-American legal treatises of the period. Covers almost every aspect of American and British law. Includes casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters and speeches. Encompasses a range of analytical, theoretical and practical literature for research in United States and British legal history.
Making of the Modern WorldThis collection follows the development of the modern western world through the lens of trade and wealth — the driving force behind many of the major events during the period (1450-1850). It can be used to support research in slavery, colonization, the Atlantic world, Latin American/Caribbean studies, social history, gender and more.
Middle East Series Online 1: Arab-Israeli Relations 1917-1970With over 200,000 pages of primary source documents that chronicle the politics, wars, administration and diplomacy surrounding the Palestine Mandate and the Arab-Israeli conflict, this product is an essential research tool for Middle East scholars.
Middle East Series Online 2: Iraq 1914-1974A broad range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers covering the period from the Anglo-Indian landing in Basra in 1914 through the British Mandate in Iraq of 1920-32 to the rise of Saddam Hussein in 1974.
Meiji Japan: The Edward Sylvester Morse Collection from the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex MuseumCollection of Edward Sylvester Morse who was one of the first Americans to live in Japan. He went there on a scientific expedition in 1877 and made notes on subjects as diverse as shop signs, fireworks, hairpins, agricultural tools, artists’ studios, music, games, printing, carpentry, the Ainu, gardens, household construction, art and architecture.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)A resource for 19th century studies, NCCO is a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focused on primary source collections of the “long” nineteenth century. Collections for this program are sourced through partnerships with major world libraries as well as specialist libraries, and content includes monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more.
Nineteenth Century U.S. NewspapersPrimary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full-text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the United States. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life, among other subjects.
North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral HistoriesNorth American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories includes 2,162 authors and approximately 100,000 pages of information, so providing a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950.
North American Women's Letters and DiariesNorth American Women's Letters and Diaries includes the immediate experiences of 1,325 women and 150,000 pages of diaries and letters.
Perdita Manuscripts: Women Writers, 1500-1700The Perdita Manuscripts project is on the cutting edge of digital scholarship, allowing scholars to consult detailed descriptions and full facsimiles of early modern womens' manuscripts from a wide range of public and private collections through a simple yet versatile search interface. This resource is produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University.
Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957Comprises the complete archive of the Picture Post from its first issue in 1938 to its last in 1957 - all digitized from originals in full colour.
Picture Post provides a fascinating snapshot of British life from the 1930s to the 1950s, with thousands of photos of ordinary people doing ordinary things – from boys rolling a tyre, to a view of a postwar bedsit, to young women on a rollercoaster – all caught in a single moment in time.
Periodicals Archive OnlineAn online archive of digitized, full-image journal articles, Periodicals Archive Online (formerly PCI Full Text™) offers unprecedented access to international, scholarly literature in the humanities and social sciences disciplines from 1802 to 1995.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times (1851-2011)This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Coverage: 1851 - 2011
1951-2009. This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Wall Street Journal (1889-2002)ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Wall Street Journal
This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Coverage: 1889 - 1997
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Washington Post (1877-1997)This historical newspaper provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time. Coverage: 1877 - 1998
Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992The Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992 includes the complete run of the weekly magazine "Punch," as well as its annual Almanack, seasonal issues, and indexes. The archive also correlates the previously anonymous articles and those written under pseudonyms with the private ledgers of contributors kept by the Punch editors, in many cases revealing for the first time the true identity of the authors.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and LandscapeDiscover the working methods of Romantic poets and trace the evolution of celebrated verse in this powerful digital resource. Presenting the manuscript collections of the Wordsworth Trust, this digital collection offers students and researchers of the Romantic period unique access to the working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers, including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey.
Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic PeriodScottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period is a collection organized by Nancy Kushigian of the University of California, Davis and Stephen Behrendt of the University of Nebraska. In addition to 60 volumes of Romantic poetry composed by Scottish women, the database includes extensive contemporary critical reviews and numerous scholarly essays specially commissioned for the project by Alexander Street Press.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926Collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. The Sabin Americana collection is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, and religious history.
Shen Bao ( 申報 )Shen Bao was a newspaper published in Shanghai, China from April 30, 1872 until May 27, 1949. In the past, the name of the newspaper was also transliterated as Shun Pao or Shen-pao. Shen Bao is short for Shenjiang xinbao, the original name of the newspaper; Shenjiang is an old name for the Huangpu River, which runs through Shanghai. Shen Bao became very popular soon after its launch and played an important role in forming public opinion in China.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational ArchiveA historical archive that embraces the scholarly study of slavery in a comprehensive, conceptual and global way. Once completed, this digital collection will comprise five million pages of documents selected by a renowned board of scholars and organized in four parts:
Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition
Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World
Part III: Institution of Slavery
Part IV: Age of Emancipation
Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007This extraordinary resource on trans-Atlantic slavery and abolition brings together original manuscript and rare printed material from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Published in three sections between 2007 and 2009, this collection will prove invaluable for research. This project provides access to many thousands of original manuscripts, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps and images.
Smithsonian Collections OnlineGale and the Smithsonian Institution have partnered to give libraries a unique opportunity to provide students, faculty, and researchers the chance to look behind the glass of the Smithsonian exhibits and collections.
Collections currently available:
World's Fairs and Expositions
Trade Liteature and the Merchandising of Industry
Smithsonian Magazine 1970-2010
Air & Space Magazine 1986-present
Sunday Times Digital ArchiveAs an online archive of every headline, article, editorial, announcement, image and advertisement published in The Sunday Times (London), The Sunday Times Digital Archive is an essential resource for teachers, students and researchers interested in history, politics, social and cultural history, law, genealogy and criminology.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1994Search or browse the Reports, Documents, and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, originally published in approximately 13,800 bound volumes.
Victorian Popular CultureComprised of four separate collections : 1. Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic 2. Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks 3. Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment 4. Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema. It describes popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930 and shows how interconnected these worlds were.
Vogue ArchiveA complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from 1892 to the current month. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000, this collection seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding about U.S. history generally at the same time that it makes the insights of women's history accessible.
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