A vast array of primary source material is available via the Library, online and in local archives.
The following primary source collections can be accessed online. Some are freely accessible to all whilst others are only available to University of Bristol students and staff.
The collections are listed below by the following geographical regions and sub-divided by period:
General online resource collections with wide global and historical scope.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Access to millions of pages of primary source content from AM. Use the search bar to begin exploring, or browse individual primary source collections.
Archives Unbound provides access to rare primary source documents topically focused into digital collections covering US foreign policy, civil rights, global affairs, colonial studies, British history, Holocaust studies, LGBT studies, Latin America and Caribbean studies, Middle East studies, political science, religious studies, and women’s studies. Includes over 340 collections.
Platform allowing cross searching of primary source database provided by Gale, covering newspapers, historic journals and other material.
Explore the growth of the human rights movement during the second half of the twentieth century through the International Secretariat records of Amnesty International. The material within this collection is vital for studying the history of key political events, global social change and the development of a global movement for human rights covering themes including state violence, political prisoners, minority rights and more.
Publications and archives of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House)
Over 180,000 titles published during the 18th Century, including critical information in history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science.
Security Issues Online delves into conflicts, policies, and relationships that have impacted the global arena throughout modern history. At completion, this collection will include at completion 175 hours of video and 100,000 pages of printed materials (personal papers, organizations, government documents, journals, reports, monographs, and speeches).
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
A collection of historical US newspaper archives with a focus on Black history
ProQuest Leftist Newspapers and periodicals is a collection of English-language publications spanning beyond the 20th century (1845-2015) covering Communist, Socialist and Marxist thought, theory and practice. Issues covered include workers’ rights, organized labor, labor strikes, Nazi atrocities, McCarthyism’s rise after WWII, Civil Rights, and modern-day class struggles which give rise to renewed interest in alternative social organizations. This collection includes 145 titles with over 150,000 digitized pages.
An archival collection comprising the backfiles of 15 major magazines (including the Newsweek archive), spanning areas including current events, international relations, and public policy. These titles offer multiple perspectives on the contemporary contexts of the major events, trends, and interests in these fields throughout the twentieth century. Coverage: 1918 - 2015
This digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Includes over 300 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
This database provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender.
Let us know what you think about this resource by emailing subject-librarians@bristol.ac.uk
Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content. Coverage: 1954 - 2015.
Archival runs of many of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content.
LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
A collection of men’s-interest magazine backfiles serving research in men’s studies/history but also offering important additional perspectives for women’s studies. It includes some of the earliest publications of this type – National Police Gazette and Argosy – and covers key topics such as fashion, sports, health, and arts/entertainment.
Coverage: 1845 - 2015
Sex & Sexuality provides access to a wealth of essential primary sources collated by prominent sex researchers and sexologists, community activists, official organizations, social reformers, and individuals. This resource aims to provide an insight into the wide-ranging breadth and experience of human sexuality from all angles, for example scientific, historical attitudes, sexuality, and sexual behaviours. Note: this resource contains some graphic and potentially distressing material.
Women and Social Movements, International is a collection of primary materials. Through the writings of women activists, their personal letters and diaries, and the proceedings of conferences at which pivotal decisions were made, this collection lets you see how women’s social movements shaped much of the events and attitudes that have defined modern life.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this highly-curated archive and database 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.
This collection looks at women’s global economic participation and activism over an entire century. This database sets out to reveal and assess a realm of individual efforts, organizational initiatives and socio-cultural projects led by women in the global south.
An archival research resource comprising the backfiles of leading women's interest consumer magazines. Coverage ranges from the late-19th century through to 2005 and these key primary sources permit the examination of the events, trends, and attitudes of this period.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
An index of scholarly research on history, literature and culture from 400 to 1500AD. Geographical coverage includes North Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Uncover the history of European colonisation across the African continent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century through the rare printed works, diaries and journals, correspondence, maps, photographs, and film footage presented within Africa and the New Imperialism.
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, 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.
African Newspapers: The British Library Collection features nearly 60 newspapers from across the African continent, all published before 1900. Originally archived by the British Library, these rare historical documents are now available for the first time in a fully searchable online collection.
These gazettes contain copies of the laws and ordinances which were introduced in the years they cover. Each item was originally published as the Government Gazette for a colony and year. Their contents include tenders of property, probate records and insolvency notices. This is the third part of the three part series Colonial Law in Africa. These papers cover the Mau Mau uprising, the creation of the first legislative councils and legal changes to transfer power to those councils.
The documents in Confidential Print: Africa begin with coastal trading in the early nineteenth century and the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa. They then follow the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy’s defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence. Together they cover the whole of the modern period of European colonisation of the continent from the British Government’s perspective.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
The colony of Kenya was managed by the government departments who wrote these A1:F79 reports. They start when Kenya was a part of the East Africa Colony and continue until independence. The statistics for Kenya are included in Colonial Africa in official statistics, 1821-1953. These reports explain why those statistics are at the levels recorded. The contents pages at the front of each report list the departments which existed at that time. Comparing the contents pages reveals how the structure of the colonial government changed over time.
This collection contains annual reports compiled by successive British colonial administrations in Nigeria and Cameroon. The documents cover the period from the establishment of the Colony and Protectorate of Lagos to the creation of an independent Nigerian state.
The Rand Daily Mail, published daily in Johannesburg, is a critically important title that pioneered popular journalism in South Africa. It is renowned today for being the first newspaper to openly oppose apartheid and contribute to its downfall.
This collection contains annual reports by successive colonial administrations in Rhodesia. It ranges from the period of corporate colonisation in the late 19th century right through to the creation of an independent Zimbabwean republic in 1980. The documents provide an overview of the evolution of colonial rule from the perspective of colonial administrators. They highlight their response to early anti-colonial resistance such as the Shona and Ndeble Risings of 1896-1897. The records also highlight the difficulties caused by the Smith government’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 and ensuing decades of white minority rule.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
Source material detailing China’s interaction with the West.
An index of scholarly research on history, literature and culture from 400 to 1500AD. Geographical coverage includes North Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
This resource 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.
China and the Modern World is a series of digital archive collections sourced from preeminent libraries and archives across the world, including the Second Historical Archives of China and the British Library. The series covers a period of about 180 years (1800s to 1980s) when China experienced radical and often traumatic transformations from an inward-looking imperial dynasty into a globally engaged republic. Consisting of monographs, manuscripts, periodicals, correspondence and letters, historical photos, ephemera, and other kinds of historical documents, these collections provide excellent primary source materials for the understanding and research of the various aspects of China during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as diplomacy/international relations, economy/trade, politics, Christianity, sinology, education, science and technology, imperialism, and globalization.
Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. In addition, China: Culture and Society features a host of secondary resources, including scholarly essays, an interactive chronology, mini guides, and editors’ choices from the collection.
Source material detailing China’s interaction with the West.
The Customs’ Gazette, published by order of the Inspector General of Customs of China in Shanghai, provided quarterly reports on trade that were prepared and submitted by various custom houses based across the country. This statistical and narrative information provided the central Chinese government with an in-depth analysis on trade. But, the Gazette also provided insights into local and regional economic and social conditions, policing of customs and trade, and conditions at Treaty Ports.
The Maritime Customs Service of China (1854–1949) compiled and produced a huge number of publications from 1859 to 1949. These publications fall under six series: Statistical Series, Special Series, Miscellaneous Series, Service Series, Office Series, and Inspectorate Series.
This collection consists of 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.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
East India Company offers access to a unique collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947.
The Far Eastern Economic Review (1946-2009) was known for its authoritative reporting. This publication was devoted to many facets of the Asia-Pacific region, including politics, economics, international relations, and the arts/culture. Following an initial emphasis on China and Hong Kong, the scope of the magazine’s coverage subsequently expanded to encompass other regions and countries, including Japan, India and Australia, as well as smaller Asian states.
The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980:
1919-1929: Kuomintang, CCP and the Third International
1930-1937: The Long March, civil war in China and the Manchurian Crisis
1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war and the seeds of communist victory
1949-1956: The Communist revolution
1957-1966: The Great Leap Forward
1967-1980: The Cultural Revolution
Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 consists of the complete run of documents in the series DO 133, DO 134 and FCO 37, as well as all documents covering the Indian subcontinent in the FO 371 series. Events covered include independence and partition, the Indian annexation of Hyderabad and Goa, war between India and Pakistan, tensions and war between India and China, the consolidation of power of the Congress Party in India, military rule in Pakistan, the turbulent independence of Bangladesh and the development of nuclear weapons in the region.
Incorporating the Taishō to the Shōwa periods, these papers throw light on Anglo-Japanese ties in a time of shifting alliances, documenting Japan’s journey to modernity. These Foreign Office files cover British concerns over colonial-held territory in the Far East, as well as Japanese relations with China, Russia, Germany and the United States. Following surrender at the end of the Second World War, Japan was occupied by foreign forces for the first time in its history. The occupation resulted in disarmament, liberalisation and a new constitution as the country was transformed into a parliamentary democracy. Japan emerged once again as a player on the world stage.
This collection is an essential resource for understanding the events in the Middle East during the 1970s. It addresses the policies, economies, political relationships and significant events of every major Middle East power. Conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli War, the Lebanese Civil War and the Iranian Revolution are examined in detail, as are the military interventions and peace negotiations carried out by regional and foreign powers like the United States and Russia.
The complete run of The Hongkong News as published during the Japanese Occupation (1941-1945).
Spans 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, through the diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland.
Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925) was a great polymath – notable for his work in natural history, ethnography and art history – but, perhaps most famous for his work in bringing Japan and the West closer together. Morse was one of the first Americans to live in Japan. He went there on a scientific expedition in 1877 and his enthusiasm and approach so impressed his hosts that he was made Chair of Zoology at the new Imperial University of Tokyo. In 1882 he turned his attention to ethnology and the documentation of life in Japan before it was transformed by Western modernization. In addition to preserving the household records of a samurai family and many accounts of the tea ceremony, Morse 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
Primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration.
Prime printed English-language source for the history of the foreign presence in China from around 1850 to the 1940s. To access: select 'Connect through your institution' and then 'Show Organizations' to find the University of Bristol
Archives of the British-run Municipal Police Force based in Shanghai's former International Settlement.
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: 1832 - 1953.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
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: 1903 - 2001.
Comprehensive online content of every issue from 1838-2010.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
Primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
From zines, newspapers and ephemera, to oral histories, films and photographs, 1980s Culture and Society is an eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, materials produced by grassroots organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
Colonial Legacies: Empire and Commonwealth Periodicals is a digital archive comprising over 30 periodicals concerning the 20th-century history of the British Empire, decolonization, and the history and culture of former colonies.
Coverage spans over 150 years, ranging from the late-19th century to the 21st – these publications encompass the empire’s later phase and its post-independence legacies. It will support research in key events in colonial history, including the latter stages of the Scramble for Africa, the world wars, independence movements, the creation of the Commonwealth and more. While official publications contain valuable information about colonial administration and ideology, more popular titles, covering the arts, society, and general interests, provide insights into many facets of Commonwealth countries’ history and society before and after independence.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
This collection includes the immediate experiences of approximately 500 women, as revealed in over 100,000 pages of diaries and letters which span 300 years. The collection also includes biographies and an extensive annotated bibliography of the sources in the database.
State Papers Online offers original historical materials across the widest range of government concern, from high level international politics and diplomacy to the charges against a steward for poisoning a dozen or more people.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
First-hand accounts of life in the medieval world, many translated into English for the first time.
This resource contains full colour images of the original medieval manuscripts that comprise these family letter collections along with full text searchable transcripts from the printed editions, where they are available. The original images and the transcriptions can be viewed side by side.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Pamphlets from collections in 7 universities in the UK covering the key political, social, technological, and environmental issues of 19th-century Britain.
Covers the events, lives, values, and themes that shaped the nineteenth century world. It provides an invaluable, fully-searchable facsimile resource for the study of British life in the nineteenth century—from art to business, and from children to politics.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains page images of every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473–1700.
Electronic Enlightenment is a wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
Over 180,000 titles published during the 18th Century, including critical information in history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science.
Selections from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering insights into the daily life in Britain in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
Digitised images of nearly 200 manuscripts from the Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds Library.
London Low Life is a full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London.
Primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration.
Manuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University, the project seeks to rediscover early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form.
From 1841 to 1992, Punch was the world's most celebrated magazine of wit and satire. From its early years as a campaigner for social justice to its transformation into national icon, Punch played a central role in the formation of British identity—and how the rest of the world saw the British nation.
The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection represents the largest single collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century English news media available from the British Library and includes more than 1,000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers from the period. This collection helps researchers chart the development of the newspaper as we now know it, beginning with irregularly published transcriptions of Parliamentary debates and proclamations to coffee house newsbooks, finally arriving at newspaper in its current form.
Victorian Popular Culture is a portal comprised of four modules, presenting the darkened halls, small backrooms, big tops and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to the world of magic, spiritualist séances, optical entertainments and the first moving pictures.
Showcasing the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, Victorians on Film provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
From zines, newspapers and ephemera, to oral histories, films and photographs, 1980s Culture and Society is an eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, materials produced by grassroots organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
Uncover the history of European colonisation across the African continent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century through the rare printed works, diaries and journals, correspondence, maps, photographs, and film footage presented within Africa and the New Imperialism.
Supplied by the British Film Institute and Imperial War Museums, British Newsreels, 1911-1930: Culture and Society on Film showcases a large collection of newsreels produced by the Topical Film Company and provides a glimpse into the early twentieth century - from everyday interests, such as sport and fashion, to coverage of key events, such as the First World War, the Suffragette Movement, and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
The backfiles of a variety of 20th-century serials covering many aspects of children's lives and interests. These include titles focusing on education, entertainment / literature, news, and religion / moral development. As well as shedding light on the history of childhood and family life during this period, these titles provide alternative perspectives in the study of 20th-century advertising/marketing, popular culture, education, media, and print culture.
Colonial Legacies: Empire and Commonwealth Periodicals is a digital archive comprising over 30 periodicals concerning the 20th-century history of the British Empire, decolonization, and the history and culture of former colonies.
Coverage spans over 150 years, ranging from the late-19th century to the 21st – these publications encompass the empire’s later phase and its post-independence legacies. It will support research in key events in colonial history, including the latter stages of the Scramble for Africa, the world wars, independence movements, the creation of the Commonwealth and more. While official publications contain valuable information about colonial administration and ideology, more popular titles, covering the arts, society, and general interests, provide insights into many facets of Commonwealth countries’ history and society before and after independence.
An archive (1897 to 2005) of the weekly British culture and lifestyle magazine, Country Life, focusing on fine art and architecture, the great country houses, and rural living. Country Life Archive presents a chronicle of more than 100 years of British heritage, including its art, architecture, and landscapes, with an emphasis on leisure pursuits such as antique collecting, hunting, shooting, equestrian news, and gardening.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
Brings British government files from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office and the Ministry of Overseas Development and Overseas Development Administration together to provide information and insight into environmental issues and human-environment interactions throughout the globe, particularly in those places of influence of the former British Empire. From the exploitation of natural resources and colonial land use, to agriculture, urban development, the technological revolution, industrial change and urbanization, conservation, pollution, climate, development programmes and sustainability, natural resources and industries such as forestry and mining, this archive provides an international perspective of the changing landscape of the twentieth century.
An archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar. This resource chronicles over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, culture, and society, supporting researchers by offering unique insights into the events, attitudes, and interests of the modern era.
Interwar Culture showcases popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period. With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a burgeoning media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
Selections from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, offering insights into the daily life in Britain in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content. Coverage: 1954 - 2015.
The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in 1929 under its director-general, Lord Reith. It was developed as the medium for reproducing broadcast talks, initially on radio, but in later years television as well, and was the intellectual counterpart to the BBC listings magazine Radio Times. The Listener is one of the few records and means of accessing the content of many early broadcasts. In addition to commenting on the intellectual broadcasts of the week, the Listener also previewed major literary and musical shows and regularly reviewed new books.
Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963 provides complete coverage of the Cabinet conclusions (minutes) (CAB 128) and memoranda (CAB 129) of Harold Macmillan’s government, plus selected minutes and memoranda of policy committees (CAB 134).
Mass Observation Online makes available personal diaries, surveys, and other materials to provide records of public opinion from 1937 to 1967.
Mass Observation Project consists of all the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation and the responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. It includes topics such as the Falklands War, clothing, attitudes to the USA, reading and television habits, morality and religion, and Britain's relations with Europe.
News coverage from 1910 to 1983 from the newsreels of organisations such as Pathe News, Gaumont British News and British Movietone News, plus access to films from Roundabout, the COI cinemagazine that promoted Britain to Asia from 1962-1974.
Let us know what you think about this resource by emailing subject-librarians@bristol.ac.uk
The Picture Post Historical Archive comprises the complete archive of the Picture Post from its first issue in 1938 to its last in 1957.
Popular Culture explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history.
Showcases a range of ideas, initiatives, and social movements devoted to people-powered politics and organizing from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Ranging beyond a few specific movements, the archive paints a broad picture of the counterculture and many disparate organizations that represent this moment in modern Western history. Although the archive concentrates mainly on the United States and the United Kingdom, it also covers events and topics from around the globe.
From 1841 to 1992, Punch was the world's most celebrated magazine of wit and satire. From its early years as a campaigner for social justice to its transformation into national icon, Punch played a central role in the formation of British identity—and how the rest of the world saw the British nation.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
The backfiles of more than 25 periodicals reflecting the 20th/21st–century history of a variety of movements and ideologies on the political left. These titles include Marxist, socialist, communist, social democratic, and Fabianist publications, addressing key topics and events such as labour history / workers' rights, international socialism, anti-Nazi movements, Red Scares, class struggles, campaigns / legislation, and youth radicalism.
Original documents cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
National collection of socio-political cartoons from British newspapers and magazines, plus comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
First-hand accounts of life in the medieval world, many translated into English for the first time.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Holdings of the Arcadian Library, revealing the shared cultural heritage of Europe and the Middle East.
Rare and hard-to-access printed sources, tracing the history of printing in Europe.
Over 180,000 titles published during the 18th Century, including critical information in history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science.
Electronic Enlightenment is a wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.
Primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Uncover the history of European colonisation across the African continent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century through the rare printed works, diaries and journals, correspondence, maps, photographs, and film footage presented within Africa and the New Imperialism.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
Users need to register for access to this resource using their UoB email address (scroll down homepage for instructions)
Please note, we have access to the following collections: Unrestricted collection, Moses Mendelssohn-Zentrum collection, and the publicly available collections which include Edited Programs, the podcast, and the Songs from Testimonies collections.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
More than 54,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide. Please note: you need to register for an account with your UoB email address to access content.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
This resource brings together in a single place a rich collection of primary source documents about Latin America and the Caribbean; academic journals and news feeds covering the region; reference articles and commentary; maps and statistics; audio and video; and more.
Created in cooperation with the American Antiquarian Society, this collection provides students and scholars with access to more than 150 years of Caribbean and Atlantic history, cultures and daily life. Featuring more than 140 newspapers from 22 islands. Most of these newspapers were published in the English language, but a number of Spanish-, French-, and Danish-language titles are also provided.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
The subjects covered across Colonial Caribbean are many and varied; earlier materials deal with interactions with the Indigenous inhabitants of the region, the establishment of colonies, including early legislation, correspondence requesting provisions and soldiers for defence, as well as arrangements for the building of fortifications. Material throughout the early eighteenth century often specifies dealings with and punishment of pirates and privateering within the region. Later volumes from the nineteenth century detail the abolition of slavery and the political, administrative and social impacts of abolition in the Caribbean.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
The subjects covered across Colonial Caribbean are many and varied; earlier materials deal with interactions with the Indigenous inhabitants of the region, the establishment of colonies, including early legislation, correspondence requesting provisions and soldiers for defence, as well as arrangements for the building of fortifications. Material throughout the early eighteenth century often specifies dealings with and punishment of pirates and privateering within the region. Later volumes from the nineteenth century detail the abolition of slavery and the political, administrative and social impacts of abolition in the Caribbean.
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
A collection of historical US newspaper archives with a focus on Black history
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, 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.
The databases documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
Black Thought and Culture is a collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. The ideas of over 1,000 authors present an evolving and complex view of what it is to be black in America.
Jewish Life in America explores the history of Jewish communities in America from the arrival of the first Jews in the 17th century right through to the mid-20th century. This collection brings to life the communal and social aspects of Jewish identity and culture, whilst tracing Jewish involvement in the political life of American society as a whole.
Scholarship focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
Loosely organized around the history of women in social movements in the United States between 1600 and 2000, the site seeks to advance scholarly debates and understanding of U.S. history while making the insights of women’s history accessible to scholars and students at universities and colleges.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
The databases documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.
American Periodicals Series Online™ (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
This primary source collection details the extensive work of African Americans to abolish slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War. Covering the period 1830-1865, the collection presents the international impact of African American activism against slavery, in the writings of the activists themselves. The approximately 15,000 articles, documents, correspondence, proceedings, manuscripts, and literary works of almost 300 Black abolitionists show the full range of their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany.
Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies.
This 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.
Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment documents the relationships among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. The collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women.
Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920 includes unique primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries
An archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar. This resource chronicles over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, culture, and society, supporting researchers by offering unique insights into the events, attitudes, and interests of the modern era.
Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers provides an as-it-happened window on events, culture, and daily life in nineteenth-century America that is of interest to both professional and general researchers. With 1.8 million pages available, the collection features publications of all kinds, from the political party newspapers at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the mammoth dailies that shaped the nation at the century's end. Major newspapers stand alongside those published by African Americans, Native Americans, women's rights groups, labour groups, and the Confederacy. Titles were selected by leading scholars who study the nineteenth-century American press, and headnotes have been included for the individual titles.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive is devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Archival collections have been sourced from more than 60 libraries at institutions such as the Amistad Research Center, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Archives, Oberlin College, Oxford University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Yale University.
Primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of 350 years of migration.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
From zines, newspapers and ephemera, to oral histories, films and photographs, 1980s Culture and Society is an eclectic and multi-faceted resource compiled from archival collections housed across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Capturing diverse perspectives, materials produced by grassroots organizations and under-represented groups are presented alongside government records and mainstream media to showcase the key social, cultural, and political concerns of the decade.
This database includes oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artefacts, and military records of American military personnel and civilians during the Second World War. This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in the conflict, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India.
American Periodicals Series Online™ (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine and America's first scientific journal, Medical Repository; popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal; regional and niche publications; and groundbreaking journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.
Discover how the expansion of radio and television technology, and the rise of mass media empires, accelerated America's transformation into a consumer-based society, through the lens of pioneer David Sarnoff, President of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and other industry papers.
This 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.
This database brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide primary source material created for local audiences during a period of enormous global change. After the Second World War decolonization movements around the world gathered pace, and from the small port colony of Aden to the vast Indian sub-continent, new borders were set and new nations built.
An archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar. This resource chronicles over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, culture, and society, supporting researchers by offering unique insights into the events, attitudes, and interests of the modern era.
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
Interwar Culture showcases popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period. With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades, as well as allowing examination of a burgeoning media industry that both shaped and reflected society.
The J. Walter Thompson Company Archive documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.
Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests. Includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay Times, respectively. Chronicles more than six decades of the history and culture of the LGBT community. In addition to LGBT/gender/sexuality studies, this material also serves related disciplines such as sociology, political science, psychology, health, and the arts. Some publications may contain explicit content. Coverage: 1954 - 2015.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 provides an insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst, market research pioneer and widely-recognised ‘father’ of Motivational Research.
This collection provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files for the entire period of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Top-level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate these papers. There is also a wealth of material on social conditions, domestic reforms, trade, culture and the environment.
Popular Culture explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of colour images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history.
Showcases a range of ideas, initiatives, and social movements devoted to people-powered politics and organizing from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. Ranging beyond a few specific movements, the archive paints a broad picture of the counterculture and many disparate organizations that represent this moment in modern Western history. Although the archive concentrates mainly on the United States and the United Kingdom, it also covers events and topics from around the globe.
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.
Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960–1974 brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. With 125,000 pages of text and 50 hours of video at completion, this searchable collection is the definitive electronic resource for students and scholars researching this important period in American history, culture, and politics.
The backfiles of more than 25 periodicals reflecting the 20th/21st–century history of a variety of movements and ideologies on the political left. These titles include Marxist, socialist, communist, social democratic, and Fabianist publications, addressing key topics and events such as labour history / workers' rights, international socialism, anti-Nazi movements, Red Scares, class struggles, campaigns / legislation, and youth radicalism.
This digital resource presents domestic consumerism, life and leisure in America between 1850-1950 with Trade Catalogues and the American Home. This resource presents a wealth of highly illustrated primary source documents that highlight commercial tastes and consumer trends
This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. A wide variety of forms of travel writing are included, ranging from unique manuscripts, diaries and correspondence to drawings, guidebooks and photographs. The resource includes a slideshow with hundreds of items of visual material, including postcards, sketches and photographs. Sources cover a variety of topics including; architecture; art; the British Empire; climate; customs; exploration; family life; housing; industry; language; monuments; mountains; natural history; politics and diplomacy; race; religion; science; shopping; war.
A searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world's greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
Available to students and staff at the University of Bristol.
Manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Includes a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.
Almost 200 years of Indigenous print journalism from the US and Canada. With newspapers representing a huge variety in publisher, audience and era, discover how events were reported by and for Indigenous communities.
Resources which are freely available to anyone online.
The University's Special Collections encompass a wide range of material from different time periods and on numerous subjects.
Some material can be viewed online and you can consult physical items by appointment in the Special Collections Reading Room on the first floor of the Arts and Social Sciences Library.
The following archive collections are based in Bristol and the South West region.
A self-help tutorial on effective research with databases.
This guide to finding primary sources will show you where and how to find primary sources online and in print.
Our Introduction to finding and using archives in the UK guide provides further information about using UK archives for your research.