Primary Sources

Eyewitness accounts of historical events, vivid descriptions of daily life, editorial observations, commerce as seen through advertisements, and genealogical records. Includes archives from African American Newspapers, American County Histories, Civil War archives and many other eighteenth and nineteenth century newspaper and journal archives.

Access is also available at the original Accessible Archives website until 31st August:

https://www-accessible-com.eux.idm.oclc.org

This collection provides researchers with a trove of revealing primary documents during the key periods of the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan. Largely the product of decades of FOIA requests and appeals, these records obtained from the State Department, CENTCOM, the DIA, and other agencies detail many of the problems that bedeviled the American-led occupation, including reconstruction efforts, diplomatic relations with the Afghan government, Pakistan's double-sided games, Taliban-al Qaeda relations, corruption, and narcotics.

Access on and off-campus.

This groundbreaking online collection provides more than 60 searchable African newspapers published in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Featuring English and foreign-language titles from Angola, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, African Newspapers, Series 1, offers unparalleled coverage of the issues and events that shaped the continent and its peoples between 1800 and 1922.  From repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade, life under colonial rule and the results of the Berlin Conference to the emergence of Black journalism, the Zulu Wars and the rejection of Western imperialism, these newspapers provide a wide range of viewpoints on diverse cultures.

Access on and off-campus.

The American Jewish Congress, founded in 1918 under the leadership of Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, is one of the most important organizations dedicated to advocating for the interests of the American Jewish community and defending the civil rights of all Americans. The American Jewish Congress Records span from 1915-2009 and document the American Jewish Congress’s impact on the United States legal system, civil rights and liberties, the fight against discrimination and antisemitism, and support for the State of Israel. The records of the American Jewish Congress are digitized by ProQuest from the holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society. This module represents the first seven series of the collection, covering the history of the American Jewish Congress, the proceedings of its governing committees, the files of the Executive Directors, and records of the organization’s national conventions.

Americans for Democratic Action Records, 1932-1965 is a rich resource for researchers interested in 20th century progressive politics and labor organizing. Founded as the Union for Democratic Action (UDA), this organization supported liberal social, political, and economic causes. Their main activities included lobbying, organizing, research, and rallying behind political candidates and legislation, often in coordination with other progressive organizations.

Access on and off campus.

Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, you can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing digital archive offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history. The database currently includes 4 collections: International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture, LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I and Part II and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.

Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Collections in Archives Unbound cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Collections are chosen for Archives Unbound based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.

There are currently 455 collections in Archives Unbound, covering a large range of subject areas, and new collections are added every year. To see a full list of all the collections and what they cover click on the Collections box and you can either view as alphabetical list or browse by category. Alternatively, click here.

Access on and off-campus. 

Contemporary Anthropology: Archaeological Fieldwork and Methods brings together archival and textual material relating to archaeological excavations, methods, and practices done in the late 20th century to present day. It provides insights into the lives, cultures, and societies of ancient and not-so-distant civilizations through the analysis of material remains and artifacts from the past. This collection allows researchers and students to use archival material and published works to better understand, analyse, and critique archaeological research.   Featured in this collection is the The Cusichaca Trust Archive sourced from the Senate House Library, University of London. Led by archaeologist Ann Kendall, the Trust did numerous excavations in the South-Central Andes from 1980s-2010s. The archaeology, archaeobotany and ethnohistorical work focused on human occupation of the area from the late first millennium BC, through Inca expansion and into the Spanish Colonial period.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (from the Digital National Security Archive) presents an integrated, comprehensive record of U.S. decision making during the most dangerous U.S.-Soviet confrontation in the nuclear era.

Much of the documentation focuses on U.S. decision making during what Robert Kennedy called the "Thirteen Days" of the missile crisis—from McGeorge Bundy's October 16, 1962 briefing of President Kennedy on the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba to Nikita Khrushchev's October 28 decision to withdraw the weapons.

The numerous intelligence reports, diplomatic cables, political analyses, military situation reports, and meeting minutes included in the set portray both the deliberative process and the execution of critical decisions made by the Kennedy administration during the crisis.

This is a rich update consisting the latest declassified documentation on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, supplementing the DNSA’s collections, with never-before-published records from U.S. and Soviet archives, highlights from the archive of Anastas Mikoyan - the Soviet leader who negotiated the end of the crisis, U.S. Navy tracking reports, briefing documents for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and formerly classified U.S. intelligence materials. Also in this update are 4 volumes of the CIA’s internal history of the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.

Access on or off campus.

The database provides full-text primary source materials relating to the Chinese political movements after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949: the Political Campaigns in the 1950s from Land Reform to Public-Private Cooperation (1949-1956), the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957–), the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine (1958-1964), and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Sources include government documents, directives, bulletins, speeches by Mao Zedong and other officials, major newspaper and magazine editorials, and other types of documents. All the documents are in Chinese, but the database platform can be switched to English where document titles can be browsed in English.

This resource consists of expertly curated, and meticulously indexed, declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events – including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions – from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews to provide unparalleled access to the defining international issues of our time.

The University's access includes the following databases:

• The Afghanistan War and the United States, 1998-2017
• Chile and the United States: U.S. Policy toward Democracy, Dictatorship, and Human Rights, 1970–1990
• CIA Family Jewels Indexed.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis: 50th Anniversary Update.
• Electronic Surveillance and the National Security Agency: From Shamrock to Snowden.
• The Iran-Contra Affair: The Making of a Scandal, 1983–1988.
• Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980–1994.
• The Kissinger Telephone Conversations: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977.
• The Kissinger Transcripts: A Verbatim Record of U.S. Diplomacy, 1969-1977.
• U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part I: 1954-1968.
• U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part II: 1969-1975.
• U.S.-Russia Relations: From the Fall of the Soviet Union to the Rise of Putin, 1991-2000

For a complete description of each database, please see the individual entries on the alphabetical databases pages.

Access on and off campus. 

Donald Rumsfeld's "snowflakes" are a unique resource, coming directly from the Defence Secretary's desk. Part 1 provides unprecedented insight into the workings of the Pentagon during the early years of the Bush administration. Snowflakes offers glimpses into Rumsfeld's day-to-day concerns covering everything from relations with Russia, China, and other nations to the DOD's strategy and conduct in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to communications with the White House and battles with Pentagon bureaucracy.

Access on and off campus. 

Donald Rumsfeld's blizzard of "snowflakes" comes to an end with Part 2. These revealing memoranda illuminate the large and small issues confronting the Pentagon during the second term of the Bush administration and Rumsfeld’s daily administration of the U.S. Defense Department until his resignation. In addition to Rumsfeld’s musings about defense spending, government bureaucracy, political appointments, and office etiquette, the collection includes substantive responses to his inquiries from high-level civilian staff members and military commanders on significant national security topics, such as manpower needs in the prosecution of two wars, reconstruction and democratization in Iraq and Afghanistan, and modernization of the U.S. military.

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. Most books are in English (134,417), but there are also hundreds of books in other European languages including Latin (9060), French (678), Welsh (205), Ancient Greek (147), Greek (112), Italian (95), Scots (88), German (63), Spanish (32), Hebrew (12), Scottish Gaelic (8), Portuguese (7), Arabic (6), and other Roman languages (795).

Users can explore complete, digitized images of all the works listed in these key bibliographic records of English literature: The Short-Title Catalogue (Pollard & Redgrave, 1475-1640); The Short-Title Catalogue II (Wing, 1641-1700); The Thomason Tracts; and the Early English Books Tract Supplements, as well as original almanacs, pamphlets, musical scores, prayer books and other primary sources.

Cross-searchable with Early European Books on the Early Modern Books platform.

Cross searchable with Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library (UKMHL) on the JISC Historical Texts platform. The JISC Historical Texts platform does not contain any annual updates.

Access on and off campus. 

The East African Newspapers collection provides insight into this region during the 20th and early 21st centuries, a time of great change for Africa. In East Africa, this time witnessed the growth of decolonization as independence movements swelled, and local, autonomous self-governance took hold throughout the region. This period was also punctuated by famine, drought, political uprisings, border disputes, and war as countries worked to navigate the post-colonial landscape. The collection includes 3 key newspapers: Daily Nation (Kenya), The Ethiopian Herald, and The Monitor (Uganda).

The collection contains a wealth of primary materials documenting the Spanish Republican period (1931-1939), the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the post-War era of Franco’s rule (1939-1975).  The collection’s greatest strengths are the Civil War itself and the immediate post-War years of the 1940s. Included are publications by Republicans, Falangists, Catholics, anarchists, communists, socialists, agrarian reformers, and regional political parties, as well as Spanish exiles and partisans outside Spain.

Historical Texts brings together four historically significant collections into a single database search platform: Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), 65,000 texts from the British Library 19th Century Collection and the UK Medical Heritage Library collection (UKMHL). For descriptions of and alternative access to EEBO and ECCO, see their separate entries in this Database A-Z list. The British Library 19th Century Collection offers over 65,000 recently digitised editions during 1789-1914, many of which are previously rare and inaccessible titles. The UK Medical Heritage Library collection (1800-1900’s) contains the images and full text of over 66,000 19th century European medical publications. The UKMHL visualisations are available on a separate platform. 

Access on and off campus.

History of Feminism is a new online platform that brings together the best and most relevant scholarship from Taylor & Francis, its imprints, and its authors. It is the first part of the new Routledge Historical Resources online programme that will provide both academics and students with an in depth research tool for studying the long Nineteenth Century through thematic collections in areas such as Feminism, the History of Economic Thought, Romanticism and Empire. This resource covers the fascinating subject of feminism over the long nineteenth century (1776–1928). It contains an extensive range of primary and secondary resources, including full books, selected chapters, and journal articles, as well as new thematic essays, and subject introductions on its structural themes:

• Politics and Law
• Religion and Belief
• Education
• Literature and Writings
• Women at Home
• Society and Culture
• Empire
• Movements and Ideologies

Access on and off campus.

Access on and off campus.

The House of Lords Parliamentary Papers (1800-1910) is an essential research resource that, along with the existing House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database, provides a complete picture of the working and influence of the UK Parliament during the pivotal 19th century. As the working documents of government, the papers encompass wide areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, and many contributors were found outside the official world – providing evidence to committees and commissions during a time when the Lords still wielded considerable power.

The Library already has access to the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers and the two databases are cross-searchable.

This collection documents Kissinger's conversations with top officials in the Nixon and Ford administrations, senior officials as well as noted journalists, ambassadors, and business leaders close to the White House.

Topics range widely, including detente with Moscow, the Vietnam War, the Jordanian crisis (1970), rapprochement with China, the Middle East negotiations, U.S.- European relations, U.S-Japan relations, the Cyprus crisis, and the unfolding Watergate crisis.

This resource gives rich insight into the efforts of the Executive Branch of U.S. government to reach out to the burgeoning Latino population during the last 2 years of the Carter Administration. Major topics covered in this collection include inflation, bilingual education, police brutality, political unrest in Latin America, Haitian refugees, and immigration (legal and otherwise), Puerto Rican self-determination, and the U.S. Navy’s use of Vieques Island. Latino Civil Rights during the Carter Administration also documents some of the most important Latino organizations of the time, including LULAC, TELACU, La Raza, the Puerto Rican Legal Defence and Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund, and the American G.I. Forum.

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. It is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.

In addition to the digital documents, London Low Life contains a wealth of secondary resources, including a chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links to other useful websites.

Access on and off campus

This collection comprises materials on Santo Trafficante, Jr., Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano, including FBI surveillance and informant reports and correspondence from a variety of offices including, Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, New York City, New Orleans, Atlanta, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago; Justice Department memoranda, correspondence, and analyses; Newsclippings and articles; Domestic Intelligence Section reports; Transcriptions of wiretaps, typewriter tapes, and coded messages; Memoranda of conversations.

Access on and off campus.

Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation between 1980 and 2010 and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers. 

Access on and off campus.

This digital research source from Adam Matthew provides you with access to a huge range of primary sources covering social, cultural, political, scientific and religious perspectives, from the 15th to early 18th centuries. The breadth of sources provided within this collection is extensive, from sources concerning the Black Death to the Restoration of the English monarchy and the Glorious Revolution. Includes illuminated manuscripts, personal papers, diaries and journals, correspondence, rare books, receipt books, account books and manuscript sheet music.

Access on and off campus.

Medieval Family Life - The Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor and Armburgh Papers.  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.  Along with the letter collections themselves there are many additional features useful for teaching and research. These include:  A chronology, a visual sources gallery, an interactive map, a glossary, family trees and links to other scholarly free to access digital resources useful for researching the medieval period.

Medieval Family Life (MFL) is a collection of manuscripts from c1400-1490.  See contents list (.csv file).

Use VPN for off campus access, the publisher is experiencing technical difficulties with it's Shibboleth set up. 30/8/22

Access and off campus.

Access on or off campus.

As part of the Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO), this unique collection of monographs includes 7,717 works in English, 6,504 in French and 3,640 in German published in Britain and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early Victoria era. Sourced from Castle Corvey in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the Corvey Collection is one of the most important collections of works from the period in existence, with particular strength in especially difficult-to-find or even previously unknown works – by women writers in particular. The collection’s vast archive of materials documents the nature and scope of literary publication in England and on the Continent during the Romantic period and the early years of the Victorian era. Scholars can research and explore a range of topics, including Romantic literary genres; mutual influences of British, French and German Romanticism; literary culture; women writers of the period; the canon and Romantic aesthetics.

1790-1840

The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272 - 1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485 - 1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords and, somewhat later, of the commons. The rolls, which amount in total to over four million words, were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1783 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum ( RP ) under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey.

Access on or off campus.

ProQuest Congressional offers a comprehensive collection of congressional documents from 1789 to the present. This primary source collection offers you an opportunity to understand the present by comparing today’s events and opinions with trends and patterns throughout our nation’s history. The Library has access to the following collections through ProQuest Congressional:

• Congressional Basic.
• Congressional Hearings Digital Collection Historical Archive, Parts A-C (1824-2010).
• Congressional House and Senate Unpublished Hearings, Parts A-C (1973-1992).
• Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, Parts A-D (1789-2009).
• Congressional Research Digital Collection Historical Archive, Parts A-B (1830-2010).
• Digital U.S. Bills and Resolutions, 1789-2013.
• Executive Branch Documents, Parts 1-6 (1789-1952).
• Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations, 1789-Present.
• U.S. Serial Set 1 Digital Collection, 1789-1969.
• U.S. Serial Set 2 Digital Collection, Parts A-D (1970-2010).
• U.S. Serial Set  Maps Digital Collection Complete.

Access on and off campus.

Drawn from The National Archives (UK) and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this collection contains a wealth of digitised documents regarding the British government's efforts to investigate and prosecute Nazi crimes during the period 1944-1949. The evidence gathered sheds light on almost every aspect of the Holocaust and includes victim testimonies.

Access on and off campus.

WDA RCP Part I extends to over 700,000 pages and includes over 7,000 early printed books and more than 100 incunabula from the John Dee collection and Dorchester library. The archive records reflect the RCP’s changing role in setting standards of medical practice and the fellows wide-ranging medical and non-medical interests. As a result, the archives contain an eclectic range of 14th- to 19th-century manuscripts.

All Wiley Digital Archives are available on the same advanced platform designed to power research, support teaching, and foster learning. The platform includes Automated Text Recognition (ATR), downloadable tabular data, digital humanities visualisation tools as well as translation and sharing features to highlight research and support teaching.

Access on and off campus.

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) digital archive contains more than 150,000 maps, charts and atlases complemented by manuscripts, field notes, expedition reports.  Includes primary source material related to colonization, de-colonization, British Empire, polar and desert expeditions.  

Access on and off campus.

From British Online Archives many of the pamphlets included in this collection were printed by the Scottish National Party and its predecessors. Authors include Archie Lamont, Hugh MacDiarmid, and William Mitchell. These items contain research and policy proposals for how an independent Scotland might manage financially. They also contain both a pamphlet of nationalist songs and a history of the nationalist movement which was printed in 1853. The idea of using of oil wealth to support an independent Scotland can be traced back to the 1970s. Questions about how the European Union might affect independence also date back to these papers.

Access on and off campus

This collection provides full-text searchable, digital access to 4,500 primary source British government secret intelligence and foreign policy files spanning 1873 to 1953, with a particular focus from 1936 onwards. Spanning four key 20th century conflicts, the material enables research into intelligence, foreign policy, international relations, and military history in the period of Appeasement, the Second World War, and the early years of the Cold War.

Representing the complete digitisation of material up to 1953 from across nine file series from The National Archives UK, Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War provides a unique three-tiered intelligence insight into world history over the critical years of the 1930s to 1950s through its juxtaposition of Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee papers with MI6 operations case files and decoded signals intelligence from Bletchley Park. Together, these files provide new insights into key 20th century events, international relations and conflicts across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, North America and beyond, and enable an almost day-by-day, in-depth study of the Second World War. Teaching resources include:

• File Series Descriptions.
• an extensive list of Key People and Key Organisations men.

Sex & Sexuality covers a broad range of topics and is drawn from leading archives around the world. From papers of leading sexologists to LGBTQI+ personal histories, the collection is an essential resource for the study of human sexuality, its complexities and its history. Module I is sourced solely from the renowned Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections.

The Library has access to:

Module I: Research Collections from The Kinsey Institute Library & Special Collections

Module II: Self-Expression, Community and Identity

Access on and off campus.  

This digital archive 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.

Access on campus or off campus. For off campus access please use the University VPN - Access to the University network via the VPN.

Containing over 28,000 digitised pages this database contains a wide range of documents concerning the African slave trade during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The papers focus primarily on Jamaica and the West Indies, but also cover the experience of other nations and regions. Through a combination of statistics, correspondence, pamphlets, and memoirs, they offer insights into the commercial and colonial dimensions of slavery and the views of its advocates and opponents.

Access on and off campus.

The South Asia Commons (formerly South Asia Archive) is a specialist digital platform providing global electronic access to culturally and historically significant literary material produced from within, and about, the South Asian region.  Contains millions of pages of digitized primary and secondary material in a mix of English and vernacular languages dating back to the start of the 18th Century, up to the mid-20th Century.  Contains Journals, Reports, Books,  Legislation documents and Indian Film Booklets.

The Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) contains primary and secondary source material related to Joseph Stalin's personal biography, his work in government, and his conduct of foreign affairs. A majority of these documents are scanned page images and corresponding bibliographic records in Russian created by the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). The archive also contains full transcriptions of all of the volumes in Yale University Press's acclaimed Annals of Communism (AOC) series..