Selected Digital Primary Sources for History

Issued by Britain's Foreign Office (FO) and Colonial Office (CO), these documents range from one-page letters or telegrams to large volumes of text and treaties. All were circulated to leading officials in the FO, the Cabinet, and Heads of British missions abroad. Includes the entire classes: CO 880/1-32 North America, 1839-1914; CO 884/1-38 West Indies, 1826-1961; FO 414/1-278 North America 1824-1941; FO 461/1-13 America, 1942-1956; and FO 462/1-10 USA, 1947-1956.

Spans five centuries, from 1492 to 1969, and charts the rise and fall of empires around the world. Sections include: Cultural Contacts (1492-1969); Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, and Colonialism (c1789-1969). This resource provides original documents and contextual essays to enable exploration of colonial history, politics, culture, and society. Cross-searchable with Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange.

Features a wealth of primary source materials for the study of the Great War, complemented by a range of contextual secondary sources. Includes 3 modules:
1. Personal Experiences (with letters, photographs, diaries, postcards, sheet music, etc.)
2. Propaganda and Recruitment (with aerial leaflets, atrocity propaganda, international posters, cartoons, etc.)
3. Visual Perspectives and Narratives (with material from the Imperial War Museum, including artwork, museum objects, film clips, etc.)

The single largest source for the study of women's history in the world, containing materials dated from 1543 to 1945, written in 15 languages, and originating from Continental Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. Digitized contents include: books, pamphlets, and periodicals reflecting the evolution of feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.

Contains thousands of primary sources that relate to the long nineteenth century (approximately 1749-1984) sourced from world-wide collections across the globe, written in multiple languages, with geographic coverage spanning Africa, Continental Europe, East/South Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Content types include: monographs (books), manuscripts, newspapers, ephemera, photographs, statistics, and maps.

An important portal for slavery and abolition studies. Contains documents and collections produced from 1490 to 2007, sourced from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Topics include: the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. Features case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba. Provides links to significant external online sources, approved by leading scholars.

Contains over 1,500 trench journal titles sourced from leading archives around the world, including those of the Imperial War Museums and The British Library, written by service people from every type of unit and every combatant nation. Most are journals from units based on the Western Front in France and Belgium; but there are also magazines from units serving on the Eastern Front in Gallipoli, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Britain, and America.