LibGuides: Literature: 20th century literature texts and sources

Databases: Primary Source Collections, 1900-

African Writers Series This link opens in a new window
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Novels, plays, poetry, traditional African folk materials and non-fictional accounts of African culture and history.
Asian American Drama This link opens in a new window
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Plays by Asian-American playwrights along with biographical, production and theatrical information.
Black Drama This link opens in a new window
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Over 1200 plays by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries.

Some 440 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.
Black Short Fiction and Folklore This link opens in a new window
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Works of short fiction produced by writers from Africa and the African Diaspora from the earliest times to the present.
Black Women Writers This link opens in a new window
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Works by Black women writers from the African diaspora, including African American women and Caribbean writers.
Caribbean Literature This link opens in a new window
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Literary works by Caribbean authors, along with biographies, reference works and literary criticism.
Drama Online This link opens in a new window
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Play scripts and scholarly works from Faber and Faber and Bloomsbury's Methuen Drama and Arden Shakespeare imprints.

Over 1000 full text plays, from Aeschylus to the present day, including modern classics from Tom Stoppard, David Mamet, Alan Bennett, Caryl Churchill, Edward Bond, Harold Pinter, Brian Friel, John Osborne, April De Angelis, and David Hare; contemporary writers include Polly Stenham, Katori Hall, D.C. Moore, James Graham, Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Lucy Prebble.

Faber Poetry Library
The works of 50 poets comprising 140 volumes of poetry published by Faber. Authors include Simon Armitage, Rupert Brooke, Wendy Cope, T. S. Eliot, Lavinia Greenlaw, Thom Gunn, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, David Jones, Louis MacNeice, Andrew Motion, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin, Sylvia Plath, Siegfried Sassoon, Stephen Spender and Edward Thomas.

Latin American Women Writers This link opens in a new window
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1600-
Memoirs, letters, and essays by Latin American women.
Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama, and Fiction This link opens in a new window
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1872-
Novels, short stories and poems, and plays written by Americans of Spanish or Latin American heritage.

Latino Literature brings together more than 100,000 pages of poetry, fiction, and drama written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latin authors working in the United States. Among the gems of the collection are nearly 800 items (poems, novels, and plays) that have never been published before. Researchers will also find numerous Chicano folk tales and audio files of selected poems and plays. It currently contains over 106,000 pages of poetry.

Literature, Culture and Society in Depression Era America: Archives of the Federal Writers' Project
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London Low Life This link opens in a new window
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1800-1910
Primary sources like ballads, slang dictionaries, brothel guides and posters sold on the street during the 19th century in London.
North American Theatre Online: Resource and Reference Text This link opens in a new window
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Reference texts in American theater, as well as images of posters, playbills, photos, architectural images, floor plans, and other ephemera.

Update frequency: quarterly
This collection also allows cross-searching of the full text contents of five online full-text drama collections: Black Drama, Twentieth Century North American Drama, Asian American Drama, Latino Literature, and North American Women's Drama
North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window
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1770-present
Plays written by women in the United States and Canada.

Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Almost a quarter of the collection consists of previously unpublished plays. Plays are also included in North American Theatre Online.
South and Southeast Asian Literature in English This link opens in a new window
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Fiction, short fiction, and poems written from the end of the colonial era to the present by South Asian and Southeast Asian writers.

The collection captures a broad range of personal experiences—South Asian elites educated in legacy British colonial schools; Indian descendants of 19th-century indentured plantation and railroad laborers, now living in the Caribbean or Africa; and writers born into immigrant communities in London, Toronto, and New York.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
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1818-1974
Travel writing in manuscripts, diaries and correspondence as well as drawings, guidebooks and photographs.

Twentieth Century African American Poetry
1900-2000
9,000 poems by the most important and influential African American poets of the last century. Coverage begins with the key writers of the early decades, continues with major figures of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movement of the 1960s, and concludes with a considerable body of writing of the 1980s and 1990s.
Twentieth Century American Poetry
1900-2000
50,000 poems by over 300 poets. Major movements of the century are represented, including modernism, the Black Mountain school, Deep Image poetry, underground literature by the Beat poets, influential feminist works, and works by the confessional poets.

Twentieth Century Drama This link opens in a new window
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1900-2000
Full text scripts of plays.

Authors from Britain and Ireland, North America, India, Africa, Australia and the Caribbean, indexed by subject and keyword-searchable. Strengths of this collection include Irish drama, off-Broadway and alternative theatre, political plays, and global and postcolonial theatre. The "Find Monologue" feature helps actors find good audition pieces. Also searchable from within LION.

Twentieth Century English Poetry
1900-2000
598 volumes of poetry by 283 poets, including W.B. Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Wilfred Owen, Thom Gunn, Fleur Adcock, Paul Muldoon, Tony Harrison, Benjamin Zephaniah and Carol Ann Duffy, and incorporating poets from The Faber Poetry Library.

Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new window
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1900-2000
Plays from the United States and Canada.

Update frequency: quarterly
In addition to providing a comprehensive full-text resource for students in the performing arts, the collection offers a unique window into the economic, historical, social, and political psyche of two countries. Plays are also included in North American Theatre Online.

The full text of letters and diary entries, often from works that have been previously published as books containing collections of letters or diaries. Use the Browse indexes to find works about specific historical or life events.

American Slave: A Composite Autobiography This link opens in a new window
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1840-1938
Narratives from people who had been enslaved that were collected by the WPA Federal Writers' Project between 1936 and 1938.
North American Immigrant Letters & Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1840-
Personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories about immigrating to the U.S. or Canada.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
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1770-1950
Diaries, journals, and letters written by famous and not-so-famous North American women.

Use the date range limit to narrow your search to a relevant time period.

America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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1690-1923
Historical newspapers from every state in the U.S.
American Indian Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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1828-2016
Includes national periodicals as well as local community news and student publications from an Indigenous perspective.
Historical Black Newspapers from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1893-2005
African American newspapers from Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Norfolk VA., Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
British Library Newspapers (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1732-1950
National and regional British newspapers representing different political and cultural views.
Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender, 1909-2010 This link opens in a new window
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1909-2010
African American newspaper from Chicago, Illinois.
Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune, 1849-1998 This link opens in a new window
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1849-1998
Cover to cover digital reproductions of the Chicago Tribune with searchable full text.
Historical Newspapers: Christian Science Monitor, 1908-2007 This link opens in a new window
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1908-2007
Articles and images from The Christian Science Monitor newspaper.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers This link opens in a new window
1789-1924
Newspapers from the Library of Congress, including Nevada newspapers.
Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980 This link opens in a new window
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1808-1980
Newspapers published by Hispanic-American communities primarily in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas and New York.
Las Vegas Review Journal Archive (1929-1996) This link opens in a new window
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3/30/1929-present
Nevada daily newspaper. 1929-1996 is page images only; 1997- is article text only, no images.
Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times, 1881-1997 This link opens in a new window
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1881-1997
Historical California newspaper.
Historical Newspapers: New York Times, 1851-2017 This link opens in a new window
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1851-2017
Historical New York newspaper.
Historical Newspapers: New York Tribune, 1841-1922 This link opens in a new window
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1841-1922
Full text of New York Tribune, 1841-1922.
Historical Newspapers: South China Morning Post, 1903-2001 This link opens in a new window
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1903-2001
English-language Hong Kong daily newspaper.
Times Digital Archive, 1785-2014 This link opens in a new window
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1785-2014
The Times (London) newspaper.
Historical Newspapers: Washington Post, 1877-2004 This link opens in a new window
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1877-2004
Text and images from The Washington Post

Google News Archive
Mostly American and Canadian papers, 19th and 20th century.
United States Online Historic Newspapers
List of digitized historical newspaper collections, including many that are free.

search tips

Searching Newspaper Databases

Search for articles published in popular magazines and journals from different times in history.

African American Historical Serials Collection, 1816-1922 This link opens in a new window
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1816-1922
Newspapers and magazines published by African American churches, educational and service institutions.
American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Part I-V (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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1684-1912
Popular magazines, newspapers, and journals published in the United States.

EBSCO version offers subject indexing. Also searchable via Gale or Gale Primary Sources combined search portal.
American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940
Magazines and journals published in the U.S. mostly before 1900.
Arte Público Hispanic Historical Collection This link opens in a new window
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1750-present
Publications documenting the Hispanic culture of the United States - history, literature, political commentary, and culture. Written in Spanish (80%) and English (20%).
British Periodicals Collection I and II This link opens in a new window
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1681-1920
Popular British periodicals mostly from the 19th century.
Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2014 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1843-2015
Issues of The Economist, a news magazine with a global scope published in London.
Eighteenth Century Journals This link opens in a new window
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1685-1835
Literary, satirical, political, religious and theatrical magazines and newspapers from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, India and the Caribbean.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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1880-2015
Music, film, broadcasting and theater industry trade publications published before 2015 including Variety, Billboard, Spin, The Hollywood Reporter, American Cinematographer, American Film, Picturegoer and more.
Harper's Bazaar Archive This link opens in a new window
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1867-
Harper's Bazaar magazine shows changes in American fashion, culture and society.
Media History Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Film industry and fan publications, 1903-1995 (most pre-1926).

Business Screen (1938-1973); The Film Daily (1918-1948); International Photographer (1929-1941); Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers (1916-1949); Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (1950-1954); The Educational Screen (1922-1962); Motion Picture [Magazine] (1914-1941) and more Moving Picture World (1907-1919) Photoplay (1914-1940) Radio Age: Research, Manufacturing, Communications, Broadcasting, Television (1942-1957) Radio Broadcast (1922-1930) Sponsor (1946-1964) Talking Machine World (1906-1928) Variety (1905-1926)
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, 1902-2013 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1902-2013
London Times Literary Supplement publishes letters, poems and articles.
Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
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1892-
Images and text from Vogue Magazine
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
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1887-2005
American women's magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, Chatelaine, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, Parents Magazine, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan and Essence.
Women's Wear Daily Archive This link opens in a new window
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1910-
Comprehensive archive of Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), the leading fashion-industry trade paper.

Collections of several types of primary sources curated around a topic or theme.

African American Archives This link opens in a new window
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1792-1941
Primary source documents from the National Archives about the lives of African Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
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1860s-1980s
Primary sources documenting African American communities in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
Age of Exploration This link opens in a new window
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1420-1920
Primary sources like manuscripts, maps and illustrated documents, diaries and ship logs recording the experiences of Europeans as they explored trade routes, colonized the Americas and Australasia, and raced to the North and South Poles.
Americana This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all American history archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.

Combined search of American History, American Indian Histories and Cultures, American West, Everyday Life & Women in America c.1800-1920, Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975, Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, and Virginia Company Archives.
American Consumer Culture This link opens in a new window
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1850-1990s
Search three archival collections representing 20th century advertising and marketing from Adam Matthew Publishers.

Combined search of Market Research & American Business, 1935-1965, Trade Catalogues and the American Home, J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
American History (Gilder Lehrman collection) This link opens in a new window
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1493-1945
Primary sources from the Gilder Lehrman collection about American history from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century.
American Indian Histories and Cultures This link opens in a new window
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1400-1950s
Primary sources for American Indian history in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books from pre-contact through the mid-20th century.
American West This link opens in a new window
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1830-1939
Pamphlets, maps, books, ephemeral material and rare printed sources related to the history of the American West.
Archives of Sexuality and Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 (parts I and II) This link opens in a new window
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1940-present
Primary sources from more than 35 countries related to LGBTQ activism and the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government Records This link opens in a new window
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1901-2000
Records from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations detailing the interaction between civil rights leaders and the federal government; includes FBI files on Martin Luther King Jr.
Black Studies Center This link opens in a new window
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Scholarship and historical sources for Black Studies.
Chatham House Online This link opens in a new window
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1920-2008
Commentary, speeches and analysis on international affairs from a British non-profit NGO.
Children's Literature and Cultures This link opens in a new window
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1790s-1930s
Rare books, games, ephemera, and artwork from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reveals the socio-cultural history of the United States.

Materials from the Children’s Literature and Graphic Arts collections held by the American Antiquarian Society and the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
China and the Modern World: Missionary, Sinology and Literary Periodicals, 1817-1949 (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1817-1949
Academic and literary journals, journals of sinology, and missionary periodicals in English about China.
China Studies This link opens in a new window
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1750-1980
Primary source documents like printed books, pamphlets, paintings, manuscripts, diaries, newspapers and periodicals offer evidence of Chinese life and culture over the past 300 years

Combined search of: China, America and the Pacific, China: Culture and Society, and China: Trade, Politics and Culture.
Church Missionary Society Periodicals This link opens in a new window
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1804-2009
Newspapers, journals and reports offering the perspective of Anglican missionary administrators and workers on cultural encounters and historical events.
Defining Gender This link opens in a new window
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1500s-1920
Primary sources selected to illustrate changing views about gender, themed around conduct, domesticity, consumption and leisure, education, and the body.
Eighteenth Century Drama: Censorship and the Stage This link opens in a new window
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1737-1824.
Archive of plays submitted for license in England between 1737 and 1824, as well as diaries, playbills, theatre records and correspondence.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
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1492-1969
Primary sources about British colonies in Africa, North and South America, Australia, and South Asia, 1492-1969.
Everyday Life and Women in America This link opens in a new window
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1800-1920
Primary source material for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
First World War Portal This link opens in a new window
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1900-1950
Primary sources including documents, films and oral histories themed around personal experiences, propaganda and recruitment, visual perspectives and narratives, and the global conflict.
Food Studies Online This link opens in a new window
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1900-
Food Studies Online contains 80,000 pages of primary archival materials, images, and secondary works, plus 200 hours of documentaries and series, and visual ephemera.

Key themes and disciplines with extensive coverage represented include marketing and consumerism, production and technology, food history, food movements, culinary and food design, food and identity, health, policy, religion, sociology, anthropology, and history. Coverage from the 1940s.
Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement and Colonial Encounters This link opens in a new window
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1650-1920
Primary sources like expedition records, letters, diaries and government records from Europeans creating colonies in North America, Africa, and Australasia.
Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new window
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1800-present
Primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations, like women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, family and the body.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new window
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1500-present
Primary source materials that tell the story of global trade in chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits.
J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America This link opens in a new window
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1880s-1990s
The J. Walter Thompson Company advertising agency archives include brand case studies and account files about campaigns for Kellogg’s, Kodak, Kraft, Oscar Mayer, Pan Am, the US Marine Corps, and more.
Jewish Life in America This link opens in a new window
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1654-1954
Organizational and personal archival collections including rare printed books and pamphlets from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York.
Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers, and Thinkers This link opens in a new window
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1800-1960
Primary sources related to Hispanic-American writers and activists in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism This link opens in a new window
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1850-1980
Archival material from the travel agency Thomas Cook, a pioneer of package tourism. Includes periodicals such as the Excursionist magazine, personal accounts from travelers on early Cook’s tours, photographs, advertising brochures, guidebooks, posters and ephemeral items.
Literary Print Culture: The Stationers Company Archive This link opens in a new window
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1554-2007
Collection of primary source documents related to the workings of the early book trade, the printing and publishing community, the establishment of legal requirements for copyright provisions and the history of bookbinding.
London Low Life This link opens in a new window
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1800-1910
Primary sources like ballads, slang dictionaries, brothel guides and posters sold on the street during the 19th century in London.
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 This link opens in a new window
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1935-1965
Market research reports and supporting documents regarding the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century from the archives of Ernest Dichter and the Institute for Motivational Research.
Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new window
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1937-1960
Personal diaries, surveys, questionnaires, photos and printed research done about everyday lives of ordinary British people.

Social research organization Mass Observation was founded in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, film-maker Humphrey Jennings and poet Charles Madge, who recruited a team of observers and a panel of volunteer writers to document their experiences as evidence for a study of the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain.
Medical Services and Warfare This link opens in a new window
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1850s-1930s
Primary sources from Crimean War, the American Civil War and the First World War tell the story of medical advances during warfare, including the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 and the discovery of penicillin in 1927.
Meiji Japan This link opens in a new window
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1850s-1930s
Publications, papers, journals and diaries of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925), a 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.
Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new window
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1800-1924
Primary sources like personal accounts, correspondence, maps, plans and photos documenting the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: British Politics and Society (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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1750-1916
Government and archival collections show the development of urban centers and of the restructuring of society that took place during the Industrial Revolution.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society This link opens in a new window
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1768-1900s
Archival collection digitizing more than 1,400 letters, literary works, and financial records from the historic John Murray publishing company. Includes annotated drafts of Byron’s works and correspondence from Jane Austen, Charles Darwin and Isabella Bird.

Also features correspondence charting the founding of the business by John Murray in 1768, the completed, first edition file copy of On the Origin of Species, with related correspondence from Charles Darwin, and financial papers charting the sales success of hundreds of Murray titles.
Performance Design Archive Online This link opens in a new window
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Books and periodicals, archival material, and specially commissioned instructional videos about design concepts for a broad range of performance types, including dance, theatre, opera, and music.

Performance Design Archive Online is the first comprehensive, international collection that covers all aspects of theater production design, from the 17th century through to the present day, including, scenic and set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design, makeup, and more.
Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right and Left Political Groups in the U.S., Europe and Australia in the Twentieth Century (Gale Primary Sources) This link opens in a new window
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Campaign materials, periodicals, propaganda, government records, oral histories, and ephemera from fringe political movements on the right and the left.
Popular Culture in Britain and America This link opens in a new window
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1950-1975
Primary sources documenting music and popular culture in the US and Britain, 1950-1975, including manuscripts, video, photos, underground magazines and more.
Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window
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1943-1970
Primary sources on the fight for civil rights, including speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Fisk University Race Relations Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Service Newspapers of World War Two This link opens in a new window
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1939-1948
The story of World War II as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 200 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict.
Sex & Sexuality This link opens in a new window
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1800s-2010s
Archival research collections exploring changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviors and investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.

Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Includes official records of pressure groups and community organizations, anonymous qualitative surveys, diaries, correspondence, periodicals, photographs, erotic fiction and visual erotica, papers of sexologists, newsletters, reports, pamphlets and ephemera.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive: Theatres, Players & Performance This link opens in a new window
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1997-2016
Material from the performance and architectural archives of the modern reconstruction of Shakespeare’s 1599 Globe Theatre.

The performance archive shows how productions at the reconstructed Globe and Sam Wanamaker Playhouse were conceived, rehearsed, dressed, marketed, sound tracked, how props were used, how the audiences behaved and the theatre history and performance lessons that were observed and learned. The architectural archive contains material on how the reconstruction of the theatre was designed and planned and some of the conversations and debates that informed construction decisions. In addition, there is also material on the theatre’s annual reports, communications to its supporters and oral histories detailing some of the early history of the reconstructed theatre.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice This link opens in a new window
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1490-2007
Case studies documenting slavery in America, the Caribbean, Brazil and Cuba, along with material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.
Socialism on Film This link opens in a new window
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1918-1990
Documentaries, newsreels and feature films that reveal the 20th century world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, British and Latin American filmmakers.

This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. Covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home This link opens in a new window
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1850-1950
Primary sources like catalogs, price lists, and brochures reflecting the history of consumer advertising and marketing and life and leisure in America. Includes department store catalogs, cosmetic advertisements, real estate brochures and much more.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History This link opens in a new window
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1818-1974
Travel writing in manuscripts, diaries and correspondence as well as drawings, guidebooks and photographs.
Victorian Popular Culture, 1779 to 1930 This link opens in a new window
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1779 to 1930
Primary source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain, and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. Has books, posters, scrapbooks and optical toys.
Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires This link opens in a new window
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1820-present
Primary sources highlighting the voices of colonized women, including in China, Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Balkans, and South Africa. Includes Native American women, also American women in Guatemala and China.
Women and Social Movements in the United States This link opens in a new window
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1600-2000
Books, images, historical documents, scholarly essays, commentaries, and bibliographies which document reform activities by and affecting women.
Women in the National Archives This link opens in a new window
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1903-1962
Original documents from the National Archives on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories.
World’s Fairs This link opens in a new window
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1851-2000s
Official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts about world’s fairs, exhibitions and expos.

Digitized collections of books published during different time periods.

America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
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1639-1923
PDFs of books, pamphlets and broadsides published in North America, including most books published between 1639-1819.

Combined search for American Broadsides and Ephemera, American Pamphlets, and Early American Imprints 1 (Shaw) and 2 (Evans).
American Pamphlets This link opens in a new window
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1820-1922
Pamphlets with advice and opinions about all kinds of 19th century controversies.
Gerritsen Collection-Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
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1543-1945
Books and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.
Hathi Trust This link opens in a new window
Access to nearly any public domain (pre-1924) book owned and scanned by a library. UNLV users can login with their ACE accounts and download entire "full view" books/documents.

Digitized photos and art images.

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
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Art digital images and related data.

A repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, social sciences and related data; the tools to actively use those images; and a restricted usage environment that seeks to balance the rights of content providers with the needs and interests of content user.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog This link opens in a new window
Images held by the Prints and Photographs division of the Library of Congress.

The Prints and Photographs Online Catalog contains catalog records and digital images representing a rich cross-section of still pictures held by the Prints & Photographs Division and other units of the Library of Congress. About 90% of the records are accompanied by one or more digital images. In some collections, only thumbnail images display to those searching outside the Library of Congress because of potential rights considerations.

Life Photo Archive
Millions of news and editorial photographs and other images dating from 1750 to the present. Includes many iconic images, but most were never published.
NYPL Digital Photo Collections
Includes several fashion design collections as well as many historical photos from the NY Public Library.
Smithsonian Photography Initiative
Online database of photographs dating from the 1850s to the present. Subjects cover the arts and literature, culture and society, nature and science, industry and technology, history and geography. Includes both professional photos and amateur snapshots.
UNLV digital photo collections
Search collection of photos of Nevadans and more held in UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives.

These links allow you to search across multiple databases at the same time.

AM Explorer This link opens in a new window
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1493-1975
Search all archival collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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Includes 19th Century UK Periodicals, Archives of Sexuality & Gender (LGBTQ History), British Library Newspapers, The Economist (1843-2014), Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, Sabin Americana (1500-1926), China and the Modern World, London Times Digital Archive, and London Times Literary Supplement.
Historical U.S. Newspapers from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1841-2000 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest U.S. historical newspaper collections simultaneously.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Defender‎ (1909 - 1975)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune‎ (1849 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Christian Science Monitor‎ (1908 - 2003)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Los Angeles Times‎ (1881 - 1993)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times‎ (1851 - 2013)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Tribune‎ (1841 - 1922)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post‎ (1877 - 2000)
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: U.S. West, including Reno Gazette-Journal (1876-2008), San Francisco Examiner (1889-2007), and Spokane Statesman-Review (1894-2009)
Historical Periodicals from ProQuest This link opens in a new window
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1740-1940 with some more recent
Search all ProQuest historical periodical collections simultaneously.

American Periodicals‎ (1740 - 1940)
British Periodicals‎ (1681 - 1939)
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive‎ (1880 - 2000)
The Harper's Bazaar Archive‎ (1867 - current)
Periodicals Archive Online‎
The Vogue Archive‎
Women's Magazine Archive‎ (1846 - 2005)
The Women's Wear Daily Archive‎
Readex AllSearch This link opens in a new window
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1639-1922
Combined search of American historical newspapers (1690-1922), printed books (1639-1819), and pamphlets and ephemera (1749-1922).

Search all collections of historical primary sources from Readex simultaneously: America's Historical Newspapers, American Broadsides and Ephemera; American Pamphlets; Early American Imprints (Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker).

Accessible Archives combined search
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Cross search 19thC American periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, and clippings.

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Collections include African American Newspapers, The Civil War A Newspaper Perspective, Godey's Lady's Book, South Carolina Newspapers (colonial), and antislavery and woman suffrage publications.
EBSCO 19th C periodicals
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Cross search American Antiquarian Society periodicals with African American Serials, Gateway to North America collections.

Copyright holders

Copyright & Fair Use
UNLV Libraries guide with advice on copyright, including reproducing excerpts as well as protecting your own work.
WATCH rightsholder database
WATCH (Writers, Artists and their copyright holders) is a database of copyright contacts for writers, artists, and prominent figures in other creative fields.

Literature

Databases: Primary Source Collections, 1900-

Copyright holders

Locations

Contact