Collections of several types of primary sources curated around a topic or theme.
Good for: First hand accounts of European exploration, trade and colonization worldwide using primary sources.
Contains: Manuscripts, maps, illustrated documents, diaries, and ship logs.
Dates covered: 1420-1920.
Good for: Exploring Chinese life and culture over the past 300 years.
Contains: Primary source documents like printed books, pamphlets, paintings, manuscripts, diaries, newspapers, and periodicals.
Dates covered: 1750-1980.
Good for: Researching British governance of Caribbean islands and the rise and decline of trade in enslaved people.
Contains: Primary sources from the records of the British Colonial Office.
Dates covered: 1624-1872.
Good for: Researching British trade and colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent.
Contains: British government records from the India Office.
Dates covered: 1599-1947.
Good for: Exploring colonial history, politics, culture and society from British and European perspectives.
Contains: Primary sources from archival collections.
Dates covered: 1492-1969.
Good for: Studying European colonization in North America, Africa, and Australasia.
Contains: Primary sources like expedition records, letters, diaries, and government records.
Dates covered: 1650-1920.
Good for: Examining primary sources 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.
Contains: Archival collections.
Dates covered: 1500-present.
Good for: Exploring firsthand travel accounts of British tourists in Europe before 1850.
Contains: Travel accounts.
Dates covered: 1550-1850.
Good for: Studying the history of South Asia between the initial involvement of the East India Company and Indian and Pakistani independence.
Contains: Primary sources from colonial government and archival collections.
Dates covered: 1615-1947.
Good for: Researching the trade in enslaved people in America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba using material examining European, Islamic, and African involvement in the slave trade.
Contains: Case studies and primary source documents.
Dates covered: 1490-2007.
Good for: Studying witch hunts and related topics.
Contains: Manuscripts, pamphlets, and books.
Dates covered: 1500-1930.
Manuscripts, pamphlets and books about witch hunts, including anti-persecution writings, works by penologists, legal and church documents, exposés of persecutions, and philosophical writings and transcripts of trials and exorcisms.
Digitized collections of books published during different time periods.
Good for: Finding primary source materials on exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions, and more.
Contains: Historical books, pamphlets, serials and other documents about North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Dates covered: 1500-1926.
Good for: Researching early English literature and culture.
Contains: Most extant printed books in English published before 1700.
Dates covered: 1475-1700.
Image files and PDFs available for all books; many books have also been scanned and have searchable text included.
Good for: Researching 18th-century English literature and culture.
Contains: Most extant books published in English.
Dates covered: 1701-1800.
Image files and PDFs and text available for most works.
Good for: Reading primary sources that document the evolution of feminist consciousness and the women's rights movement.
Contains: Books and periodicals.
Dates covered: 1543-1945.
Good for: Access to nearly any public domain (pre-1929) book owned and scanned by a library.
Contains: Digitized books.
Good for: Researching historical legal materials.
Contains: Treatises, primary sources, trials, and foreign, comparative, and international law.
Dates covered: 1600-1926.
Good for: Researching historical legal materials.
Contains: Treatises, primary sources, trials, and foreign, comparative, and international law.
Dates covered: 1600-1926.
Digitized photos and art images.
Good for: Finding and using digital images for research and teaching.
Contains: Art digital images and related data.
These links allow you to search across multiple databases at the same time.
Good for: Searching across all primary source collections from Adam Matthew Publishers.
Contains: Archival collections.
Includes American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society, Archives of Sexuality and Gender, Archives Unbound, British Library Newspapers, Chatham House Online Archive, China and the Modern World, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Environmental History, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals, Political Extremism and Radicalism, Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney and Nichols Newspapers Collections, The Economist Historical Archive, The Times Digital Archive and The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive.
Good for: Searching historical periodicals.
Contains: Magazine and journal articles.
Dates covered: 1740-1940 with some more recent.
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