Our collections

Delve into the pseudo-psychological world behind the advertising of some of America’s biggest brands. What motivates women and men to buy and how can knowing that be used to sell?

The Archive of Mass-Observation, a pioneering social research organisation, has been described as a "treasure trove", "an invaluable resource for sociologists and cultural historians" and "a fascinating source of precious data for researchers across the widest range of disciplines". Mass Observation Online makes the Mass Observation Archive available to researchers in its entirety, included diaries, surveys and questionnaires that reveal everyday life in Britain between the 1930s and 1960s.

Explore the history of Britain through three turbulent decades, written by those living through it.

Explore the history of illness, treatment and disease on international front lines from 1850 to 1949.

A huge range of primary sources covering social, cultural, political, scientific and religious perspectives, from the 12th to early 19th centuries.

Only five major letter collections exist from fifteenth century England and they are all available online for the first time in this digital resource.

An extensive collection of manuscript materials for the study of medieval travel writing in fact and in fantasy.

Manuscripts for the study of Meiji society, culture, ethnology and education from the papers of Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925).

Discover the history of Mexico through the unique print and manuscript Spanish-language collections of the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley.

A selection of original documents that tell the story of European and Asian migration to North America, Australia and New Zealand during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Official records from governments, shipping lines and agencies are found alongside the letters, oral histories and diaries of the migrants themselves. The resource includes material on life for successive generations, refugees and displaced persons, and those who were transported as criminals.

This collection includes primary sources for the study of missionary work, educational work, medical work, evangelism, political conflict, and the emergence of indigenous churches.

An unparalleled resource for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it.

This resource is produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University. Their goal was to identify and describe all manner of writing by early modern women from diaries to works of drama. The resource links digital scans of the original documents with the researchers' catalogue and notes.

A wide range of material, from government documents to fanzines, video content to posters and scrapbooks, tells the story of a time of music, political unrest, fashion and new technology.

Explore the medicine chests and bookshelves of the everyday nineteenth-century American through a colourful array of advertisements, popular texts and much more. This resource offers access to an outstanding collection of highly visual primary source material, together with supplementary features designed to aid research and teaching.

This digital resource documents the interactions between government policy and public philanthropy in Victorian and early twentieth-century society, tracing developments in welfare reform and the social tensions surrounding poverty. Includes a variety of material on conditions of workhouses and the administration of the new poor relief system through the official government correspondence of the Poor Law Commission.

Surveys and Papers from The Amistad Research Center, 1943-1970

Develop students' primary source literacy and critical thinking skills and introduce key approaches to working with source material.

A digital version of the single largest collection of working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers anywhere in the world. Highlights include annotated full manuscripts of such notable works as The Prelude and Michael, or Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode.

Insights into the RSC and its most innovative and pioneering productions.

Contains an extensive range of both rare and well-known wartime publications for soldiers serving in major theatres around the world. Publications are included from many key nations involved in the conflict, such as the US, Canada, New Zealand, India, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

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.

Rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. The prompt books tell the stories of key performances as they were put on in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and further afield, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.

Documenting over 300 productions from 1997-2016 from the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, this digital collection is a critical resource for the study of Shakespeare, theatre, cultural history and early-modern literature.