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Polar explorers throughout history have attempted to harness new technologies. Among the more famous examples are Sir John Franklin’s expedition of 1845, which utilised ships propelled by repurposed locomotive engines, and Robert Falcon Scott’s 1910-12 expedition to the South Pole, which utilised motorised sledges and even installed a telephone line. Perhaps even more unusual was S. A. Andrée's 1897 doomed attempt to pass over the North Pole in a hot air balloon. However, Andrée was not the first to suggest that balloons might be used in the Arctic.

The popular narratives of the First World War told today (and particularly those used by supermarkets to sell chocolates at Christmas) usually play out against a familiar backdrop of a frosty northern France, complete with mud-sodden khaki, rat infested trenches, and a quaint football match dashed out between the barbed wire fences. Our collective memory latches on to the parts of the First World War that we deem to be significant to us, and consequentially allow other theatres of the conflict to fall by the wayside of our remembrance. 

1775 and the American colonies were in turmoil. A young, newly-volunteered cavalry Cornet by the name of Banastre Tarleton set sail for America with Lord General Cornwallis, hoping to play a part in the rising conflict. Like many young men with modest fortunes, a debauched London lifestyle had left its mark and the army offered excellent prospects to make a name for himself.

As small islands playing on the international stage, historically Japan and Great Britain have been two nations with many shared qualities, but a turbulent relationship. The files in Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1946-1952: Occupation of Japan, released this week, give a fascinating insight into Anglo-Japanese relations in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, a war that saw their alliance descend into a bitter and bloody conflict.

On the 1st April 1762, an employee of the English East India Company who was stationed in Batavia received a report that a prisoner named John Smith had escaped house confinement. Smith had been detained for nearly two months after being accused of sodomy by an apprentice stationed on an English East India Company ship; the Earl Temple.

Marie Curie is a name with which most of us are familiar today, as the cancer hospices founded in her memory since 1930 continue to support and care for people living with cancer, and their families. However, while her scientific breakthroughs are now widely recognised and celebrated, Curie faced relentless gender discrimination throughout her life as documents in Gender: Identity and Social Change resource document.

Eastman Kodak were one of the most recognisable brands managed by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency’s during the 40 years that JWT managed their account, from 1930-1972. JWT were responsible for making the Kodak brand a household name and behind some of Kodak’s most iconic advertising campaigns. The Kodak collections in Adam Matthew Digital’s forthcoming resource, J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America, give a unique insight into JWT’s advertising strategies and show why JWT were one of the most successful agencies of the 20th century.

Today, 26 January, is Australia Day, which is all the excuse I needed to spend some time on a grey Monday digging though the Australia material in our Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture resource. I was anticipating bright photographs and stylised posters of beaches, and while these were present there’s also some more unexpected content.

Joost Schouten was one of the most capable employees of the Dutch East India Company during the seventeenth-century and so it probably surprised a number of his contemporaries when, on Monday 11 July 1644 in Batavia (now known as Jakarta) he was strangled to death and his body burnt. Schouten had readily confessed to crimes of engaging in homosexual relations while on board a ship called the Franeker, which was travelling from Aceh to Malacca in 1641.

Perhaps no book of the mid-twentieth century would prove as divisive as Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 tome, The Feminine Mystique. Invited to conduct a survey on the satisfaction of fellow female graduates at a college reunion, journalist Friedan began an intent investigation into ‘the problem that has no name’, that is, a growing malaise amongst women who were seemingly living the American Dream. Credited with sparking the “second wave” of American feminism, the book proved a publishing phenomenon and became a flash point in the war over gender politics.

The season of goodwill, gift giving, holiday, Father Christmas and copious volumes of food and drink is upon us. Like most of us, you probably think you know all you need to about the key elements of Christmas. Yet, historical images of the holiday have varied enormously in their message and impact. So, what better time to rifle through the digital archives and find out how Christmas has been depicted, celebrated, captured and advertised throughout history? From the wacky to the wondrous, the moving to the marvellous (not to mention, the just plain baffling) I present to you, the snappily named, Twelve digital images of Christmas: A miscellany.

Love her or loathe her, Marilyn Monroe was one of the most alluring starlets to ever grace the silver screen. Holding her audience captive with her giddy charm and flirtatious wiggle, she led a beautiful yet insecure and troubled life. Marilyn once said herself that it is ‘better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring’, and it seems the public haven’t grown tired of their love affair with Marilyn, even fifty-five years after her death.

This week we held a charity Christmas “Winter Wonderland” bake off in the Adam Matthew office. Marshmallow penguins and snowy forest floor s’mores competed against traditional yule logs and cakes decorated with snowmen, Christmas trees and gambolling reindeer. The joy that these seasonal bakes bring to a modern consumer must pale in comparison to that experienced by soldiers in the frozen, muddy trenches of the Western Front during the First World War. From “pop-up” dinners in shell holes and Christmas puddings delivered by messenger motorcycles, to what must surely have been a record-breaking cake, the photographs available in The First World War portal offer fascinating, and at times humbling, glimpses into culinary Christmas celebrations at the front and behind the lines.

The letters of Charles J.C. Hutson, a former student of South Carolina College and a soldier in the First South Carolina Volunteers, provide insight on various topics pertaining to the American Civil War era. ... But it is Hutson’s remarks on a company flag from early in the war that this piece will focus upon. Though perhaps trivial at first glance, these remarks offer us a personal perspective on the complex ways in which southerners developed a relationship with their fledgling nation and their wider ideas about the Civil War.

It was in the early 1970s that Afghanistan entered into the spiral of governmental instability, insurgency, outright civil war and foreign interventions that has plagued it to the present day. Amongst the dozens of Afghan-focused files in our resource 'Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan' two which date from the regime of Mohammad Daoud Khan, president from 1973 to 1978, shed light both on the circumstances under which he came to power and, with some considerable prescience, on the potential for instability and Soviet intervention which it was feared might follow the end of his rule.

A special guest blog by Alex Bryne. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Pan-Americanism became a popular topic of debate within the United States and Latin America. Although Canada was excluded from traditional interpretations of Pan-Americanism, British policy makers grew concerned about the relationship between the two, and the Adam Matthew digital collection ‘Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961’ provides valuable insights into their reasoning.

In the long-gone days of 2015-16, adult colouring books suddenly became nothing less than a phenomenon. The Independent even reported that the craze had led to a 'global pencil shortage'. Imagine my surprise, then, when working on Adam Matthew Digital’s forthcoming J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America, I came across a colouring book for adults, released as long ago as 1974!

The 1960s and 1970s saw Second Wave Feminism sweep through the Western World, engaging women with issues such as sexuality, the workforce, domestic abuse, the family and reproductive rights. And whilst feminists were debating with themselves and the world, there were small collectives of men who wondered what this new definition of femininity meant for their understanding of masculinity.

Global conflict naturally incurs all manner of hardships and challenges, but one that rarely permeates modern discussions of the First World War is the exponential spread of sexually transmitted diseases, or the effort made to curb them. However, preventing venereal disease wasn’t just a matter of good medicine. In fact, medicine was sometimes the last thing on people’s mind when trying to avoid these debilitating infections.

To celebrate the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Professor Graham Roberts introduces the 1932 film short, In the Name of Lenin. Directed by Mikhail Slutskii, this 14 minute feature was produced in the USSR to celebrate industrial progress in the years following the Revolution.

To celebrate the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Professor Denise J. Youngblood introduces the 1958 film October Days. Directed by Sergei Vasiliev, the film was produced in the USSR to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution and makes for a fascinating case study in Soviet memory.

This week I’d like to bring you some good news. Well, as ‘good’ as news could get for the British Army in Italy during the spring/summer of 1944. While working on the Service Newspapers of World War II: Module 1 collection I had access to a variety of high-profile publications like “Union Jack”, “Stars and Stripes”, and “Blighty”; each a heady mix of pin-ups, atrocities, and shoe polish advertisements.

There was a time in Britain when fish and chip takeaways were clad in unused newspapers, prompting the wry saying that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping. In a small twist on this, these items from American history below give us an instance of today’s wallpaper becoming tomorrow’s news plus an interesting symbol of the disparity in resources between two sides of a civil war.

To celebrate the release of Medical Services and Warfare: 1850-1927, Adam Matthew Digital is providing free access to the interactive Civil War patient database Surviving the Civil War available to explore for 30 days from 24th October 2017.