Blog

Foreign Office Files for South East Asia, module II: Foundations of Economic Growth and Industrialisation, 1967-1980 - the latest addition to AM's Archives Direct platform – features a broad selection of documents from the National Archives, UK relating to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. This collection can be used to chart substantial economic development across the region, and it’s no surprise that many files record visits made by monarchs, presidents, ministers and diplomats to all manner of enterprises – occasionally with some surprising details and asides.

Dearest Readers, break out the Madeira. The day eagerly awaited throughout the ton is finally here. Bridgerton has returned! Here at AM, this is all the excuse we need to go on the hunt for scandal – and what better place to find it than in Eighteenth Century Journals, where a real-life precursor to the infamous Lady Whistledown lays society’s secrets bare. Prepare to meet Mrs Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows everything.

I recently spoke to a group of students from Villiers Park Educational Trust as part of their programme marking LGBTQ+ month. The presentation focused on a remarkable personal collection from Sex & Sexuality: the Lynn Edward Harris Papers (held at the ONE archive in California).

Is there a way of achieving more product through a different process? 

On Sunday 20th March the lights will go out for the start of the first Grand Prix of the 2022 Formula 1 season. Several of our recent resources contain mentions of the sport in the early days – namely The Gilded Age and Progressive Era and Interwar Culture – and it is these that I want to explore to get us all ready for the new F1 season.

So far March has seen World Book Day, International Women’s Day and the publication of the final module of Mass Observation Project 1981-2009, which focuses on the years 2000-2009.

Have you ever been asked to build a business case in order to move a project forward in your organisation? Did the mere thought of it cause anxiety and confusion? Aren’t business cases just … for business? Aerin Bowers, Head of Sales for Canada, discusses.

Shrove Tuesday is fast approaching, so what better time to reach into Food and Drink in History for some historic pancake recipes?

“The parties were bigger, the pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper.” So Nick Carraway once observed in that iconic love letter to the roaring twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered renewed popular and academic interest in, and research about, the 1918 influenza epidemic. Professor Christopher McKnight Nichols, explores the development of the epidemic in the context of an increasingly interconnected world, evolving medical knowledge, usage of censorship and propaganda, and intervention of “big government” in the lives of ordinary people. 

When it comes to publishing your digital archive, integration should be no less a consideration than front-end display or cataloguing capabilities – how else will your target user community discover your digital repository or share specific findings with other researchers?

For part 2 of her blog on digital humanities, Jessica Kowalski reviewed the results of a survey to library and faculty staff on how vendors, such as AM, can best support the digital humanities community. Here's what Jessica learned.

In part 1 of this new 2-part blog, Jessica Kowalski, Product Sales Manager for Quartex, explores some of the ways in which Adam Matthew Digital and Quartex have supported or enabled digital humanities projects throughout 2021.

This week marks the publication of The Gilded Age and Progressive Era, a resource which brings together varied primary source material from eight archives to shed light on this transformative period in American history.

How McGill University Library built upon its pilot digital collection in Quartex by exploring the potential of HTR Transcription to remove barriers to accessing and understanding primary sources in its Fur Trade Collection.

This week marks the centenary of the first paper poppies sold by the Royal British Legion in November 1921. These small red flowers have become a symbol of remembrance, a physical marker of national grief following the bloodshed of the First World War – but also a flashpoint for political debate over who should wear them, when and why. 

“The Powder magazine, which in the dead of night of the 14^th August was broke into […] the doors most audaciously and daringly forced open, at the great risk of their being blown up”. So wrote George James Bruere on the 17^th of August 1775 in his role as the Governor of Bermuda at the height of the American War of Independence.

All my life, I have been drawn to stories of the sea. My grandfather’s bookshelf was lined with maritime histories, and I followed his lead to the best of my ability with bedtime tales of Captain Pugwash. My parents were scuba divers too, and a holiday wasn’t worth having if fifty per cent of it wasn’t spent in the water. It’s little wonder, then, that Colonial Caribbean captures my imagination the way it does – so many of the narratives in this vast and fascinating collection lead, in one way or another, to the ocean.

Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922: From Silk Road to Soviet Rule - the latest addition to AM’s Archives Direct platform - showcases a wealth of documents from the National Archives, UK relating to the “Great Game”. Filed in one of the volumes digitised for this collection is a report concerning William Watts McNair's ‘Explorations in part of Eastern Afghanistan and Kafiristan', an exhaustive record of travels undertaken in 1883.

This week marks 40 years since the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29^th July 1981.

This guest blog was written by Edward Armston-Sheret, a PhD candidate at Royal Holloway’s Department of Geography. As part of the collaboration between the Royal Historical Society and AM Ed, and a number of other early career researchers were awarded a twelve-month subscription to AM’s collections of digital primary sources. 

As covid restrictions are eased and thoughts turn, at least here in Britain, to travelling abroad, my own thoughts have turned to our digital collection Medieval Travel Writing, and to a mysterious globetrotter, or yarn-spinner, or both, about whom so much is contested that even his existence is a matter of debate – Sir John Mandeville.

Migration to New Worlds holds a fascinating collection of letters from the Iwata family highlighting the devastating aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor for Japanese Americans in the US.

On 17 May 1824, the memoirs of the enigmatic Lord Byron went up in flames at the hands of some of his closest friends and family members. This blog presents a captivating exploration of the events that unfolded, featuring first-hand accounts from those involved.