Adam Matthew publishes unique primary source collections from archives around the world.
United States Naval Academy has access to the following Adam Matthew collections. Search across all of them via the AMexplorer search box above, or browse the list of links.
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African American Communities (AAC)
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St Louis, Brooklyn, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community through personal diaries and scrapbooks, pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
Age of Exploration
Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.
America in World War Two
This digital resource shows how World War Two changed American society and the economy, how it impacted individuals and families, and the legacy of the War in human terms. Follow individuals and their families from enlistment and training, to deployment on the US Home Front, or on campaigns overseas.
American Consumer Culture
Cross-searchable access to essential primary sources for the study of market research, consumerism, business and advertising in America.
American History, 1493-1945
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History holds one of the outstanding collections on American History. It is full of spectacular individual items, but it also has rich veins of manuscript research material. This makes it ideal for teaching survey courses on American History, but equally valuable as a platform for undergraduate essay work and postgraduate research.
American Indian Histories and Cultures
From early contacts between European settlers and American Indians and the subsequent political, social and cultural effects of those encounters on American Indian life, these materials tell both the historical and the personal stories of the colonization of the Americas. Continuing through to the modern era, and told against the backdrop of the 19th century expansion into the ‘Western Frontier’ right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century.
American Indian Newspapers
Discover North American Indigenous journalism spanning two centuries with this major digital resource. Featuring publications from a range of communities, with an extensive list of periodicals produced in the United States and Canada, including Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.
American West
Comprised of original manuscripts, rare printed books, maps and ephemeral material from the Everett D.Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago, American West is a unique online source for the study of westward expansion from the 18th to the 20th century. This dynamic teaching and research resource includes documents from 1718-1968. Tales of frontier life, Native Americans and vigilantes and outlaws can be found, as well as evidence of the growth of urban centres, the environmental impact of westward expansion and life in the borderlands.
Archives Direct
Archives Direct is a suite of collections sourced from The National Archives, Kew, the official archive of the United Kingdom. Containing diplomatic correspondence, letters, reports, surveys, material from newspapers, statistical analyses, published pamphlets, ephemera, military papers, profiles of prominent individuals, maps and many other types of document, it consists of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from the British state’s point of view.
Children's Literature and Culture
Explore the golden age of children’s literature and chart the evolution from chapbooks to the ‘book beautifuls’ of the early twentieth century. This digital resource showcases a broad range of richly illustrated primary source material which reveals the history and literature of childhood between the 1820s and 1920s.
China, America and the Pacific
Covering the 18th and 19th centuries, China, America and the Pacific provides primary source materials for the study of the history of North American trade and cultural exchange with China. This collection also provides coverage of China’s economic dealings with the whole of East Asia and the Pacific.
China: Culture and Society
Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this digital collection makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia, at Cornell University Library; one of the oldest and most distinctive collections of its kind, and a very rich source for research on China.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture
This digital collection answers the need for clear, intelligible and informative English-language sources relating to China and the West, which can be used in the classroom. It would also benefit independent projects on any aspect of Chinese history during the country's monumental social and political upheaval.
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
Discover two hundred years of worldwide missionary history. This online portal makes available periodicals from the Church Missionary Society Archive, a vital collection for students, researchers and teachers of missiology, world Christianity and global history.
Colonial America
The complete CO 5 files from the National Archives, UK, 1606-1822, Colonial America is a 'game changing' development for historians and researchers of early America, the Atlantic world, the Caribbean and the nascent British Empire. Colonial America enables online access to the vast archive of circa 70,000 documents of manuscript materials for the first time.
Defining Gender
Discover five centuries of advice literature from the mid-15th to early 20th century. Research the ideals of social conduct, power distribution within the family, consumption and leisure, education of men and women and gendered perceptions of the body to analyse and challenge the changing views and ideas surrounding traditional gender roles.
Early Modern England
Explore the lived experiences of Early Modern English society, from ordinary people to prominent families. This collection of primary sources looks at two centuries of everyday, political, religious, working, trading and administrative life in England during this pivotal epoch.
East India Company
From 16th-century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise as the world’s most powerful company and de facto ruler of India, to its demise amid allegations of greed and corruption – the East India Company was an extraordinary force in global history for three centuries. This digital resource allows students and researchers to access a vast and remarkable collection of primary source documents from the India Office Records held by the British Library, the single most important archive for the study of the East India Company.
Eighteenth Century Drama
Delve into the theatrical world of eighteenth-century society, and explore how the Larpent plays reflect the politics of the time, the role of women, views on race and religion, opinions on empire, and European and British history.
Eighteenth Century Journals
The first resource of its kind to make digitally available unique and extremely rare eighteenth century periodicals, each chosen to convey the eclecticism and evolution of the publishing world between 1685 and 1835. The Portal consists of five standalone sections, each of which will support research and study on multiple subjects and themes from the period
Empire Online
Spanning five centuries, and charting the rise and fall of empires around the world, Empire Online is a powerful digital resource enabling research of colonial history, politics, culture and society. From Columbus to debates on American Imperialism, Empire Online is driven by a panel of consultant editors from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA and has been designed specifically to encourage the use of primary sources in teaching.
Ethnomusicology
Delve into the cultural study of music and explore the rise of Ethnomusicology as a discipline with this essential collection featuring content from the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive and University of Washington. Presenting content from across the globe, this diverse and comprehensive resource features thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study, including sites in West Africa, North America, South East Asia and more.
Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920
This collection is an unparalleled resource for the study of American social, cultural, and popular history during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.
First World War
Revealing the voices and experiences of the men and women who served in the First World War, this rich and varied collection will be an invaluable source for anyone studying and researching the ‘Great War’. Material is sourced from the Imperial War Museum, the National Archives, UK and more.
Food and Drink in History
From feast to famine, explore five centuries of primary source material documenting the story of food and drink. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics, power, gender, race, and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues such as agriculture, nutrition, and food production.
Frontier Life
Journey to the far reaches of settler frontiers across the globe. Through a large array of unique documents, this multi-archive collection captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of people living at the edges of the Anglophone world from 1650-1920. It ranges across the various colonial frontiers of North America before touching on the settlers of Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Gender: Identity and Social Change
Explore records from men’s and women’s organisations, advice literature and etiquette books to reveal developing gender roles and relations. Gain an insight into changing societal expectations about gender roles through personal diaries and correspondence and explore the life and careers of key figures and pioneers in gender history.
Global Commodities
Discover the histories of fifteen key commodities that changed the world through a wide range of manuscript sources, rare books, maps, advertising memorabilia, paintings, photographs and ephemera. Explore themes of exploration and discovery; imperialism and attempts at monopoly; trade Wars; translocation and economic geography; slavery; mass production; luxury; taste; and the evolution of global branding.
Grand Tour
This digital collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows students and researchers to explore and compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections.
India, Raj and Empire
The National Library of Scotland has wonderful collections documenting this history from the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 to the granting of independence for India and Pakistan in 1947.
J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America
The J. Walter Thompson Company archive stands alone as the single most complete and informative corporate record of the history of modern advertising. It includes the account files of some of the world’s biggest brands, such as Kraft, Kodak, Oscar Mayer and Pan Am.
Jewish Life in America, 1654-1954
An indispensable resource for all those interested in understanding and exploring the history of Jewish communities in America from their first arrival in New York in 1654 to the integral part that they play today. Material is sourced from the American Jewish Historical Society, New York.
Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism
Discover the pleasures of nineteenth and twentieth century leisure travel and the growth of tourism for the masses. Bringing together collections from multiple archives, including Thomas Cook, this resource presents an untapped multi-national perspective on the evolution of affordable tourism around the world.
Literary Manuscripts Berg
The Berg Collection is recognised as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown. This outstanding collection will prove an invaluable source for textual analysis of Victorian literature. Unpublished poems, working notebooks, holograph manuscripts and drawings trace the inspiration and genesis behind the period’s greatest works.
Literary Manuscripts Leeds
This project opens up new opportunities for the reading, study and appreciation of early modern verse and provides valuable source materials for both literary scholars and historians. Materials include 17th and 18th century poetry from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
Literary Print Culture
The Stationers' Company Archives, London. Explore the history of printing, publishing and bookselling dating from 1554 to the 20th century.
London Low Life
London Low Life brings to life the teeming streets of Victorian London, inviting students and scholars to explore the gin palaces, brothels and East End slums of the nineteenth century’s greatest city. From salacious ‘swell’s guides’ to scandalous broadsides and subversive posters, the material sold and exchanged on London’s bustling thoroughfares offers an unparalleled insight into the dark underworld of the city.
Market Research and American Business
Market Research and American Business, 1935-1965 provides a unique insight into the American consumer boom of the mid-20th century through access to the complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer. The collection is a treasure trove of information on some of America’s best known brands.
Mass Observation Online
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.
Mass Observation Project
Mass Observation Project provides digital access to a unique life-writing archive, capturing the everyday experiences, thoughts and opinions of people living through the turbulent final decades of the 20th century and the advent of the 21st century.
Medical Services And Warfare
Focusing on medical advances across conflicts, the resource includes documents from the Crimean War, the second Boer War, the American Civil War, the First World War and inter- and post-war periods
Medieval Family Life
Consisting of the Paston Family Papers, a collection that has long been a subject of both literary and historical interest, Medieval Family Life enables access to Britain’s first surviving records of private correspondence, describing everyday life in East Anglia during the Wars of the Roses.
Medieval Travel Writing
This project provides direct access to a widely scattered collection of original medieval manuscripts that describe travel - real and imaginary - in the Middle Ages. Material provides an insight into the attitudes and preconceptions of people across Europe in the medieval period, shedding light on issues of race, economics, trade, militarism, politics, literature and science.
Meiji Japan
Edward S Morse (1838-1925) was a great 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. Devoting much of his life to the task of documenting life in Japan before it was transformed by Western modernization, Meiji Japan offers full access to Morse's diaries, journals and correspondence on a myriad of subjects at the time.
Migration to New Worlds
From departure to destination, discover the dreams and harsh realities for migrants to the New World and Australasia during the ‘century of immigration’. This captivating, multi-archive collection provides a wide-ranging and in depth look at the emigration of peoples from Great Britain, mainland Europe and Asia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Nineteenth Century Literary Society
An unparalleled resource for nineteenth century culture and the literary luminaries who shaped it. Nineteenth Century Literary Society offers unprecedented digital access to the peerless archive of the historic John Murray publishing company.
Perdita Manuscripts
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.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975
Music, Politics, Fashion, Youth Culture – the period from 1950 to 1975 witnessed dramatic changes in society. There was the onset of Rock & Roll; the introduction of computers and credit cards; the boom of radio and television; and campaigns for black power, civil rights and women’s liberation. All around the world there were challenges to authority.
Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
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.
Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain
Discover what life was like for the poorest communities in Victorian Britain, and explore the social reform and philanthropic efforts of charitable institutions that sought to alleviate poverty.
Race Relations in America
Discover a wealth of primary source material on the Civil Rights Movement, segregation, discrimination and racial theory in America during three pivotal decades of the twentieth century.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
This powerful resource offers unparalleled access to the single largest collection of working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers anywhere in the world, all digitized in full colour. With access to the annotated full manuscripts of such notable works as The Prelude and Michael, or Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode this project is unrivalled in its content and scope.
Service Newspapers of World War Two
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, and the countries of Europe, Africa and the Middle East
Sex and Sexuality
Explore changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender and sexual behaviours in America and beyond, throughout the 20th century. Sex & Sexuality provides unprecedented access to collections from prominent sex researchers and sexologists.
Shakespeare in Performance
Shakespeare in Performance is an essential resource for all scholars of Shakespearean drama, featuring 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.
Shakespeare's Globe Archive
Renowned worldwide for the iconic reconstruction of the original Globe Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe celebrates William Shakespeare through the power of performance to make his work accessible to all. From architectural plans to costume designs, prompt books and programmes, the digitised archive of Shakespeare’s Globe offers researchers a comprehensive insight into performance practice in this unique theatre space.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Designed for both teaching and research, this resource brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world covering an extensive time period from 1490. Close attention has been given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.
Socialism on Film
Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI), this collection of documentary, newsreel and feature films reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, and Latin American filmmakers. Ranging from the early 20th century to the 1980s, material encapsulates the themes of war, revolution, news, current affairs, culture and society.
Trade Catalogues and the American Home
Explore domestic life, leisure and material culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America.
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History
Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History offers students and researchers a window to the past and transports them across continents. From the everyday to the extraordinary, these rare diaries and the supporting correspondence describe the travel experiences, destinations and desires of nineteenth and twentieth century American women travelling the world.
Victorian Popular Culture
Victorian Popular Culture contains a wide range of source material relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930, and shows how interconnected these worlds were. Taking its cue from the source material, Victorian Popular Culture welcome readers into the darkened halls, small backrooms and travelling venues that hosted everything from spectacular shows and bawdy burlesque, to magic and spiritualist séances.
Virginia Company Archives
An essential source for the study of the Atlantic World and Early Colonial Period. Material covers the founding and economic development of Virginia as seen through the papers of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624. It is also a crucial source for London's economic history in the Early Modern era and will be of interest to social and religious historians.
