AM publishes unique primary source collections from archives around the world.
University of Sydney has access to the following AM collections. Search across all of them via the search box above, or browse the list of links.
1980s Culture and Society
Compare grassroots media with official records to explore political, social and welfare issues of the 1980s such as the rise of conservatism, nuclear threat, and the AIDS crisis.
AM Help Centre
Discover hints and tips on how to use the features and functionality contained within Adam Matthew products to aid research and teaching. Watch video tutorials on subjects such as applying filters and performing a search, and read further information on accessibility, terms of use and privacy across all products.
AM Research Skills
AM Research Skills provides the practical tools students need to understand and interact with primary sources. Offering crucial support for interdisciplinary classes, the learning resource can be used in classroom-based and online teaching to enhance student success, as well as for extended study. Explore methods using relevant source material, develop foundational information literacy and enhanced critical thinking skills, and introduce concepts that underpin research in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
AM Scholar
Digital access to over 8 million pages of primary source materials, selected from the extensive microfilm back catalogue of Adam Matthew Publications.
Amnesty International Archives
Explore the rise of the global human rights movement during the second half of the twentieth century through the International Secretariat records of Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Amnesty International. The material within this collection is vital for studying the history of key political events, global social change, human rights violations and campaigns with themes including abolition of torture, state violence, political prisoners, minority rights, and more.
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.
Archives Direct: Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
From the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Middle East Conference of 1921, the Mandates of Palestine and Mesopotamia and the Suez Crisis in 1956, to the partition of Palestine, post- Suez Western foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict these government documents inform the volatile situation in the region today.
Archives Direct: Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
Formerly restricted British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980. Featuring diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, political pamphlets, reports of court cases and other materials, this collection represents a constant exchange of information between London and the British embassies and consulates. Due to the unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted first-hand accounts provide unprecedented levels of detail into a turbulent period in Chinese history.
Archives Direct: Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
Survey the high politics of Independence and Partition, social and cultural interchange after 1947 and the ramifications that these changes continue to have throughout South Asia today. This is an outstanding resource for the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in this period, featuring essential content on Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Kashmir, as well as other frontier regions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.