Adam Matthew Collections at WFU

Date: 1863-1986
Document Types: Correspondence; Ephemera; Legal Documents; Maps; Newspapers; Official Records; Oral Histories; Printed Books; Reports
Description: Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, 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. It reveals the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

Date: 1493-1945
Document Types: Artwork; Book; Business and finance documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Maps; Military and Government Documents; Newspapers and Magazines; Objects
Description: The digital archive of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which 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.

Dates: 1500-1998
Document Types: Art; Correspondence; Diaries; Finance and Business Documents; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Photographs; Printed Books; Treaty; Tribe Records
Description: Sources from the Edward E. Ayer Collection at the Newberry Library, Chicago. 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 nineteenth-century expansion of the United States, right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century.

Dates: 1830-1939
Document Types: Broadside; Correspondence; Diaries; Drawings and Illustrations; Ephemera; Financial Records; Maps; Periodicals; Photographs; Rare Books
Description: 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 source for the study of westward U.S. expansion from the 18th to the 20th century. Including documents from 1718-1968, it has tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes and outlaws, as well as evidence of the growth of urban centres, the environmental impact of westward expansion and life in the borderlands.

Dates: 1948-1980
Document Types: Correspondence; Dispatches; Reports; Legal papers; Biographies;
Description: British Government documents on the subject of South Africa during the first 32 years of the Apartheid regime.

Dates: 1648-1997
Document Types: Accounts; Business Records; Correspondence; Ephemera; Journals; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Illustrations and Photographs; Printed Books
Description: 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 and the United States' economic dealings with the whole of East Asia and the Pacific.

Dates: 1682-1926
Document Types: Speeches; Reports; Catalogues; Guides; Studies; Journals; Correspondence; Magazine Articles; Notes and Minutes;
Description: 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.

Dates: 1793-1980
Document Types: Correspondence; Illustrations; Maps; Official Papers; Periodicals; Personal Accounts and Manuscripts; Photographs; Printed Books
Description: With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during the period of 1793-1980.

Dates: 1804-2009
Document Types: Records; General Secretary's Papers; Home Papers;
Description: 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 and world Christianity. It also contains valuable material on wider themes in global history, in particular the history of global education, healthcare and medicine.

Dates: 1606-1822
Document Types: Charter; Correspondence; Diaries; Business and Financial Documents; Legal Documents; Legislation; Newspapers; Speeches; Treaties; Warrants
Description: 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 that tell the story of British involvement in North America.

Dates: 1834-1966
Document Types: Correspondence; Dispatches; Reports; Treaties
Description: Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Foreign Office documents from the British Government. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All were circulated around the highest offices of the British state.

Dates: 1833-1969
Document Types: Correspondence; Dispatches; Reports; Treaties
Description: Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Foreign Office documents from the British Government. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All were circulated around the highest offices of the British state.

Dates: 1839-1969
Document Types: Correspondence; Dispatches; Reports; Treaties
Description: Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Foreign Office documents from the British Government. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All were circulated around the highest offices of the British state.

Dates: 1824-1961
Document Types: Correspondence; Dispatches; Reports; Treaties
Description: Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Foreign Office documents from the British Government. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need to preserve the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices. These range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigative reports and texts of treaties. All were circulated around the highest offices of the British state.

Dates: 1400-1949
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Financial Documents; Government Documents; Manuscripts; Periodicals; Printed books
Description: 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.

Dates: 1737-1824
Document Types: Artwork; Correspondence; Diaries; Financial and Legal Documents; Interludes; Plays; Prologues and Epilogues; Interludes and Preludes; Playbills; Songs;
Description: 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.

Dates: 1680-1835
Document Types: Journals; Newspapers; Magazines
Description: Unique and extremely rare eighteenth century periodicals, each chosen to convey the eclecticism and evolution of the publishing world between 1685 and 1835. Highlights include a complete run of The Lady's Magazine, and rare titles missed out of other collections focused on the Eighteenth Century.

Dates: 1750s-1960s
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Illustrations; Manuscripts; Maps; Missionary Papers; Printed Books; Reports
Description: Spanning five centuries, and charting the rise and fall of empires around the world, Empire Online is a digital archive enabling research of colonial history, politics, culture and society. There is a focus on the British Empire, but documents also give information on other European empires and the experience of colonised people.

Dates: 1800-1920
Document Types: Broadside: Pamphlet; Periodical; Rare Books; Town Topics;
Description: 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.

Dates: 1910-1920
Document Types: Audio; Correspondence; Diaries; Diagrams; Film; Maps; Newspapers; Official Papers; Personal Collection; Printed Books; Trench Literature;
Description: 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 includes letters and diaries of service people, maps, photo albums, artwork, oral histories, official documents, newspapers, posters and much more, covering all aspects of the global conflict.

Dates: 1919-1980
Document Types: Government documents; dispatches; correspondence; Newspaper cuttings; Maps; Reports
Description: British Government Foreign Office files relating to modern China.

Dates: 1947-1980
Document Types: Reports; Dispatches; Correspondence; Newspaper Cuttings; Maps; Photographs; Analyses; Statistics
Description: British Government Foreign Office files relating to modern South Asia.

Dates: 1971-1981
Document Types: Correspondence; Reports; Dispatches; Profiles; Political Summaries; Analyses; Maps; Printed media
Description: British Government Foreign Office files relating to the Middle East.

Dates: 1650-1920
Document Types: Art; Books; Broadsides; Business and Financial Documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Legal documents; Maps; Photographs
Description: 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.

Dates: 1600s-2010
Document Types: Advertisements; Catalogues; Business documents; Correspondence; Diaries; Ephemera; Manuscripts; Mercantile Papers; Prices Current; Private Papers;
Description: 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.

Dates: 1550-1850
Document Types: Correspondence, Itinerary, Manuscript, Manuscript Journal, Memoranda Book, Newsletter, Printed Journal, Rare Book, Sketchbook, Travel Diary, MIscellaneous
Description: This collection of manuscript, visual and printed works allows scholars to compare a range of sources on the history of travel for the first time, including many from private or neglected collections. The Grand Tour is a wonderful source of information about daily life in the eighteenth century, highlighting such everyday issues as transportation, money, communications, food and drink, health and sex. The material also covers European political and religious life, British diplomacy; life at court, and social customs on the Continent, and is an invaluable resource for the study of Europe’s urban spaces. There is a wealth of detail about cities such as Paris, Rome, Florence and Geneva, including written accounts and visual representations of street life, architecture and urban planning.

Dates: 1710-1944
Document Types: Diaries: Official Papers; Private Papers; Correspondence; Drawings and Illustrations; Histories; Literary Works
Description: Explore the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, through the manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland.

Dates: 1654-1954
Document Types: Correspondence; Scrapbooks; Autobiographies; Notebooks; Rare books; Pamphlets
Description: Material is sourced from the American Jewish Historical Society, New York. It contains primary sources on the history of Jewish immigration to the United States, life and culture among the Jewish population there, and records of business and trade from Jewish-owned companies.

Dates: 1850-1980s
Document Types: Company Records; Correspondence; Ephemera; Film; Guidebooks; Maps; Photographs; Postcards; Posters; Travel Journals
Description: This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveller between 1850 and the 1980s. Guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs and personal travel journals provide unique insight into the expansion, accessibility and affordability of tourism for the masses and the evolution of some of the most successful travel agencies in the world.

Dates: 1800s
Document Types: Manuscripts; Correspondence; Unpublished Poems; Notebooks; Drawings; Annotated Editions
Description: 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 collection makes them available online, and includes unpublished poems, working notebooks, holograph manuscripts and drawings that trace the inspiration and genesis behind the period’s greatest works.

Dates: 1600s-1700s
Document Types: Manuscripts; Correspondence; Commonplace Books; Scrapbooks; Personal Papers
Description: Examine complete images of 190 manuscripts of seventeenth and eighteenth-century verse held in the celebrated Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. Alongside original compositions are copied verses, translations, songs and riddles. The whole collection is situated within an assortment of manuscripts, some entirely dedicated to poetry, while others contain medicinal recipes, household accounts, draft letters, musical scores and plays. There are also several printed works, with handwritten verse additions.

Dates: 1700s-1900
Document Types: Ephemera; Cartoons and Illustrations; Chapbooks; Street Cries; Guides; Maps; Rare Books; Periodicals
Description: 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 Victorian city.

Dates: 1957-1963
Document Types: Government Documents
Description: Macmillan Cabinet Papers, 1957-1963 provides complete coverage of the Cabinet conclusions (minutes) (CAB 128) and memoranda (CAB 129) of Harold Macmillan’s government, plus selected minutes and memoranda of policy committees (CAB 134). This collection also includes 165 files from the Prime Minister's Private Office (PREM 11). These provide an important supplement to the Cabinet records and cover all aspects of policymaking.

Dates: 1935-1965
Document Types: Letter; Memorandum; Pilot Study; Proposal; Report; Supporting Material
Description: The complete market research reports of Ernest Dichter, the era’s foremost consumer analyst and market research pioneer. Dichter worked with some of America's best known brands, as well as government organisations, to conduct market research and create world-famous advertising and marketing campaigns. Also includes a full-colour gallery of famous advertisements from the Twentieth Century.

Dates: 1937-1972
Document Types: Diaries; Day Surveys; Directive Respondents; Directive Questionnaires; Topic Collections Publications; File Reports; Worktown Collection
Description: 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.

Dates: 1300s-1500s
Document Types: Manuscripts; Correspondence
Description: 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. The Paston material is accompanied by the letter collections of four other contemporary families.

Dates: 1200s-1500s
Document Types: Manuscripts; Maps; Illustrations; Translations
Description: This resource 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.

Dates: 1858-1925
Document Types: Correspondence; Diaries; Research Files; Drawings; Lecture Notes; Scrapbooks; Manuscripts; Printed media;
Description: Edward S Morse (1838-1925) was a great polymath – notable for his work in zoology, 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.

(Module I Only)
Dates: 1800-1924
Document Types: Correspondence; Ephemera; Financial and Legal Papers; Manuscripts; Maps; Oral Histories; Printed Books; Reports; Shipping Papers and Plans
Description: 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. Significant material on the movement of Indian and Chinese indentured labourers is included from The National Archives.

Dates: 1969-1974
Document Types: Government Documents
Description: This collection provides complete FCO 7 and FCO 82 files for the entire period of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Top-level Anglo-American discussions and briefing papers dominate these papers. There is also a wealth of material on social conditions, domestic reforms, trade, culture and the environment. In addition, there is strong coverage of US policy decisions by the FCO and the British embassy in Washington; White House staff appointments and UN discussions; views on Europe; the deployment of F-111 aircraft on US airbases in the UK and Nixon’s battles over funding from Congress; visits to the US by Harold Wilson and Edward Heath; and the internal situation in the US and domestic reform. There are also detailed assessments of all the changes brought about by the presidential election of 1972, in which Nixon beat George McGovern by a record-breaking margin and in every state but one, only to resign two years later in the face of almost certain impeachment.

Dates: 1500-1700
Document Types: Financial Papers; Diaries; Treatise; Notebooks; Speeches; Manuscripts
Description: Produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University, the project seeks to rediscover early modern women authors from the British Isles who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form. The goal of the project 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.

Dates: 1950-1975
Document Types: Advertisement; Catalogue; Correspondence; Ephemera; Newspapers and Magazines; Memorabilia; Photographs; Printed Books;
Description: 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.

Dates: 1800-1900
Document Types: Admission Cards; Advertisement; Anatomy Guides; Broadsides; Ephemera; Printed Books; Posters; Street Guides
Description: 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. The material covers popular trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy, and documents the rise of widespread advertising by commercial manufacturers of medical aids.

Dates: 1700s-1800s
Document Types: Annotations; Correspondence; Diaries; Financial and Legal Records; Manuscripts; Printed Books; Research Notes
Description: A digital version of the single largest collection of working notebooks, verse manuscripts and correspondence of William Wordsworth and his fellow writers (including Dorothy Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey and Robert Southey) 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. Take a moment to browse the rich collection of fine art pieces which include works by such eminent artists as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Dates: 1670-1970
Document Types: Production Design; Film Script; Prompt Book; Correspondence; Manuscript; Photographs; Play Bills; Printed Books; Music
Description: 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.

Dates: 1490-2007
Document Types: Broadsides; Court Records; Lists of Slaves; Manuscripts; Maps; Newspapers; Pamphlets; Periodicals; Printed Books; Registers; Reports; Ship's Logs; Statistics, Visual Sources
Description: This resource is designed as an important portal for slavery and abolition studies, bringing together documents and collections covering an extensive time period, between 1490 and 2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Close attention is given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social-justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.

Dates: 1835-1976
Document Types: Manuscripts; Diaries; Correspondence; Drawings; Guidebooks; Photographs; Postcards; Sketches; Visual Material
Description: This resource brings together hundreds of accounts by women of their travels across the globe from the early 19th century to the late 20th century. Places visited include: USA and Canada; China, Japan and the Philippines; Europe (very well documented); Russia; Africa; and Australia.

Dates: 1779-1930
Document Types: Printed books; Periodicals; Photographs; Scrapbooks; Posters; Ephemera; Diaries; Handbills, Photographs; Visual Material; Correspondence
Description: Contains four modules: Spiritualism, Sensation, and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows, and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre, and Popular Entertainment; Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments, and the Advent of Cinema. Each module contains content from libraries and archives from across Britain and the USA that represent the diverse forms of entertainment available from the late Georgian period and throughout the Victorian and Edwardian era.

Dates: 1590-1790
Document Types: Manuscripts; Printed Material; Maps; Images
Description: Documents the founding and economics development of Virginia. Contains the Ferrar Papers, Ransome transcriptions, Records of the Virginia Company of London, and Ferrar Prints, as well as additional items.

Dates: 1559-1995
Document Types: Government Documents
Description: This collection consists of two distinct elements: 1) A finding aid to women's studies resources in The National Archives 2) Original documents on the suffrage question in Britain, the Empire and colonial territories. The finding aid is the result of a five-year project by staff at The National Archives in the mid-1990s and enables researchers to quickly locate details of documents at TNA relating to women. This finding aid is far more detailed and extensive than anything available elsewhere online and has the benefit of ranging across all of the document classes TNA hold. The original documents cover the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain, 1903-1928 and the granting of women's suffrage in colonial territories, 1930-1962.

Dates: 1851-2015
Document Types: Artifacts; Correspondence; Diaries; Government Reports; Illustrations; Maps; Records; Pamphlets; Periodicals; Photographs; Postcards; Printed Books; Posters; Programs; Scrapbooks; Music and Recordings
Description: Explore the phenomenon of world's fairs from the Crystal Palace in 1851 and the proliferation of North American exhibitions, to fairs around the world and twenty-first century expos. Through official records, monographs, publicity, artwork and artifacts, this resource brings together multiple archives for rich research opportunities in this diverse topic.