Our collections

From communal struggle to creative outpourings: uncover the everyday lives of African Americans spanning two turbulent centuries.

The stories of American military personnel and civilians during the Second World War through their oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artefacts and military records. This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in the conflict, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India.

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.

Comprised of original manuscripts, rare printed books, maps and ephemeral material from the Everett D Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library in Chicago, American West is a source for the study of westward US 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.

A varied array of records of traders, travellers, missionaries and diplomats, offering Western perspectives on many aspects of Chinese culture and society.

A vital resource for the study of Empire, the British Raj, and the history, culture and literature of the Indian subcontinent

A range of important sources from Britain and America, covering key subjects within this field including a complete run of The Stock Exchange Official Year-Book for 1875-1945.

Official British government records relating to the region, from the decline of the Silk Road, through the diplomatic confrontation between the British and Russian Empires known as the “Great Game”, to the influence of the emergent Soviet Union in the 20th century.

A collection of rare books, games, ephemera and artwork from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that reveals the socio-cultural history of these times. Showcasing innovative new publishing methods characteristic of the golden age of children’s literature, from mass-produced chapbooks to richly illustrated ‘book-beautifuls’, this resource examines the way in which new concepts were introduced to young readers, encouraging an engagement with the imagination which went on to fundamentally shape established notions of childhood.

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.

A repository of source materials on the work of this globally influential organisation, founded in 1799 as an Anglican evangelical movement and still active today. It includes records of both the CMS and the many other missionary societies which have become associated or amalgamated with it over its lifetime.

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.