Blog

International Women's Day is celebrated around the world, recognising women's achievements and promoting gender equality. Discover its working class beginnings, emerging from the strike of 1908 in New York, where 15,000 garment workers marched to demand workers rights and to protest their difficult working conditions.

In the theatrical experiment that is the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe, it’s said that the audience is one of the most important discoveries.

With Black History Month and Women’s History Month promoting figures marginalised by traditional historical narratives, meet Angela Davis, the African American woman and “enemy of the state” who toured Brezhnev’s USSR at the height of the Cold War.

This week sees the release of Research Source: Medieval and Early Modern Studies , a rich resource covering topics such as the Black Death, the restoration of the English Monarchy and the Glorious Revolution. One of the most interesting and certainly intriguing collections included is Renaissance Man: The Books and Manuscripts of John Dee.

Discover how Trade Catalogues and the American Home supports research into the concept of Valentine’s Day, and how American retailers marketed the holiday to consumers over one hundred years ago.

In 1929, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester travelled to Japan to invest Emperor Hirohito with the Order of the Garter and in honour of the visit, the prince was treated to a presentation of a Kabuki drama by the famous Kabuki-za theatre in Tokyo. Browsing through Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1930: Japan and Great Power Status, the newly released third section of Adam Matthew’s Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952 collection, I came across a programme prepared specifically for the drama’s performance for Prince Henry.

On this day in 1587 Queen Elizabeth I signed the death warrant of her cousin, Mary Stuart, who was subsequently executed on February 8th of the same year. By doing so Elizabeth ensured Mary would be immortalised in her death as a martyr of the Catholic faith, and so would their rivalry for the English throne. 

This is the second in a two-part blog in which David G. Lewis, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Native Studies at Oregon State University, tells the story of discovering some previously unknown documents from Pacific Northwest explorer David Douglas within Adam Matthew Digital's collection Age of Exploration.

On Robert Burns Day, and into the night, in celebration of the Scottish poet, village halls and pubs throughout Scotland are decked in tartan and tables set for a hearty meal of cock-a-leekie soup and haggis.

In the first of a two-part blog, David G. Lewis, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Native Studies at Oregon State University, uncovers previously unknown documents from Pacific Northwest explorer David Douglas within AM's Age of Exploration resource.

New Year's resolutions. You either decide to have them or you don’t. Nowadays it feels like there’s no escaping the obligation to quash bad habits and nurture new behaviours in their place. 

Upon the conclusion of the First World War, the victorious countries convened for the Paris Peace Conference. At the conference, peace terms were stipulated for the defeated Central Powers. One of the major discussion points was the confiscation of the Central Powers overseas territories.

Before its airport opened in 2016, St Helena was accessible only by a five-day voyage by Royal Mail ship from Cape Town, making it a candidate, given its position in the middle of the Atlantic between Brazil and Angola, for the most isolated inhabited place on earth.

Now that the temperatures are starting to drop, it seemed only fitting to take a moment to look back on the London frost fairs- a phenomenon born out of the extreme cold weather that was experienced in Britain during the Little Ice Age, which lasted from roughly 1300 to 1850. Having gained my first insight into the frost fair from an episode of Doctor Who in which a monster was lurking beneath the frozen River Thames, I decided to seek out more information about the story behind the fairs.

One of the many collections from AM’s microfilm catalogue which we’ve digitised – and also, we're confident in asserting, the best-named – is The Empire Writes Back. In it, we hear differing accounts from Indian travellers of Christmases spent in Europe and the unfamiliar customs which they encountered.

The Adam Matthew Christmas party is imminent, with alcohol flowing, plenty of mingling and, of course, an abundance of food. Feeling festive, I decided to venture around AM Explorer, reflecting on Christmas parties and dinners over time and the difference between celebrations now and in times gone by. During this search, a rather unusual Christmas Day menu caught my eye from the Age of Exploration collection, for the crew on the Ziegler Polar Expedition, 1904.

For some, the festive season is marked by traditional fare – carol singing, sleigh rides, chestnuts roasting on an open fire. For others, however, nothing heralds the arrival of Christmas like Hans Gruber prowling about Nakatomi Plaza or Elton John hawking pianos for an ad-obsessed department store. Inevitably, watching the crooner transported through Christmases past, my thoughts turned to famous festive stories throughout time; Washington and his troops fording the Delaware, Cromwell – that classic panto villain – cancelling Christmas, and, of course, the famed football match of 1914. 

This year marked the centenary of the end of the First World War, and stories of bravery proliferated in our media, reminding us of the enormity of the war’s impact. Looking at the First World War Portal, I quickly found several of these accounts, making it nearly impossible to choose just one to write about.

Inspired by my faithful companion, and not knowing where else to begin, I did a quick search for the word “dog”.

As November draws to a close and the countdown to Christmas begins, what better way to get into the festive spirit than a good old Christmas panto? 
Light-hearted comedy, audience participation and eccentric costumes are all familiar aspects of the classic Christmas pantomime which we owe in large part to the enterprising Victorians.

A highlight from the forthcoming Colonial America: Module V: Growth, Trade and Development is the despatches of a certain Captain George Vancouver, from his ship, HMS Discovery, during his expedition to the Pacific Northwest.

This Sunday will mark 100 years since the signing of the Armistice that ended the First World War, and acts of remembrance are planned across the world for communities to reflect on the sacrifices made by those who came before.

Documents in our forthcoming resource, The First World War: A Global Conflict, offer some real gems for those interested in how the Armistice was experienced globally in 1918. Here I have selected three items, created by people based in Japan, France and Constantinople.

In 1967, the sentiment against the Vietnam War had spread nationwide. Many Americans had protested U.S participation and had become involved in a largely nonviolent and diverse war resistance. In October of 1967, at a march in Washington organised by The National Mobilisation Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the anti-war movement entered a new stage – typified by a willingness to engage in direct confrontation with authority. This became known as the March on the Pentagon.

It's a common misconception that Halloween and its sweet-fuelled, trick-or-treat festivities has its origins in America. But these traditions are also deeply rooted in Irish culture, as a 19th-century issue of The Queen, The Lady’s Newspaper illustrates.

Produced weekly by the Information Center of J. Walter Thompson’s Chicago office, JWTrends offered advertisers insights into the latest technological, social and economic news and research. Initially presented as a newsletter for JWT’s Chicago office alone upon its launch in 1974, by early 1975 this weekly, single-page newsletter could boast that it was a ‘digest of news… of interest to those in the advertising and marketing community’, suggesting a wider circulation than just the staff of one Thompson office.