Indigenous Studies: Databases

Frontier Life brings together documents from sixteen archives and libraries around the world. This geographical spread of material allows users to take a comparative approach or focus on a particular region, making it ideal for teaching and student projects, as well as more in-depth scholarly research.
Includes 240,000 Images and 7,895 documents pertaining to the Frontiers of North America, Africa and Australasia including more than 1,015 documents from the Calgary Glenbow Museum and the Hudson Bay’s Archive.

The Informit Indigenous Collection provides access to emergent and groundbreaking research within the global community. This database will benefit professionals and researchers involved with Indigenous issues including anthropologists, archaeologists, people working in government departments, health services, legal services, as well as Aboriginal land councils and other Indigenous organisations. The Informit Indigenous Collection is sourced from peak professional bodies and key partners including the Aboriginal Studies Press, Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal, Aboriginal Inc., Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, Center of World Indigenous Studies, Polynesian Society, Ateneo de Manila University Press, Philippine Studies Association of Australia, Malaysian Studies and many more.

Asia and the West: diplomacy and cultural exchange
Features primary source collections related to international relations between Asian countries and the West during the 19th century. These invaluable documents include government reports, diplomatic correspondence, periodicals, newspapers, treaties, trade agreements, NGO papers, and more. This unmatched resource allows scholars to explore in great detail the history of British and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy; Asian political, economic, and social affairs; the Philippine Insurrection; the Opium Wars; the Boxer Rebellion; missionary activity in Asia; and other topics. This resource also includes personal letters and diaries, as well as nautical charts, maps, shipping ledgers, company records, and expedition and survey reports for more than a century of world history.
British politics and society
Includes tens of thousands of primary sources related to the political climate in Great Britain during the “long” nineteenth century. From Home Office records and papers of British statesmen to working class autobiographies and ordnance surveys, British Politics And Society is a remarkable resource for scholars looking to uncover new connections or explore new directions in understanding 19th century British political and social history. British Politics And Society enables researchers to explore such topics as British domestic and foreign policy, trade unions, Chartism, utopian socialism, public protest, radical movements, the cartographic record, political reform, education, family relationships, religion, leisure, and many others.
British theatre, music, and literature : high and popular culture
Features primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores. These rare documents, many of them never before available, were sourced from the British Library and other renowned institutions, and curated by experts in British arts history. Interest in the arts became big business in the Victorian era, as a burgeoning middle class became patrons. This resource explores Victorian popular culture, penny dreadfuls, music, the history of the English stage, the Royal Literary Fund, and more, and provides a detailed look at the state of the British art world with not only manuscripts and compositions, but also documents like personal letters, annotated programs, meeting minutes, and financial records.
Children’s literature and childhood – this archive charts the study of the history of the child in Europe, Asia, North America, Australia and Latin America during the Long Nineteenth Century. A wealth of children’s literature texts document the changing construction of childhood, the growing popularity of children’s literature, and the legal and sociological contexts for both. It has fully searchable text and includes intricate illustrations and children’s book texts.
Europe and Africa : commerce, Christianity, civilization, and conquest
Many research topics emerged from the colonial conquest and the legacy of slavery in modern South African society—the Anglo-Boer War, imperial policy, and race classification among them—that this volatile corner of 19th-century history draws enduring interest from scholars and students. To support their research, Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Europe And Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, And Conquest delivers monographs, manuscripts, and newspaper accounts covering key issues of economics, world politics, and international strategy.
European literature, 1790-1840 : the Corvey collection
Includes the full-text of more than 9,500 English, French, and German titles. The collection is sourced from the remarkable library of Victor Amadeus, whose Castle Corvey collection was one of the most spectacular discoveries of the late 1970s. The Corvey Collection—one of the most important collections of Romantic era writing in existence—includes fiction, short prose, dramatic works, poetry, and more, with a focus on especially difficult-to-find works by lesser-known, historically neglected writers. As a resource for Romantic literature and historical studies, the Corvey Collection is unmatched. It provides a wealth of fully searchable content with digital research tools that enable scholars to uncover new relationships among authors and works, on range of topics including Romantic literary genres; mutual influences of British, French and German Romanticism; literary culture; women writers of the period; the canon; Romantic aesthetics; and many others.
Mapping the world: maps and travel literature – this archive offers Nineteenth Century maps; travel diaries; gazetteers, travel guidebooks; travel narrative manuscripts; sketch maps; European, Asian and African rail and canal routes; atlases, maritime and nautical charts; ordnance surveys and Admiralty charts. All of the material, including place names on maps, is fully searchable and is accompanied with a state-of-the-art image viewer.
Photography: the world through the lens
Assembles collections of photographs, photograph albums, and photographically illustrated books and texts on the early history of photography from libraries and archives worldwide, delivering approximately 2 million photographs from Britain, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. While some images are well known, many have rarely been viewed. Key areas of research covered include: exploration and travel; empire, colonization, and life in colonized regions; topography and archaeology; daily life in 19th century in countries across the globe; people and portraiture; science, medicine, and criminology; photography as reproduction of art works; and key events and wars.
Religion, society, spirituality and reform – faith and skepticism shaped many aspects of Nineteenth Century life, including politics, law, economics, and social and reform movements. Collections within this archive include: Literature of Theology and Church History in the United States and Canada; Literature of Theology and Church History: British Theology; the Charles Bradlaugh Pamphlets; Christliches Kunstblatt, 1859 – 1905; the Papers of George Ripley, 1802 – 18880; the Caroline Wells Healey Dall Papers, 1811 – 1917; the Theodore Parker Papers, 1826 – 1865; and the Corban Society Records, 1811 – 1850.
Science, technology, and medicine : 1780-1925
The collection consists primarily of two components: Journals track the connection between major episodes in the history of science, specifically in general science, medicine, biology, entomology, botany, chemistry, physics, mathematics, geology, paleontology, and technology. Monographs in the hard and social sciences touch upon the history of anthropology, archeology, ecology, public health, sanitation, geography, oceanography, astronomy, industrial and battlefield technology, and the philosophy of science.
Science, technology and medicine 1780-1925, pt. II - this archive includes monographs and journals drawn from several specialised thematic Collections. These include the Collection on Natural History in the Huntington Library, California, which incorporates texts on zoology, botany, the history of soils and agriculture, geology and the formation of the Earth. There is the Collection on Entomology from the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta, with its legacy of books with sophisticated illustrations and aesthetic beauty. There is the Collection on The Rise of Public Health in England and Wales which incorporates materials concerned with the New Poor Law of 1834, the Poor Law Union Correspondence, and The Journal of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, 1888 – 1920. And there are 2 million pages of Academies of Sciences Publications, where ideas, findings, and inventions discovered by scholars of the great Enlightenment were first published.
Women: transnational networks
Issues of gender and class ignited 19th century debate in the context of suffrage movements, culture, immigration, health, and many other concerns. Using a wide array of primary source documents, Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Women: Transnational Networks focuses on issues at the intersection of gender and class from the late 18th century to the era of suffrage in the early 20th century, all through a transnational perspective. The collection contains deep information on European and North American movements, but also expands its scope to include collections from other regions. Researchers and scholars will find rare content related to social reform movements and groups, high and “low” culture, literature and the arts, immigration, daily life, religion, and more.