Twentieth-Century U.S. History

The J. Walter Thompson Company Archive documents the history, operation, policies and accomplishments of one of the world's largest and oldest advertising firms. The papers here reveal many aspects of twentieth-century cultural, social, business, marketing, consumer and economic history while investigating the human psyche.

This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years. They helped transform societies, global trading operations, habits of consumption and social practices.

Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.

A wide-ranging digital resource presenting a unique insight into interactions between Indigenous Americans and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library's extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection. It also includes manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books, photographs and newspapers. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.

Formed in 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) expanded from its roots in Minnesota and broadened its political agenda to include a searching analysis of the nature of social injustice in America. These FBI files provide detailed information on the evolution of AIM as an organization of social protest and the development of Native American radicalism.

Searchable and browsable database of Asian American plays. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Users can limit search by genre, settings, performers, theater name, production company, author, gender, and more. Asian American Drama brings together more than 250 plays representing the various ethnicities within the Asian American community. Along with many works by writers of Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese descent, the collection includes plays by writers of Hawaiian, Indian, Thai, Korean, Persian, and Malaysian ancestry, along with related biographical, production, and theatrical information. The collection begins in the late nineteenth century and continues to the writings of contemporary playwrights. Some 50% of the plays have never been published before.

This database's expanded third edition contains the full text of more than 1,700 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. This edition also contains previously unpublished plays by writers such as Langston Hughes, Ed Bullins, Willis Richardson, Amiri Baraka, Randolph Edmonds, Zora Neale Hurston, and many others.

The ProQuest Black Studies Center includes the Black Studies Periodicals Database, which includes citations for articles in Black periodicals going back to 1902, as well as an online index to Black literature spanning from 1827-1940, the Schomburg Studies on the Black Experience (a database of studies, articles, images and essays covering important topics), and the full text of the Chicago Defender newspaper from 1910-1975.

Searchable and browsable database of non-fiction works by African-American leaders and others who have dealt substantially with issues of race in America. Includes books, essays, articles, speeches, letters, interviews, and other materials, some of which have not previously been published. Includes brief biographical information for all authors.

Chicano Database includes over 67,000 records from more than 2,400 journals and other resources including newspapers, books and book chapters. The database provides coverage dating back to the 1960s and selective indexing dating back to the early 1900s. Subject coverage includes art, bilingual education, education, labor, literature, mental health, law, poetry, politics and sociology.

This collection provides coverage of both well-known and unheralded events in the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century, from the perspective of the men, women, and sometimes even children who waged one of the most inspiring social movements in American history. This category consists of the NAACP Papers and federal government records, organizational records, and personal papers regarding the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century.
Some parts of this collection on trial through August 2022.

Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict.

Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.

This digital collection provides access to rare primary source material on American social, cultural, and popular history from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University and The New York Public Library. It comprises thousands of fully searchable images (alongside transcriptions) of monographs, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes, emphasizing conduct of life and domestic management literature, the daily lives of women and men, and contrasts in regional, urban and rural cultures.

Provides indexing and abstracts of worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, as well as full text for more than 50 journals, magazines and regional newspapers and dozens of monographs; also includes a specialized LGBT thesaurus with over 6,400 terms.

This database contains the archives of 26 of the most influential periodical publications covering LGBT interests from 1954-2015. It includes publications from both the US and UK. This resource also caters to interests in many related fields, such as 20th-century history, sociology, health studies, political science, and psychology.

North American Women's Letters and Diaries (NAWLD) is a full-text database of the personal experiences as reflected in the letters and diaries of 1,325 women who lived in North America before 1960.

This collection contains documentation on the growth, transformation, successes and failures of one of the important American social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the women's rights movement. The correspondence, minutes, legal papers, and financial records from three important women's rights organizations are documented in substantial detail in this module: the National Woman's Party, the League of Women Voters, and the Women's Action Alliance.

This resource seeks to broaden the field of queer history by prioritizing projects that focus on the experiences and perspectives of under-represented historical groups, including people of color, trans people, and people with disabilities. We also hope to develop work that focuses on less-studied topics such as sexual governance, state violence, and carceral politics. We use the word “queer” in its broadest and most inclusive sense. We intend for the website to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT.

We are also especially interested in archives themselves and the ways in which they are constructed, constrained, and contested. In naming the project, we intend to invoke the idea that the past itself is queer—simultaneously comprehensible and inscrutable.

This database provides access to primary source material from prominent sex researchers, sexologists, and other specialists from diverse fields.

This collection explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this archive includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.

The Scholar's Edition includes all features of the Basic Edition that have been published since March 2004. It currently includes 102 document projects and archives with more than 4,050 documents, and 145,000 pages of additional full-text documents, written by some 2,200 primary authors. It includes book, film and website reviews, notes from the archives, and teaching tools. Those subscribing to the Scholar's Edition can access the online version of Notable American Women or the database on Commissions on the Status of Women.

This digital resource offers an insight into the personal experiences of those involved in World War Two, both on the United States home front and on deployment overseas in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, China, Burma and India. Researchers can access oral histories, correspondence, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and military records.

Chatham House Online Archive provides a searchable, browseable research environment that enables users to explore approximately half a million pages and over 90 years of research, analysis and commentary. Subject-indexed briefing papers, special reports, pamphlets, conference papers and monographs will allow users to quickly retrieve and analyze material relevant to their own research or study. Users will also have access to the full-text of Chatham House's publications and audio recordings of Chatham House lectures and their fully searchable transcripts.

This project provides a wide variety of original source material detailing China's interaction with the West from Macartney's first Embassy to China in 1793, through to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74.

The First World War portal presents rich and varied primary source documents on the personal experiences of men and women, recruitment, and the development and dissemination of various forms of propaganda. The documents feature in four self-contained modules: Personal Experiences, Propaganda and Recruitment, Visual Perspectives and Narratives, and A Global War. The wealth of original documents include: personal narratives, diaries, newspapers, posters, postcards, photographs, printed books, military and government files, and ephemera. This material is complemented by a range of contextual secondary features. Use the Interactive Maps to learn about the extension of the conflict, explore significant dates and events of the Great War through the chronology and view fascinating visual images in bespoke galleries

U.S. Declassified Documents Online provides immediate access to a broad range of previously classified federal records spanning the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database.The types of materials include intelligence studies, policy papers, diplomatic correspondence, cabinet meeting minutes, briefing materials, and domestic surveillance and military reports. Materials cover virtually every significant foreign policy development and international crisis, from the years leading up to the First World War through the end of the Cold War. Topics include the outbreak and course of the Second World War, the end of colonialism in the global south, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, U.S. relations with non-aligned states in the 1960s, U.S.-Soviet relations in the era of détente, international trade, nuclear proliferation, conflict in the Middle East, and the War on Terrorism.

Discover two centuries of innovation, entertainment and international relations through the rich history of world’s fairs. This online resource hosts primary source material from hundreds of fairs, including London’s 1851 Great Exhibition, American fairs of the 19th and 20th centuries and 21st century EXPOs. A vital resource for students, teachers and researchers of a huge range of subjects including imperialism, race relations, gender studies, science and technology, consumer culture, architecture and design. Material including pamphlets, guide books, official catalogs, periodicals, minutes and correspondence gives a ‘360’ view of the fairs from the planning stage to the legacy they leave behind.

This searchable database brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. The database covers subjects in arts, music, and leisure, civil rights, counter-culture, law and government, mass media, new left and emerging neo-conservative movement, student activism, Vietnam War, women's movement, etc. The database currently has over 101,000 pages.

Electronic reproduction of material relating to the social and cultural history of Britain and America during a period of momentous change between 1950 and 1975.|bThis online resource offers access to a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera and video clips. The material covers key topics and major events of the period, including: student activism across Europe and the US; the Vietnam conflict; the fight for civil rights; women's liberation; fashion, consumerism and youth culture; the music scene; book, magazine and film censorship. It includes complete or significant runs of the following serial publications: Gandalf's garden ; International Times (IT) ; Oz ; Frendz ; Friends ; East Village other ; Los Angeles free press.