1. Digital Collections
The Library provides access for UIUC faculty, staff, and students to several major collections of digitized texts. These are available from the Online Research Resources page off the Library Gateway. Because these are subscription databases, access requires authentication with a UIUC net id.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowEarly English Books Online offers digital facsimiles of books published between 1475 and 1700. Additionally, for some of the works in the collection, there is also re-keyed text that has been tagged to permit sophisticated searching of structural elements (e.g., epigraphs, dedications, quotations) and genre (e.g., sermons, letters, songs), with links to the corresponding page images. The entire text of the works is fully searchable, and you can also search the subject headings for each work. You can combine search terms, and you can limit your search to specific fields (author, title, subject, publisher, city of publication, date of publication, and other elements). You can print and/or download your search results.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new windowEighteenth Century Collections Online contains the full content of nearly 150,000 English-language works published between 1701 an 1800. Here you will find travel accounts, memoirs, gazetteers, historical surveys, parliamentary reports, position papers, commentaries, reports of expeditions, natural histories, and literary works. You can perform keyword searches on the full text of all the works in the collection, or you can search for specific authors or titles. A particularly nice search feature enables you to limit a keyword search to the “front matter” of books (tables of content, prefaces, forewords) or the “back of book” indexes. You can combine search terms, and you can stipulate that “near matches” be retrieved, which will help retrieve variant spellings of words, as well as words that might not have been captured in scanning with 100% accuracy. You can print individual pages or up to 10 pages at a time in PDF format (using Adobe Acrobat Reader).
- Mass Observation Online This link opens in a new windowMass Observation Online provides integrated access to approximately 115,000 digital images of material from the Mass Observation Project, an extensive social survey conducted in Britain beginning in 1937 through the early 1950s. The online database also serves as an index to the microfilm collection of Mass Obs documents, which are excluded from the online database. This is a great resource for English social history in the 1930s and 1940s.
- Making of Modern LawMaking of Modern Law offers keyword access to 22,000 British and American legal treatises (very broadly defined) published between 1800 and 1926.
- Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new windowBased on the Goldsmiths’ Library of Economic Literature at the University of London and the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at Harvard University, The Making of the Modern World includes more than 60,000 books and 450 journals. The scope of the collection is much broader than economic history, ranging from political writings, works on international relations, international trade and commerce, and slavery, to travel narratives, legal cases, and foreign government publications. The Making of the Modern World uses the same platform as Eighteenth Century Collections Online, with both subject and name indexing. This digital collection comes with catalog records for each individual work in the collection, and these records will be added to our online catalog for ease of access.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowNorth American Women’s Letters and Diaries contains writings by hundreds of female authors from the colonial period to the mid-20th century. The 515 texts included in the database are transcribed, rather than reproduced as digital facsimiles, and they are extensively indexed, as well as searchable by keyword. Biographical information is provided for each author, as well as synopses of many of the source documents, reprinted from Joyce Goodfriend’s 1987 bibliography, The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women.
- British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowBritish and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries (1500-1900) provides the transcribed text of 231 sources written by women who resided in Ireland or the British Isles. Like the material included in Early Encounters and North American Women’s Letters and Diaries, which are produced by the same publishers, the texts in this database are extensively indexed and fully searchable, and they are re-keyed, rather than reproduced as page images.
- Gerritsen Collection Women's History Online This link opens in a new windowThe Gerritsen Collection on Women’s History, 1543-1945 contains roughly 4,500 monographs and pamphlets and more than 400 periodicals, fully digitized. Somewhat more than half of the material in the collection is in English, and the remainder is in German, French, and other European languages. The material is searchable by keyword and/or subject headings, and the page images can be downloaded in PDF.
- Archive of Americana This link opens in a new windowThe Archive of Americana includes the full text of all titles listed in Early American Imprints, series I (1639-1800) and Early American Imprints, series II (1801-1819), the U.S. Congressional Serial Set (1817-1980), American State Papers (1789-1838), and, as described above, Early American Newspapers (1690-1876). There are options for searching both by keyword and subject term.
- ProQuest Congressional Publications This link opens in a new window1824-1979. Hearings are held by Congressional committees as a way of collecting the information needed to inform decision making. In addition to transcripts of verbal testimony, hearings may contain written statements of witnesses, reports, exhibits, correspondence, or other material submitted by interested parties.
In addition to these subscription databases available only to UIUC students, faculty and staff, there are many digital collections available without restriction or cost to the user. Some of the free digital resources to explore are the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London, 1674-1834, Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930, and Harvard’s digital collections relating to immigration and labor history. These are a few of hundreds of digital conversion projects underway at academic institutions, museums, and research libraries.
19th Century English Poor Law and Union Records. Digital collection of the correspondence between Poor Law unions and the central administration in London. Correspondence includes letters, memos, reports, and other accounts of activities within the region covered by the union. Includes source material for the study of education, local politics, labor movements, and public health. Covers 1834- 1871.
One of the best tools for locating digital humanities collections is OAIster (“oyster”), a union catalog of digital resources. The University of Virginia has developed their own portal to online resources in American studies.
2. Print Collections
Irish University Press reprint series of British Parliamentary Papers of the 19th century:
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Poor Law. 30 vols. (1968-71) Q.362.5 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Industrial Revolution: Children's Employment. 15 vols. (1968) Q.331.31 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Industrial Revolution: Factories. 31 vols. (1968-71) Q.331.0942 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Social Problems: Drunkenness. 4 vols. (1968-69) Q.364.173 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Urban Areas: Housing. 3 vols. (1970) Q.331.833 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Urban Areas: Sanitation. 7 vols. (1969-70) Q.628.3 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Health: Mental. 8 vols. (1968-71) Q.614.8 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Emigration. 28 vols. (1968-71) Q.325.242 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Famine (Ireland). 8 vols. (1968-70) Q.338.19 Ir4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Education: Poorer classes. 9 vols. (1968-70) Q.371.96 In4 Stacks
Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers. Colonies: General. 37 vols. (1968-71) Q.326.342 Ir4 Stacks
Catalogue of British Parliamentary Papers in the Irish University Press 1000-volume Series and Area Studies Series, 1801-1900. (1977) Q.015.42 Ir423 Reference Library
Relief of the Poor in Essex, in Documents, Maps, Pictures, and Photographs. Prepared by N. Rowley. (1971) Q.362.5 R27 Stacks
Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849-1851: The Letters to the Morning Chronicle from the Correspondents in the Manufacturing and Mining Districts, the Towns of Liverpool and Birmingham, and the Rural Districts. Edited by J. Ginswick. 3 vols. (1983- ) 305.5690941 L114 History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library
Berkshire Overseers' Papers, 1564-1834. Edited by Peter Durrant. (Reading, 1997) 942.29 B4552 Stacks
Poor Law Records of Mid Sussex: 1601-1835. Edited by Norma Pilbeam and Ian Nelson. (Sussex Record Society Series, v. 83) (East Sussex, 2001) 942.25 Su8p v. 83 Stacks
Essex Pauper Letters, 1731-1837. Edited by Thomas Sokoll. (Oxford, 2001) 362.58094267 Ex75 Stacks
Images of the Outcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London. By Sean Shesgreen. (New Brunswick, N.J., 2002) 305.56909421 Sh59i History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library
Voices of the Poor: Selections from the Morning Chronicle ‘Labour and the Poor' (1849-1850). By Henry Mayhew. (London, 1971) 331 M453v Stacks
Down Poorhouse Lane: The Diary of a Rochdale Workhouse. By John Cole. (Littleborough, Lancashire, 1984) 362.58094273 C675d Stacks
The Poorhouse Fugitives: Self-Taught Poets and Poetry in Victorian Britain. Annotated by Brian Maidment. (Manchester, 1987) 821.08 P799 English Library
The State of the Poor; or, An History of the Labouring Classes in England, from the Conquest to the Present Period; in which are particularly considered, their domestic economy, with respect to diet, dress, fuel, and habitation; and the various plans which, from time to time, have been rpoposed, and adopted, for the relief of the poor; together with parochial reports relative tot he administration of work-houses, and houses of industry; the state of friendly societies; and other public institutions. By Sir Frederic Morton Eden. 3 vols. (London, 1797) X339 Ed28s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
A Book of Scattered Leaves: Poetry of Poverty in Broadside Ballads of Nineteenth-Century England: Study and Anthology. By James Hepburn. 2 vols. (Lewisburg, Penn., 2000) 821.09 H41b Stacks
The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America. By Ann Fabian. (Berkeley, 2000) 973.508694 F11u Stacks
Poverty, Migration, and Settlement in the Industrial Revolution: Sojourners' Narratives. By James Stephen Taylor. (Palo Alto, Calif., 1989) 344.420325 T215p Stacks, Commerce Library
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Letters from Children of the Great Depression. Edited by Robert Cohen. (Chapel Hill, 2002) B.R7811de History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library
The Metropolitan Poor: Semifactual Accounts, 1795-1910. Edited by John Marriott and Masaie Matsumura. (1999) 6 vols. 305.56909421 M567 History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library
3. Microfilm Collections
Papers from the Mass Observation Archive at the University of Sussex: The microfilm edition of the Mass Observation Archive complements the online edition (see above). During the 1930s ande 1940s, "ordinary" people, many of them working class, were enlisted to collect information and impressions on their own lives and the lives of the people in their communities (in Great Britain). Parts 2 and 3 contain the Worktown Collection, which documents life in the cities of Blackpool and Bolton from 1937-1940. Parts 4 and 5 cover welfare, social conditions, housing, work, health, family planning, and the Beveridge Report. Library also owns Part 8 (Conscription, Pacifism, and War Service), Part 9 (Shopping and Self Image), Part 10 (Leisure and Entertainment), Part 11 (Industry and Social Conditions, 1938-1955), and Part 12 (Sexual Behaviour, 1939-1950).
The Jane Addams Papers: Includes her correspondence, records of Hull House Association, and a clippings file.
Microfilm edition of the Detroit Urban League papers, 1916-1950, at the University of Michigan: Records of the Detroit branch of the National Urban League.