Multimedia Collections
- Connected Histories 1500-1900This website provides a unified search interface for over 20 digital collections covering Britain from 1500 to 1900. Researchers may also link to individual collections. Most of the resources are free; some require a subscription. Examples of collections pertinent to the 18th century include:
* History of Parliament
* Strype's Survey of London
* British Museum Images
- Empire Online (1492-1962) This link opens in a new windowFull text primary source documents, including original manuscripts and printed material covering colonial history, politics, culture and society from 1492 to 1962.
- State Papers Online This link opens in a new windowCorrespondence, reports, parliamentary drafts from ambassadors, civil servants, etc. from British governments spanning 1509-1714.
- Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database This link opens in a new windowRecords from more than 35,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866 from archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world, providing information about vessels, enslaved peoples, slave traders and owners, and trading routes.
Books
- ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowDigital editions of nearly all books published in Great Britain in the 18th century as well as important books from the Americas.
- Google Books Advanced SearchGoogle has digitized thousands of books and magazines and made them searchable. Use this advanced search interface for precise searching. You may be able to access the full text of books that are out of copyright. If an item is only available in "snippet view" or "limited preview," you may be able to obtain that item from our own collection or via Interlibrary Loan.
- Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new windowFull text of every book about the Americas published anywhere between 1500 and 1926.
Documents
- English Historical DocumentsA rich collection of primary sources covering England from ca. 500 to 1914. The subject coverage is broad and each document has an introduction and bibliography. Volumes 8 through 11 cover 1660 to 1832.
- EuroDocs: Online Sources for European HistoryRich website linking to primary sources for all periods of European history. Organized first by country, and then loosely chronologically. Includes transcriptions, facsimiles, and, sometimes, translations. Maintained at Brigham Young University.
Government Information
- Cobbett's Parliamentary HistorySearch the full text of Cobbett's Parliamentary History.
- Cobbett's parliamentary history of England : from the Norman conquest, in 1066, to the year, 1803Digitized copies of all 36 volumes through the HathiTrust.
Images
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowDigital image library offering searchable collections of images and descriptive information including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, and more, encompassing many time periods and world cultures.
Note: First time, off-campus users accessing via OpenAthens will be required to create a personal account
- Heilbrunn Timeline of Art HistoryThis multifaceted tool places art works from the Metropolitan Museum's collection within geographical and chronological context. It has excellent thematic essays (background information) that cover the historical eras and cultures that produced the works of art (the primary sources), along with maps and key events from each place and time period.
- Library of Congress MapsAccess to digitized maps from the Library of Congress.
- Old Maps OnlineAccess to maps from research libraries around the world. You may search a place and a time period to find high-resolution maps.
Newspapers & Magazines
- 17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers This link opens in a new windowFull text searchable newspapers, pamphlets, and books gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817) that form a comprehensive collection of early English news media.
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new windowCross-search Gale's primary sources Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) and NewsVault.
- Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new windowFull text PDF facsimiles of specific articles as well as complete pages, including photos and advertisements, from every issue of the London Times.
Personal Accounts
To find personal accounts in the JMU Library Catalog, search for the phrase "personal narratives" with keywords.
- British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowPrimary source database offering women's diaries and letters.
- Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures and the Environment This link opens in a new windowPrimary source collection of personal accounts of traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women.
Indexes to Primary Sources
Use these tools to help locate primary sources. You may need to use Interlibrary Loan to acquire the actual primary sources.
- English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC)Indexes over 460,000 books that were published between 1473 and 1800 primarily in Britain and North America. Works are predominantly in English and are from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000 other libraries.
- Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America, and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1641-1700 (Wing)Call Number: Z2002 .W5
Location: Carrier Reference
