Archival research using physical, historical documents can give you hands-on context and historical knowledge that can give your creative work richness and nuance. Before you visit an archive, it helps to be prepared so you can make the most of your time. The following resources guide you through what to do ahead of time to get ready for research.
Finding archival collections related to the subject of your creative work can be tricky! UT has several archives on campus, and Austin is home to additional archives. You might even need to visit archives in other states. Below are some resources for finding archives, and if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask Gina Bastone for help!
The UT Libraries subscribe to a number of databases with digitized primary sources and historical documents.
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Updated regularly. A comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture, coupled with sophisticated technology permitting precise search and browse capabilities. Features over 7,500 articles from Oxford's authoritative reference works, approximately 100 primary sources with specially written commentaries, over 1,000 images, over 100 maps, over 200 charts and tables, timelines to guide researchers through the history of African Americans and over 6,000 biographies.
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Covers multiple content types, providing records for more than 11 million documents ranging from books and newspapers to government documents and periodicals. Collection of ten digital archives, including such notable indexes as House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, and Palmer’s Index to the Times of London. Each index can be searched separately, or a comprehensive search of the entire database is also possible.
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Gale’s Archives of Sexuality and Gender program spans the sixteenth to twentieth centuries and is the largest digital collection of historical primary source publications relating to the history and study of sex, sexuality, and gender research and gender studies research. Documentation covering disciplines such as social, political, health, and legal issues impacting LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) communities around the world are included, as well as rare and unique books on sex and sexuality from the sciences to the humanities to support research and education. The selection of materials for this milestone digital program is guided by an advisory board consisting of leading scholars and librarians in sexuality and gender studies.
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LGBT Thought and Culture is an online primary source database hosting the key works and archival documentation of LGBT political and social movements throughout the 20th century and into the present day. The collection contains seminal texts, letters, periodicals, speeches, interviews, and ephemera.
The resource provides a look into LGBT life from the late 19th to the early 21st centuries, covering topics such as bars and saloons, gay communities, clubs and social organizations, gay activism and activists, gay rights, AIDS, films, politics, books, medical treatments and procedures, gender identity, discrimination, and more.
Includes material from the Kinsey Institute Archive and Library, the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, the Jeanne Cordova Papers, the Magnus Hirschfeld Collection, and more.
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A multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the nineteenth century. The content is sourced from the world's preeminent libraries and archives. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages.
Access to this resource is partially funded by the Emily Knauss Library Endowment for the Liberal Arts.
Unlimited users.
Updated quarterly (until completed). Provides a view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada between 1800 and 1950. When completed, will include more than 100,000 pages of personal narratives including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories. Currently contains 342 authors and approximately 37,500 pages of information.
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Updated quarterly (until completed). Includes diaries, journals, and letters written by women visiting or living in North America between the years 1700 and 1950. When complete, the database will be the largest collection of women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled and include the personal experiences of 1,500 women from all classes and walks of life.
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Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Fisk University Race Relations Department which with 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. Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Search across Adam Matthew primary source databases using AM Explorer
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Updated quarterly. Organized around the history of women in social movements in the U.S. between 1600 and 2000. A resource for the teaching the history of women in the United States. Consists of 74 editorial projects with more than 2200 primary documents intended for use in high school and college history classrooms. Also includes a major collection of links to related websites and a search engine that permits users to do full text searching of all the primary documents mounted on the site.
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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 highly-curated archive and database 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.
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