English: Primary Sources

• African Newspapers: more than 40 newspapers published between 1800 and 1922 in Sub-Saharan Africa
• American Periodicals: North American special interest and general magazines, labor and trade publications, scientific and literary journals, and other historically significant titles of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, prioritized for preservation.
• Brazilian Government Documents: Executive branch serial documents issued by Brazil’s national government between 1821 and 1993, and by its provincial governments from the earliest available to the end of the first Republic in 1930.
• Chinese Pamphlets - Political Communication & Mass Education:  Pamphlets, picture books, and other propaganda issued during the early years of the People’s Republic between 1947 and 1954. This is the “street literature” of the revolution: comic books, leaflets, and other ephemera distributed to the general population of provincial cities and villages.
• Digital Library for International Reserach (DLIR) - CRL has partnered with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) to develop the Digital Library for International Research. DLIR aims to provide bibliographic and full-text access to print collections and other media held at CAORC-sponsored overseas research centers and allied partners.
• Dziennik Zwiazkowy - The first ten years (1908–17) of Dziennik Zwiazkowy, founded in Chicago in 1908 by the Polish National Alliance. Representing local, national, and international issues of concern to the Polish community, the paper continues today as the Polish Daily News.
• Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848 - Pamphlets and periodicals from the French Revolution of 1848 held by the Center for Research Libraries.
• Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu - Arabic nineteenth-century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu provide documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies. From the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali.

Created by the Early Modern Center in the English Department at UCSB, the English Broadside Ballad Archive (formerly, Pepys Ballad Archive).

Date Coverage: 1600 - 2023
Materials Indexed: Books; Government Documents; Journal Articles; Magazine Articles; Manuscripts; Pamphlets; Primary Sources; Transcripts

From the search screen, click on “Choose Databases,” and select specific portions of the series.

Series 1: 1691-1820 subject strengths include but are not limited to Afro-Americana, agriculture, children's literature, education, eighteenth-century imprints, leisure and hobbies, Masonic works, medicine, religion, science and technology, the trades, and women's literature. Long runs of popular magazines as well as unusual and short-lived titles can be found. The collection includes an early millennial publication, satirical serials, music journals, and titles printed and edited by women.

Series 2: 1821-1837 documents the growth and expansion of the new nation during the Jacksonian era, from the aftermath of the Panic of 1819 through the Panic of 1837. Topics cover agriculture, entertainment, literary criticism, domestic arts, technology, medicine (both traditional and alternative), and politics. The periodicals in this database reflect the important beginnings of the social movements and economic trends that set the stage for events that would come to define America in the nineteenth century.

Series 3: 1838-1852 reveals a rapidly growing young nation where industrialization, the railroads, regional political differences, and life on the western frontier were daily realities. Subjects covered in the collection reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion, slavery, agriculture, children's literature, education, leisure and hobbies, medicine, religion, science and technology, the trades, and women's literature. The collection covers a broad range of geography (from Bangor, ME, to Madison, WI) as well as a diversity of languages (French, German, and Welsh), reflecting the rapid westward expansion that characterized the time period.

Series 4: 1853-1865 focuses on the Civil War, both leading up to and during, and also offers a diverse record of the continuance of daily life for many Americans. More detailed subject matter includes psychiatry, gardening, freed African Americans, temperance, the Irish question, Freemasonry, the U.S. Postal Service, and dentistry. The breadth of subject matter represented in the collection reveals the increasing diversity and affluence of the American population coupled with all of the political difficulties and the rising tensions that led to the Civil War.

Series 5: 1866-1877 reflects a nation that persevered through a most difficult set of circumstances: a bloody civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the incorporation of the recently freed African Americans into American life, and a population that rapidly expanded into the Western territories. Broad subject areas covered in the collection reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women’s fashion, family life, and religion.