Nineteenth Century Collections Online

Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) is an unparalleled collection of primary source materials covering the long nineteenth century. Included are monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. The collections are sourced from rare collections at libraries and other institutions from around the globe. Twelve subject-based collections (listed below) are available.

This collection can also be searched on Gale Primary Sources, an integrated platform that combines more than forty Gale digital archives into a single cross-searchable interface.

Within Nineteenth Century Collections Online, the following collections are available:

• Asia and the West – features collections pertaining to relations between Asian countries and the West during the nineteenth century. Many never before available documents are included in this collection of government reports, diplomatic correspondence, periodicals, newspapers, treaties, trade agreements, NGO papers, personal letters and diaries, nautical charts, maps, ledgers, company records, and expedition and survey reports from 1790 to 1949.
• British Politics and Society – primary sources related to the political climate in Great Britain during the “long” nineteenth century, covering approximately 1749 to 1914.
• British Theatre,  Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture – primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores.
• Children’s Literature and Childhood – documents the growth of children’s literature during the nineteenth century; includes texts from Europe, Asia, and North America. Intricate illustrations and children’s book texts from North Africa are included, as well as full-text, fully searchable content from a broad range of primary sources.
• Europe and Africa: Commerce, Christianity, Civilization, and Conquest – primary sources related to the “Scramble for Africa,” colonial conquest and the legacy of slavery, missionaries, explorers, economics, world politics, and international strategy.
• European Literature, the Corvey Collection 1790-1840 – contains everything from novels and short stories to belles lettres and more populist works, and includes many exceedingly rare works not available in any other collection from the period.
• Maps and Travel Literature – presents insight into the age of cartography and the rise of leisure travel, spotlighting historical atlases, gazetteers, travel narratives and a variety of maps. Includes sketch maps created during colonial exploration and expansion and features both European and non-European travel narratives.
• Photography: The World Through the Lens – assembles collections of photographs, photograph albums, photographically illustrated books, and texts on the early history of photography found in libraries and archives across the globe.
• Religion, Reform and Society – examines the influence of both faith and skepticism on the shaping of many aspects of society. Illustrates the religious and philosophical movements that developed in reaction to cultural and societal changes wrought by the industrial revolution and modernity. Includes material such as manuscripts, monographs, periodicals and photographs.
• Science Technology and Medicine: Part I – helps researchers place science, medicine and technology in the mainstream of historical study. The nineteenth century was characterized by industrial, technical and social revolution. With a changing society came new approaches to the study of natural history, physics, mathematics, medicine and public health. Collection consists primarily of periodicals and monographs.
• Science Technology and Medicine: Part II – includes scientific material from the late seventeenth century through the first quarter of the twentieth century, with a primary focus on the nineteenth century. The collection is divided into four major parts: academies of science publications, natural history, public health, and entomology.
• Women: Transnational Networks – uses primary sources such as serials, books, manuscripts, diaries, reports and visuals to focus on issues at the intersection of gender and class, from the late eighteenth century to the era of suffrage in the early twentieth century, all through a transnational perspective.

Provider: Gale