Culture - History - Modern History primary sources - Subject and Research Guides at Macquarie University

Library databases

Social and cultural history: letters and diaries online
Date range: 16th Century to 20th Century
Geographical range: Britain, US
"Database of English language letters, diaries, autobiographies, oral histories, and other personal narratives providing insight into history dating from the 1550s to the present. Documents included in the index and full-text collections are indexed for subjects, historical events, personal events, places, and dates."

London Low Life : street culture, social reform and the Victorian underworld
Date range: 18th, 19th and early 20th Centuries
Geographical focus: London
"Content includes: fast literature; street ephemera (posters, advertising, playbills, ballads and broadsides); penny fiction; cartoons; a complete collection of Tallis' Street Views; chapbooks; street cries; Swell's guides to London prostitution, gambling and drinking dens; tourist guides and topography; and manuscripts of George Gissing."
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
Date Range: 19th Century
Geographical focus: US, Britain, Asia, British colonies
A number of collections comprising monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, ephemera, statistics and more. Collections inclue: "Asia and the West", "British Politics and Society", "British Theatre, Music and Literature", "Europe and Africa", European Literature, 1790-1840", "Photography", "Science, Technology and Medicine" and "Women".
Victorian popular culture
Date range: 19th Century to 1930s
Geographical range: Britain, US, Europe
"Victorian popular culture is a database in the subject area of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth century." Material includes pamphlets, posters, postcards, photographs, books and videos. Database is divided into sections on magic and spiritualism; cicuses; music halls and theatres and early cinema.
Popular culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 : Rock and roll, counterculture, peace and protest
Date range: 1950 to 1975
Geographical focus: US, Britain
"Topics include changing lifestyles, student protests, civil rights, consumerism, nuclear disarmament, and the Vietnam War. The database contains original archival material, including colour images of manuscript and rare printed material, as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia. "

Online sources

"Because it's your country": Bringing Back the Bones to West Arnhem Land
In this podcast Martin Thomas reads his powerful 2013 Calibre Prize winning essay about the repatriation of indigenous remains. Produced for the Australian Book Review in 2013.
12 Canoes
This website contains 12 segments with videos, photographs, artworks, and music that together paint a portrait of the Yolngu people of north-central Arnhem Land, NT.
Aboriginal heritage collections, Canada
This guide provides access to the Aboriginal heritage collections of Library and Archives, Canada.
American Memory | Library of Congress
Date range: 15th-21st Centuries
Geographical focus: US
The Library of Congress' digitised collection of material relating to US history, including maps, manuscripts, music, photographs and books.
British Periodicals Online | National Library of Australia
Date range: 1680s-1930s
Geographical focus: Britain
Digitised historical British journals, covering subject areas including literature, history, science, philosophy and the arts. An NLA library card is required to access this collection (free for Australian residents).
LA84: Sports Library and Digital Collection
Date range: 1880s-21st Century
Geographical focus: US, other Olympic countries
Digital access to scholarly journals and magazines relating to sports, as well as Olympic conference proceedings and official Olympic reports.