Research Guides: Theater: Find Primary Sources

Find Archival Materials

Shakespeare in Performance This link opens in a new window
Shakespeare in Performance features prompt books (scripts of the plays marked up for performance) from the collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library. These prompt books tell the story of Shakespeare’s plays as they were performed in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and internationally, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Concurrent user limit: unlimited
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is a digital edition of The Eighteenth Century microfilm set, which includes English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom, along with works from the Americas, between 1701 and 1800. Consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera.

Digital Collection at TU Libraries
Archival Finding Aids (TU Libraries SCRC)
Browse the finding aids for all Temple Library's Special Collections.

ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window
ArchiveGrid contains archival collections held by libraries, museums, historical societies.

Archives Portal Europe
Provides access to information on archival material from different European countries as well as information on archival institutions throughout the continent.
Archive Finder/ArchivesUSA (via C19)
C19 only contains records for archival collections that have content relevant to the 19th century (around 1790-1919). Click "Browse" at top of Homepage, then choose "Archive Finder" from right-hand column.
National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMUC)
The Library of Congress makes NUCMC available for free online. The catalog helps connect researchers with archival collections throughout the United States.

WorldCat This link opens in a new window
Worldcat allows you to search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands more around the world. Run your search and then look for the "Archival" tab.

Still Images and Video: Primary-Source

Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Academic Video Online provides a single cross-searchable platform for searching and viewing all Alexander Street Press video titles to which Temple subscribes
AP Images [via EBSCOhost] This link opens in a new window
Concurrent user limit: 5
AP Images contains U.S. and international photos, from 1826 to present. Also includes graphics, charts, and timelines.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Note: ArtStor is now part of JSTOR. ArtStor users can still use their existing account on the JSTOR platform. ARTstor contains images of art, architecture and archeology from a range of cultures and time periods, in European, American and Asian cultures.
Bloomsbury Fashion Central This link opens in a new window
Note: Due to budget constraints, this resource has not been renewed as of 12/31/2023.
Fashion Central (formerly Berg Fashion Library) provides access to Berg content collections including the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, and images.

Britain from above 1919-1953
An open-source project aimed at conserving 95,000 of the oldest and most valuable photographs in the Aerofilms collection, those dating from 1919 to 1953.
C-SPAN Video Library
Freely accessible online, this database covers 30 years of history and five presidential administrations.

Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Video Online is an online resource for the study of human culture, behavior and society around the world. It contains streaming video, including ethnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork.
Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
Films on Demand is a source of videos and multimedia for academic, vocational and life-skills content. Films on Demand combines : Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Cambridge Educational, Meridian Education, and Shopware.
LIFE Photo Archive This link opens in a new window
LIFE photo archive provides access to photographs stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time.

National Archives Video on YouTube
Includes historic moments from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and more.
Vanderbilt Television News Archive
The world's most complete archive of television news, more than 30,000 individual network evening news broadcasts are available from the major U.S. national networks: ABC, CBS, NBC (since August 5, 1968), and CNN (since 1995).

Vogue Archive (1892 - present) This link opens in a new window
Vogue Archive (1892 - present) is a complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names.

Ephemera: Primary-Source History Databases

The following Temple databases provide electronic reproductions of full-text primary-source documents including maps, letters, diaries, oral histories, memoirs and other personal narratives. Many of these databases are relevant to the history of other parts of the world including Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980 This link opens in a new window
Based primarily on unique manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Library in London, and supplemented by Cambridge University Library and others, this project provides a wide variety of original source material detailing China's interaction with the West 1793 to the Nixon visits to China in 1972-74. It provides multiple perspectives from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people, and tourists. Contains over 400 color paintings, maps and drawings, photographs, sketches and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, customs, and events.
Defining Gender, 1450-1910 This link opens in a new window
Contains images of rare and important printed manuscripts on various aspects of gender, sexuality and culture in Great Britain. Includes ephemeral material types such as ballads, cartoons and pamphlets, diaries, advice literature, conduct books, medical journals and other periodicals. Features essays by modern scholars, biographical sketches, a chronology, etc.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Contains manuscript, printed, and visual materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices, and consequences.

Europeana
Over 2,000,000 digitized books and other historically significant artifacts from over 1,000 cultural institutions in Europe. Free access provided by the European Union.

Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online, 1543-1945 This link opens in a new window
Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online, 1543-1945 was founded in the late 1800s, by Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs Gerritsen. It contains monographs and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and women's rights.
Letters and Diaries Online This link opens in a new window
An electronic archive of collections of letters, diaries, autobiographies, oral histories, and other personal narratives dating from 1675 to the present.
Medieval Family Life This link opens in a new window
Medieval Family Life includes the full color images and fully searchable transcriptions of the following major family letter collections from 15th century England Paston Family Papers, Cely Family Papers, Plumpton Correspondence, Stonor Correspondence, Armburgh Family Papers.
Medieval Travel Writing This link opens in a new window
"This project provides direct access to a widely scattered collection of original medieval manuscripts that describe travel - real and imaginary - in the Middle Ages."
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) This link opens in a new window
Note: Access to Children's Literature and Childhood; Mapping the World; Religion, Society, Spirituality, and Reform; and Science, Technology, and Medicine (1780-1925) is guaranteed through May 2027.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online offers online access to a wide range of primary source materials from the 19th century. Collections currently available are: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, British Politics and Society, British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture, the Corvey Collection of European Literature, 1790-1840, Europe and Africa, Photography, Science, Technology, and Medicine, and Women.
Oral History Online This link opens in a new window
Indexes oral history collections in English, with access to full text, audio, video, or bibliographic citations for oral history collections from all over the world. The narratives cover subjects from the late 19th Century to present, including civil rights and race relations, labor history, African American history, women's history, immigration studies, political history, American Indian history, regional history, and more.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 contains resources pertaining to slavery and abolition studies, bringing together documents and collections covering 1490-2007, from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world.

Primary Sources - United States

African American Experience This link opens in a new window
Includes interviews with former slaves from the WPA Slave Narratives Project. Documents, audio clips, and photographs.
American West This link opens in a new window
American West contains original manuscripts, ephemeral material , maps, and rare printed works from the Everett D Graff Collection of Western Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago.

Digital Harlem: Everyday Life 1915-1930
Contains information, drawn from legal records, newspapers and other archival and published sources, about everyday life in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in the years 1915-1930.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
Manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, photos, video recordings, and more from the Library of Congress.
Civil Rights Archive
"In 1965, Robert Penn Warren wrote a book, now out of print, entitled Who Speaks for the Negro? To research this publication, he traveled the country and spoke with a variety of people who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He spoke with nationally-known figures as well as people working in the trenches of the Movement. The volume contains many of the transcripts from these conversations. The Who Speaks for the Negro? Archive [from Vanderbilt University Libraries] contains digitized versions of the original reel-to-reel recordings, as well as copies of the correspondence, transcripts, and other printed materials related to his research for the provocatively-titled book."
Documenting the American South
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Includes books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs" (University of North Carolina).
National Archives Online Exhibitis
Digitized historic documents and photographs from the National Archives.

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