Databases

Contains nearly 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters among peoples in North America from 1534 to 1850. Collection focuses on personal accounts and provides unique perspectives from all of the protagonists, including traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. 

EEBO contains page images of almost every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700.  From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions. 

The Text Creation Partnership, which provides highly searchable versions of the texts, made the first 25,000 works freely available in 2015.  This interface, at the University of Michigan, allows proximity and boolean searching within the available works, but does not search the full EEBO database.  

Provides access to works printed in Europe before 1701, bringing together a diverse array of printed sources, regardless of language, as well as works published further afield. Full-color, high-resolution facsimile images of some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books in Europe are included. McMaster has access to Collection 3, 5, 6, 10 and 12 of Early European Books.

Includes primary source documents that trace the history of the East India Company which, at its peak, controlled over a quarter of the world's trade. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this collection charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947.

Topics covered include:

• Administrative and ecclesiastical appointments
• Agriculture
• Charters and the Company’s relationship to the English/British Crown
• Courts and legal affairs, including legislation
• Diplomacy, treaties and ambassadorial expeditions
• Finance and debt
• The machinery of government
• Pay and pensions for Company servants and their families
• Railways
• Trade
• Early voyages to Japan and the Spice Islands (Indonesia)
• Warfare and military matters

This collection is a key resource for scholarship of British imperial history, maritime trade, global commerce, and the history of the first great multinational corporation.

For over 170 years, The Economist has published timely reporting, concise commentary and comprehensive analysis of global news every week. It covers the world's political, business, scientific, technological and cultural developments and the connections between them. Included in the archive are full-colour images, covers, advertisements, multiple search indexes, and the facility to browse each and every issue from 1843 to 2020.

The most current issues of The Economist are available in print and online via several databases. 

Provides original German documents from the London School of Economics and Political Science collection, including:

• Statistics of the Third Reich analysed, 1933-1944
• Monatliche Nachweise über den auswärtigen Handel Deutschlands (January 1933-June 1939)
• Der Aussenhandel Deutschlands Monatliche Nachweise (July 1939); and
• Sondernachweis der Aussenhandel Deutschlands (August 1939-1944).

These publications illustrate a number of major topics, including: the importance of German trade with Eastern Europe; effect of new trade treaties with Southeastern European states concluded in 1934 and 1935; Germany's economic offensive beginning in1934; growth of a "command economy" and the requirements of the Rearmament Program; balance of payments problem; and the defeat of "the traditionalists" with the dismissal of Schacht and Neurath and the appointment of Ribbentrop. Sondernachweis der Aussenhandel Deutschlands is particularly important as it provides a thorough breakdown of German foreign trade by commodity, volume and value on a monthly basis. The December issue of each year gives a final listing of annual figures.

ECCO provides online access to every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom between 1701 and 1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Content consists of books, pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera, and more.

McMaster has purchased both ECCO and the update, ECCO II, giving us access to over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes).  Subject coverage includes history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, and science.

This primary sources database provides images of original documents related to the British Empire. The content is structured around five thematic sections: Cultural Contacts; Literature; The Visual Empire; Religion; and Race, Class, Colonialism and Imperialism.

Contains video and text material focusing on engineering failures and successes such as Apollo 13, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Ford Pinto, Space Shuttle Challenger and the Titantic.

Contains primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theatre are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Issues have been scanned in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of articles, covers, ads and reviews. Subject coverage includes the film industry, music business, rock and pop, jazz and blues, theatre, television, and radio. McMaster has access to the Cinema, Film and Televsion collection (Parts 1 & 2) and the Music, Radio and Stage collection.

Brings together multimedia materials (text, archival primary sources, video and audio) around key environmental challenges, including climate change, water/air pollution, biodiversity, conservation, agriculture, deforestation and more. The database is curated around specific environmental issues and events from the 20th and 21st centuries. Provides an understanding of the relationship between people and the environment through social, cultural, economic, political, historical and ecological perspectives. 

This collection from Wiley Digital Archives focuses on critical aspects of anthropogenic change, with unique and rare archival collections from the Environmental Society of America (ESA), Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew Gardens), the National Archives (UK), the Commonwealth Forestry Institute, CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International) and more. The collection will build to approximately one million pages or images of primary sources featuring data-heavy collections on Deforestation, Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries (Food Production); Ecology, Botany, Biodiversity, and Extinction; Water Sources, Irrigation, Wetlands, and Hydrology, with an expected competion date of December 2023.

Search or browse issues (full page and article images in PDF) of the Financial Times. The archive covers the complete run of the London edition of this internationally known daily business newspaper, from its first issue in 1888 through 2021. Every article, advertisement, and market listing is included—shown both individually and in the context of the full page and issue of the day.

The most current issues of the Financial Times are available in print and online via several databases (with most current month embargoed).

Showcases a wealth of primary source material for the study of the First World War, from personal narratives and printed books to military files, propaganda pamphlets and strong visual documents. Also provides secondary contextual material, including scholarly essays, case studies and interactive maps.

Material is sourced from archives around the world, including McMaster's Archives and Research Collections which contributed hundreds of personal collections, albums, photographs, trench journals, sheet music, visual sources and trench maps, as well as material from the Vera Brittain Archive and Michael Brisebois collections.

Provides researchers rich archival content, visual ephemera, monographs, and videos that explore how food shapes the world around us.

This collection of primary source documents captures the lives, experiences and colonial encounters of settlers and indigenous people living in colonial frontiers of North America, Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand from 1650-1920. More than 20% of the content is Canadian, with over 1,000 documents drawn from the Hudson's Bay Archive and the Glenbow Museum.

Search across Gale's primary source databases, including Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), with links to additional content from ProQuest's Early English Books (EEBO).  Individual databases can also be explored separately or in combination.

A cross-cultural database for information on women's history. It spans more than four centuries and 15 languages and includes over two million full-page images. Trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of that country's feminist movement on other countries and their movements.

Global Commodities provides a vast range of visual, manuscript and printed materials sourced from over twenty key libraries and more than a dozen companies and trade organisations around the world. These original sources will help scholars to explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world.

The fifteen commodities explored in this resource are: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, tobacco, wheat, and wine and spirits. The collection offers information on subjects such as:

Includes coverage of 180 issues, topics, and events from the late 1890s to the present that are key to understanding today’s world including border and migration, atrocities and human rights violations, peacekeeping, climate change, terrorism, revolutions, and human trafficking. Specific events explored include the U.S. and Mexico Border, the Rwandan Genocide, the Arab Spring, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and climate migrants in Asia Pacific.

Online full-page newspaper archive of The Globe & Mail from May 1844, current 4 years embargoed. Coverage includes all the stories, plus thousands of images, advertisements, classifieds, political cartoons, births and deaths from Canada's national newspaper, dating back to the pre-confederation era.

The most current issues of The Globe & Mail are available in print and online (plain-text) via Factiva and other databases.

The backfile of GQ magazine, from its launch in 1931 (as Apparel Arts) to the present. One of the longest-running, most influential men's magazines, GQ expanded its initial focus on fashion to cover general men’s-interest subjects. The digital archive makes available a wealth of editorial content and photography, providing essential insights into the 20th/21st-century history of fashion, popular culture, masculinity, and society.

Originally published as Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny Sovetskogo Soiuza (История Великой Отечественной войны Советского Союза) 1941-1945, published in Moscow in 1960 in six volumes by the USSR Ministry of Defense. This work was translated by the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the Foreign Technology Division, Air Force Systems Command. The complete official Soviet history of World War II, a monumental work of over 9,000 pages, this collection provides Western scholars with an opportunity to study what is considered one of the most significant historical documents produced in the Soviet Union. In addition to its importance in the war's historiography, this work is a valuable exposition of the development of a widely influential military doctrine.

The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister newspaper, The Observer (1791-2003) provide facts, firsthand accounts, and opinions of the day about the most significant political, business, sports, literary, and entertainment events from the past two centuries.

The most current issues of The Gluardian are available online (plain-text) via  Factiva, Nexis Uni and other databases 

The most current issues of The Observer are available online (plain-text) via  Factiva, Nexis Uni and other databases

Search or browse issues (full page and article images in PDF) of The Hamilton Spectator from 1852 to 2010. 

The most current issues of the The Hamilton Spectator are available in print and online (plain-text) via Factiva and Nexis Uni. 

Includes the complete runs of the US and UK editions of Harper’s Bazaar, from 1867 to the present (US edition) and 1929-2015 (UK edition). The issues are reproduced as high-resolution color page images and supported by fully searchable text and article-level indexing. The magazine covers over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, society, and popular culture, facilitating academic research in wide-ranging fields such as women’s studies, fashion, marketing, advertising, material culture, design, and more. It chronicles of some of the most influential work from world-renowned designers, models, photographers,stylists, and illustrators of the period.

Includes the backfiles of the following nine major US and UK consumer magazines devoted to health, fitness, exercise, nutrition, and medicine, charting trends in these areas from the mid-20th century to the 21st.

• Flex [US] (1983 to 2015)
• Men’s Fitness [US] (1985 to 2015)
• Men’s Fitness [UK] (1999 to 2015)
• Men’s Health [US] (1986 to 2015)
• Prevention [US] (1950 to 2015)
• Women’s Health [US](2005 to 2015)
• Women’s Health Activist [US] (1975 to 2015)
• Women’s Health Weekly [US] (1994 to 2015)
• Zest [UK] (1994 to 2014)

Coverage is from issue 1 through to 2015 (or publication ceased date), with issues scanned from cover to cover, although there will be some small coverage gaps (issues / pages).

Heritage is a growing collection of digitized Canadian primary source documents, chronicling the country and its people from the 1600s to the mid-1900s.  Featured collections include:

Includes primary source, cross-searchable, full-text/full-image documents on some of the most widely studied topics in American history.

HCPP provides a vital historical record of Britain, its former Colonies and the wider world, providing detailed primary sources for the history of the past two centuries.  The database includes House of Commons parliamentary papers from 1803 onwards, Hansard (Commons and Lords), Diplomatic and Consular Reports (1887-1916), and more.