We are now trialling Subculture Archives and welcome feedback from students and researchers. This resource is useful for the study of social and cultural history, visual culture, and more generally, the lived experience of the British youth as they grew up in the 20th century.
Important: Click on ‘Log in via your University or Institution’. Select ‘University of Oxford’ and enter your SSO.
Subculture Archives provides online access to a multimedia archive of primary sources which documents 100 years of youth culture through the scenes, styles, sounds and signifiers of different youth movements. It illustrates Britain’s evocative subculture and counterculture, as expressed through Mods, Skins, Grime and Punks, and the football and the rave scene.
It contains…
- over 75,000 images and photographs
- recorded and transcribed oral histories, podcasts and playlists;
- 15,000 flyers and ephemera;
- many examples of fashion, graphic design and printed publications.
Topical collections include:
- Carnival
- Crowds
- DJ
- Fashion
- Fast Food
- Graffiti and street art
- LGBTQ+ life
- Pets and animals
- Pre-war youth
- Protest and rebellion
- Pub culture
- School and learning
- Teenage bedrooms
- Work and employment
- Festivals
- Public transport
- Sports
You browse and search in a variety of ways.
The trial ends on 17 May 2025.
Please send any feedback to Isabel Holowaty.
While you are here, check out:
- Popular culture in Britain and America 1950-1975: Rock and Roll (Oxford SSO required)
- Museum of Youth Culture
