Tag Archives: Colonial history

Trials: Planning for the Post-World War II World & Revolutionary War and Early America (ended 7th June 2025)

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[UPDATE: This trial has now ended]

I am pleased to report that the Vere Harmsworth Library has organised trial access to two ProQuest History Vault databases for Bodleian Readers: Planning for the Post-World War II World, State Department Records of Harley A. Notter and Revolutionary War and Early America: Collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society. The trial for both databases runs from the 8th May-7th June, 2025.

Find out more about both databases below:

Planning for the Post-World War II World

Planning for the Post World War II World: State Department Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-1945 chronicles U.S. planning for postwar peace and spans nearly 300,000 pages. Declassified in 1974, the Notter File contains virtually all extant records of the State Department’s intensive wartime planning, as well as those of several bodies (notably the Policy Committee and the Committee on Postwar Programs) where actual policies were developed and implemented.

Many scholars regard the State Department files assembled by Dr. Harley A. Notter-a key State Department official during the war years-as one of the most important primary sources on postwar planning. The documents in the Notter records detail the foundations on which much of post-1945 U.S. foreign policy was built. The Notter collection includes research reports, official policy papers, memoranda, meeting minutes, State Department organization charts, and many other internal documents.

You can access Planning for the Post World War II World: State Department Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-1945 using your Single Sign On here.

Revolutionary War and Early America

This module on one of the most-studied periods in American history consists of 26 collections from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first North American historical society and the first library to devote its primary attention to collecting Americana. The collections digitized by ProQuest from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society focus on the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War and the Early National Period, with some collections extending into the Civil War era.

The collections include:

  • Papers of key individuals such as Benjamin Lincoln, Artemas Ward and Samuel Cabot.
  • Papers of key families spanning generations, such as the Revere and Hancock Family Papers.
  • Military records such as Orderly Books for French & Indian War and Revolutionary War, recording day to day activities of specific units.
  • 275 individual Pre-Revolutionary Era Diaries (1635-1774), written by more than 109 individuals from a range of working backgrounds and professions.
  • Organisation papers of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society Papers, one of the earliest American philanthropic organisations of it’s type. This includes petitions from those who had lost property from fire, and sometimes included detailed inventories of property and furniture.

You can access Revolutionary War and Early America: Collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society using your Single Sign On here.

You may also be interested in our currently ongoing trial of American History: 1493-1945. Find out more via our blogpost.

Please send any feedback you have regarding this resource to bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Trial: American History 1493-1945 (ended 25th May 2025)

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[UPDATE: This trial has now ended]

I am pleased to report that the Vere Harmsworth Library has organised trial access to American History 1493-1945 for Bodleian Readers. This trial runs from the 27th April-25th May, 2025.

This unique collection documents American History from the earliest settlers to the mid-twentieth century. It is sourced from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the finest archives available for the study of American History.

Main features include:

  • Over 60,000 primary source documents split across two modules, including correspondence, diaries, government documents, business records, books, pamphlets, newspapers, broadsides, photographs, artwork and maps
  • Majority of the collection is unique manuscript
  • Extensive cataloguing to aid search
  • Translations and transcriptions for many manuscripts
  • Secondary resources include chronology, essays, video lectures and interactive features
  • Features from partner organizations Mount Vernon and the Gettysburg Foundation

You can access the American History, 1493-1945 using your Single Sign On here.

Please send any feedback you have regarding this resource to bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Trial access: Colonial America (ended 20th March 2022)

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[UPDATE: This trial has now finished as of 20th March, 2022.]

I am pleased to report that the Vere Harmsworth Library has organised trial access to Colonial America for Bodleian Readers. The trial will run until the 20th March, 2022.

Decorative screenshot of the Colonial America database.

Colonial America consists of all 1,450 volumes of the CO 5 series of Colonial Office files held at The National Archives in London, plus all extracted documents associated with them. This unique collection of largely manuscript material from the archives of the British government is an invaluable one for students and researchers of all aspects of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century American history and the early-modern Atlantic world.

Documents can be browsed by title, date, volume, theme, document type and colony/region. They are also indexed with relevant keywords, names, and places. Print and manuscript materials are full-text searchable, thanks to handwritten text recognition technology.

The resource is made up of 5 modules:

Module 1: Early Settlement, Expansion and Rivalries

The first module of Colonial America documents the early history of the colonies, and includes founding charters, material on the effects of 1688’s Glorious Revolution in North America, records of piracy and seaborne rivalry with the French and Spanish, and copious military material from the French and Indian War of 1756-63.

Module 2: Towards Revolution

This module focuses on the 1760s and 1770s and the social and political protest that led to the Declaration of Independence, including legal materials covering the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party. It is also particularly rich in material relating to military affairs and American Indians.

Module 3: The American Revolution

This module charts the upheavals of the 1770s and 1780s which saw the throwing off of British rule in the Thirteen Colonies. Contents include volumes of intercepted letters between colonists, the military correspondence of the British commanders in the field and material produced by the Ordnance Office and the office of the Secretary at War, as well as two copies of the ‘Dunlap’ edition of the Declaration of Independence printed on the night of the 4th-5th July 1776.

Module 4: Legislation and Politics in the Colonies

This module traces the colonies’ legal and political evolution between 1636-1782. Copies of council and assembly minutes record debates on international politics, including Britain’s war with Spain, expeditions against the French in Canada, and trade regulations. Court journals also trace legal cases and trials heard in the colonies, whilst series of official correspondence and revisions of acts reveal attempts to increase jurisdiction of British officials in the colonies, expand settlement, and improve public facilities and trade. The extensive revisions and annotations of these documents also expose the internal (and often personal) political agendas of their creators.

Module 5: Growth, Trade and Development

The preponderant part of this module consists of correspondence with the Board of Trade. There are also details of land grants, financial accounts and documents focusing on American Indian relations, as well as George Vancouver’s despatches to London from his 1791 expedition to the Pacific Northwest. The module contains a number of shipping returns, accompanied by a video interview with Hannah Knox Tucker (PhD candidate, University of Virginia), who discusses these documents and their value for researchers in detail.

You can access Colonial America using your Single Sign On here. 

Please send any feedback you have regarding this resource to bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.