Welcome to our collection of contextual essays covering culture.

To support libraries, researchers, and educators, we regularly commission academics to write contextual essays that explore topics using our digital primary source archives.

These essays relate to themes associated with individual or group identities and affiliations, including gender, sexuality, race, and political allegiances.

Anti-Fascism in Historical Context

Daniel Jones, University of Northampton

From Political Extremism and Radicalism



 

Dealing with the 'Fair Sex': Women and the Periodical Press in the Nichols Collection

Claire Boulard Jouslin, Université Paris3-Sorbonne Nouvelle

From Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection
 

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 1896-1964

Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, State University of New York

From Women's Studies Archive



 

Extreme Right Transnationalism

Paul Jackson, University of Northampton

From Political Extremism and Radicalism

 

Identities, Communities and Communication

Siân Pooley, University of Cambridge

From British Library Newspapers

 

Language in the Mirror: An Idiom for the Masses

Martin Conboy, University of Sheffield

From The Mirror Historical Archive

 

Mary E. Gawthorpe: An Introduction

Krista Cowman, Leeds Metropolitan University

From Women's Studies Archive
 

Punch Case Study: Women's Suffrage

Katy Birch, Aberystwyth University

From the Punch Historical Archive

 

Race and Anthropology

Robert Burroughs, Nottingham Trent University

From Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals

 

The Emancipation of Boyhood Postbellum Teenage Subculture and the Amateur Press

Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College

From American Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian Society
 

The Radical Right in Britain

Professor Matthew Feldman

From Political Extremism and Radicalism


 

The Trump Presidency and the Mainstreaming of Far-Right Politics

Aurelien Mondon and Antonia Vaughan, University of Bath

From Political Extremism and Radicalism
 

The Voice of ‘Middle England ’? The Daily Mail and Public Life

Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield

From the Daily Mail Historical Archive
 

The Woman’s Realm: The Daily Mail and Female Readers

Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield

From the Daily Mail Historical Archive
 

The Daily Mirror and Women

Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield

From The Mirror Historical Archive
 

The International Herald Tribune and the Portrayal of Women

Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield

From the International Herald Tribune Historical Archive
 

Women's Periodicals

Solveig Robinson, Nottingham Trent University

From Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals

 

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DISCLAIMER

Any views and opinions expressed in these essays are those of the author in question, and any views or opinions from the original source material are those of the publication in question. Gale, part of Cengage Group, provides facsimile reproductions of original sources and do not endorse or dispute the content contained in them. Author affiliation and information within them are correct as of the original publication date.

Featured archives

AMERICAN AMATEUR NEWSPAPERS
FROM THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

An extensive collection of publications that were created (largely) by young people during the second half of the nineteenth century, with an array of material (including editorials, original short fiction, essays, poetry, and more) that provide a unique and often under-represented voice in research.

BRITISH LIBRARY NEWSPAPERS

Consisting of six parts, this series forms one of the largest collections of regional newspapers from the UK, providing an alternative voice to the major national newspapers. This project has digitised titles from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, providing over 200 years of rare documents.

DAILY MAIL HISTORICAL ARCHIVE, 1896-2016*

Part of our growing "middle market" collection of influential national newspapers that reflect twentieth-century popular culture and tastes, this archive gives researchers an alternative to the ‘newspapers of record’ – and includes the rare and difficult to access Daily Mail Atlantic Edition.

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE, 1887-2013

This archive provides the full run of this daily paper from its launch as the New York Herald up until its rebranding as the New York Times International Edition, covering its evolution from the essential newspaper for the expatriate American to its focused reporting of international news.

THE MIRROR
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE, 1903-2000

Aimed at a working-class mass-market audience, the Mirror became influential in shifting the course of British newspapers and journalism, starting the dominance of tabloids in the twentieth century—offering researchers a valuable left-wing, populist alternative to the major broadsheets.

NINETEENTH CENTURY UK PERIODICALS

This project was undertaken in response to demand from scholarly communities, and the two resulting archives support researchers in almost every subject area. They contain well known publications alongside obscure documents, covering everything from hobby interests to issues of global importance.

POLITICAL EXTREMISM AND RADICALISM

This series provides insight on unorthodox groups and movements from right and left of the political spectrum through rare material, helping researchers explore governmental and societal systems and the environment that created them, their origins, and their adversaries.

PUNCH HISTORICAL ARCHIVE, 1841-1992

This archive includes nearly 7,900 issues from all volumes of Punch, the world's most celebrated magazine of wit and satire. It contains Almanacks and special numbers, and in collaboration with Liverpool John Moore’s University, authorship has been attributed and made searchable using the ledgers.

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY NICHOLS NEWSPAPERS COLLECTION

John Nichols was a printer, Master of the Stationers’ Company, biographer, and historian. Made in collaboration with the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this digitized archive contains over 150,000 pages of printed text and contains some of the most influential titles in British publishing history.

WOMEN'S STUDIES ARCHIVE

Covering large parts of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, this series supports research into the social, political, and professional aspects of women’s lives, and offers insight into the pioneers of women’s history and their achievements, with focus on material created by women.