Connected Histories

Connected Histories currently enables cross-searching of 15 major online resources, including the John Johnson Collection. They are: British History online, British Museum images, British Newspapers 1600-1900 (NB currently only the 17th and 18th century Burney collection: 19th century newspapers will be added soon).  Cause papers in the diocesan courts of the Archbishopric of York 1300-1858, Charles Booth archive (LSE), Clergy of the Church of England database 1540-1835, Convict transportation registers database, House of Commons parliamentary papers, John Foxe's The acts and monuments online, The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera (ProQuest), John Strype's Survey of London online, London Lives 1690-1800, Nineteenth century British pamphlets, Origins.net, The proceedings of the Old Bailey online 1674-1913.

Most of these resources (except Origins.net) are free to all or free to HE within the UK. They are all very powerful research tools in their own right.  Putting them into a cross-searchable resource enables fascinating links to be made. Ephemera take their rightful place in providing insights into our history.

You can choose which of the resources to cross-search. Clearly Crime is well represented. The John Johnson Collection Murders and Executions broadsides and other crime ephemera were digitised for the ProQuest project and a further project Mapping Crime enabled this material to be cross-searched with other collections, such as Harvard and the Old Bailey online. The addition of the Convict transportation registers database has enabled the fates of those sentenced to transportation to be traced.

Connected Histories has identified eight major research areas which will be well served by this resource and has written guides about each: Crime and justice, Family history, History of London, Imperial and colonial history, Local history, Parliamentary history, Poverty and poor relief, and  Religious history. There is a further guide on Searching for images which focuses on the John Johnson Collection and the British Museum.

You can save searches to your personal workspace, download images, etc. Connected histories is on Twitter: @connecthistory.

I searched for "frost fair" and got results from 5 resources. I could then choose to restrict these to document type, date range or availability (free or subscription).

Search for frost fair. (C) Connected histories

A search for Criminal (not a serious search of course!) returned 255,621 results across 14 resouces, including the (subscription only) Burney Collection (17th and 18th century newspapers).

English ballads in the National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland has catalogued and digitised 2,300 English ballads, mostly 19th century. There are 23 topics. with Wars further subdivided: Courtship and marriage (383), Crime and punishment (94), Disasters (26), Elegies and laments (92), Emigration and farewells (56), Fashion (20), 'Foreigners' (23), Ireland (190), Literature and theatre (65), Misc (23), Occupations (107), Old age and death (26), Patriotism (73), Politics and government (321), Religion and morality (102), Royalty (136), Scotland (24), Slavery (10), Soldiers and sailors (177), Sons and daughters (57), Sports and entertainments (99), Temperance and various vices (50), Wars: Spanish Succession (13), Wars: Seven Year's War (7), Wars: French Revolutionary (12),  Wars: Napoleonic (62), Wars: Crimean (61), Wars: Indian (14), Wars: Other (28).

As with Word on the Street (Scottish broadsides - see blog post 30.11.11), you can browse and search. As the screen shot shows, expandable menus on the left allow you to subdivide your results by Form, Place, Subject (including further subject subdivisions), Place, People and Century. There are also transcriptions of the text. An excellent resource.

(C) National Library of Scotland

The Lamb Collection at Dundee Central Library

The Lamb Collection at Dundee Cental Library Local History Centre contains 450 boxes of ephemera, including photographs, maps, prints and books. Alexander Crawford Lamb (1843-1897), owner of a Dundee temperance hotel, set out to preserve evidence of Dundee's past -in  trade, commerce and the activities of its inhabitants.

Much of this material is now being surfaced, through the the Local History Centre website, which has an introduction to the collection, Lamb's biography and obituary, and sections on 19th century entertainment, cholera epidemics and crime. Each of these subjects is introduced and is represented by a short slide show.

© Dundee City Council 2009

Beyond this, The Silence of the Lamb project has led to the cataloguing and digitisation of 2,400 items, available through Resources for Learning in Scotland. 491 of these so far can be browsed as a collection as well as cross-searched with other collections. A feature of RLS is its Pathfinders, which provides themed learning resources.

The National Archive Image Library

The National Archive Image Library is a commercial image service, but also offers a glimpse of ephemera and other images from the National Archive's vast collections. The images are divided into the following categories: Buildings and factories, Colonial and empire, Crime, Design, Entertainment and theatre, Events and exhibitions, First World War, Mamuscripts, Maps, Medical, Military, Mining, People, Piracy, Places, Politics, Second World War, Slavery, Transport and Travel, and Victoriana.

(C) National Archives

There are also Monthly showcases which take a seasonal or topical theme, to date:  New Year, Winter, War and National Savings, Queens and Crowns, London, Seaside, Sports, Titanic, Creative Images, and Festival of Britain.

(C) The National Archives

Further images, mainly photographic but including some ephemera, are available copyright-free through The National Archives UK's Photostream on Flickr.  These have been tagged. The screen shot shows images relating to Christmas.

British Newspaper Archive: British Library

The new British Newspaper Archive is a wonderful resource not only in itself, but also for contextualising and dating ephemera. .Functionality is superb, with browsing, searching, filtering of results, interactive map, highlights, facility to save search results to a personal workspace, etc. Searching is free and you see thumbnails of your results, but outside the British Library a subscription is necessary to see the full images.

© brightsolid Newspaper Archive Limited 2011

Broadsides at the National Library of Scotland

The Word on the Street is devoted to Scottish broadsides, including public notices, ballads, speeches, and crime broadsides, between 1690 and 1910. Nearly 1,800 broadsides are available as jpegs and downloadable pdfs, complete with scholarly commentaries and transcriptions (with full-text searching and hit-highlighting). All can be browsed by title or subject or searched by keyword.
There are also excellent pages introducing the background, distribution and illustration of broadsides and highlights from Crime, Ballads, Emigration, Sport, Tragedy and disaster, Marvels, and Humour.
The screen shot is of Scotch Medley, in honour of St. Andrew's Day.

National Library of Scotland © 2004

John Johnson Collection digital projects

(c) Proquest

The website contains links to our digital projects:
The John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera (free in UK to HE, FE, Schools and Public Libraries). Themes: Advertising; Crime, Murders and Executions; 19th Century Entertainment; Popular Prints; Booktrade

Oxford Digitial Library: 18th century Entertainment; Writing Blanks and Board Games

VADS: this site includes Political Cartoons and Trades and Professions Prints from the John Johnson Collection

Toyota Project: Motor Cars; and selected images of other forms of transport

Ballads (all Bodleian Ballads, including those from the John Johnson Collection)