The British Library website contains an extensive amount of digital content including newspapers, manuscripts, theses, multimedia, festival books, etc.
-Fordham University Internet Sourcebook: The Industrial Revolution
Provides valuable primary sources related to the Industrial Revolution.
-Fordham University Internet Sourcebook: The Second Industrial Revolution
Provides valuable primary sources related to the Second Industrial Revolution.
-History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
"History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web was first developed in 1998 by the American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, with initial funding from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Over the past several years, it has become a highly regarded gateway to web resources as well as a repository of unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence for high school and college students and teachers of American history."
The Internet Archive is a non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. Its mission is to provide “permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.”
The Library of Congress is the nation’s first established cultural institution and the largest library in the world, with millions of items including books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections.
Comprised mainly of books and primary sources this collection contains international coverage of social,economic, history, law and women's studies from the late half of the nineteenth century.
-The National Archives and Records Administration Catalog
The National Archives Catalog is the main portal to search NARA’s collections. The catalog currently contains archival descriptions for 85% of the holdings of the National Archives, authority files, and over 2 million digitized records
-The National Archives, United Kingdom
The National Archives is committed to preserving government records of the United Kingdom. The collection is one of the largest in the world, containing over 11 million historical government and public records.
-New York Public Library: Digital Collections
The site offers users access to over 600,000 items digitized from the New York Public Library’s collections. The database features prints, photographs, manuscripts, maps, and video that can be accessed through keyword search or browsing.
-Smithsonian Institution Archives
The Smithsonian Institution Archives “captures, preserves, and makes available to the public the history of this extraordinary Institution.”
-Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center
The Smithsonian Collections Search Center is an online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major collections. There are 9.3 million catalog records relating to areas for Art & Design, History & Culture, and Science & Technology with over 1.3 million images, videos, audio files, podcasts, blog posts and electronic journals.
-Smithsonian Libraries Digital Collections
The Smithsonian Libraries Digital Collections provides users access to over 5,000 scanned books, photo collections, videos, scholarly bibliographies, virtual exhibitions, and searchable databases of resources related to art, history, science, technology and library and museum collections or exhibitions.
A major resources for the study of medical history, particularly in the United Kingdom. The library includes maps, timelines, personal accounts, and more.
British History Online is a digital library of printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800.
-Cotton Town: Blackburn and Darwen
This site chronicles the cotton industry in the towns of Blackburn and Darwen. Cotton Town offers valuable information relating to the mechanization of the cotton industry, the day-to-day lives of the mill workers, and the working conditions in the mills.
Euro Docs offer a number of electronic open access primary sources. The collection contains text, sound recordings, moving images, maps, and photographs.
-Images of the Industrial Revolution in Britain
"This site contains a selection of fifty artworks from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that illustrate the various aspects of Britain’s Industrial Revolution."
-Knitting Together: The Heritage of the East Midlands Knitting Industry
This site chronicles the history of the East Midlands Knitting Industry. It offers valuable information relating to the evolution of the knitting industry through text, images, and oral histories. Students will be particularly interested in the themes relating to mechanization and industrialization.
-London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery: Collage
"COLLAGE provides quick and easy access to large areas of the wonderful visual collections at London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery." It currently offers access to over 130,000 works, which span from the 15th century to today. The Trade and Industry section of the site is particularly useful for those researching the Industrial Revolution (available here).
-Mount Holyoke College: The Industrial Revolution and the Railway System
This site focuses on the evolution of the British railway system during the Industrial Revolution.
"Citizenship looks at the changing demands for collective and individual rights as Britain - and, before that, England, Scotland and Wales - ceased to be a static and interdependent feudal society and became an industrialised and then post-industrial one. It explores ideas of what the subject or citizen owed to the state, whether in terms of feudal dues, obedience to the law, or payment of taxes." The exhibition presents archival documents and images from the National Archives, UK and the Parliamentary Archives. The section titled "The Struggle for Democracy, 1789-1906" offers valuable resources related to child labor, Chartism, trade unionism, and voting rights.
-The National Archives, United Kingdom: Empire and Industry, 1750-1850
This educational resource explores the impact of the Industrial Revolution and how life changed for most British citizens. There is a particular focus on political protest, crime and punishment, and factory life.
-The National Archives, United Kingdom: Victorians, 1850-1901
This educational resource explores topics related to Victorian England.
-Spinning the Web: The Story of the Cotton Industry
"Spinning the Web brings together for the first time a unique collection of some 20,000 items from the libraries, museums and archives of North West England which tell the story of the Lancashire Cotton Industry." This site provides information relating to the cotton industry in England, the mechanization of spinning, and the day-to-day lives of those who worked in the mills.
-University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth: Aspects of the Industrial Revolution in Britain
This guide provides a number of useful primary and secondary source resources relating to the Industrial Revolution.
Contains approximately 88,000 documents and images related to the Victorian era. This section specifically focuses on the Industrial Revolution.
-Carnegie Corporation of New York
This site provides basic biographical information about Andrew Carnegie. There are also some select images and audio/visual recordings.
-Cornell University: International ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs (1885-1985)
"The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was formed in 1900 by merging smaller related craft unions which were later organized on local, regional, department, and international levels. "
"Photographs document everyday life and work at home, in garment shops, at the Union’s offices, in the streets and the courts, and abroad."
Some of the oldest photographs may be applicable for those researching the Industrial Revolution and the formation of trade unions in America.
-Cornell University: Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire
This site provides valuable primary source materials relating to the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire.
-Eastern Illinois University: Childhood Lost, Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution
"These papers and extensive captions that describe the photo subjects reflect results of this early documentary effort. They offer a detailed depiction of working and living conditions of many children - as well as adults -- in the United States between 1908 and 1924."
Covers both U.S. history, with full-text articles and primary sources, as well as access to the abstracts and citations in the premier U.S. historical bibliography, America History & Life.
-Harvard University: Women Working, 1800-1930
"Women Working, 1800–1930 is a digital exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented in this online research collection from Harvard University."
The Henry Ford offers a number of primary source materials relating to the Industrial Revolution, Henry Ford, innovation and technology, the automobile, and much more.
-The Illinois Digital Library: World's Colombian Exposition of 1893 from the Field Museum
The Illinois Digital Archives offers a number of photographic materials relating to the World's Colombian Exposition of 1893.
-The Library of Congress: Alexander Graham Bell Papers
"The collection contains over 145,000 items. The online version contains 4,695 items (equaling about 51,500 images), consists of correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell's invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the education of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research."
-The Library of Congress: American at Work, American at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894-1915
"Work, school, and leisure activities in the United States from 1894 to 1915 are featured in this presentation of 150 motion pictures. Highlights include films of the United States Postal Service from 1903, cattle breeding, fire fighters, ice manufacturing, logging, calisthenic and gymnastic exercises in schools, amusement parks, boxing, expositions, football, parades, swimming, and other sporting events."
-The Library of Congress: Detroit Publishing Company
"This collection of photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. Subjects strongly represented in the collection include city and town views, including streets and architecture; parks and gardens; recreation; and industrial and work scenes." This collection offers a insight into the every day lives of Americans from the 1890s through the 1920s.
-The Library of Congress: The Industrial Revolution in the United States
This guide was compiled by the Library of Congresses staff in order to provide teachers with primary source resources related to the Industrial Revolution. Students may find this guide to be a useful starting point for their own research as it outlines the types of materials the Library of Congress has in its collections.
-The Library of Congress: National Child Labor Committee Collection
"Working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The NCLC photos are useful for the study of labor, reform movements, children, working class families, education, public health, urban and rural housing conditions, industrial and agricultural sites, and other aspects of urban and rural life in America in the early twentieth century." The collection consists of more than 5,100 photographic prints and 355 glass negatives.
Researchers interested in this collection should also reference the National Archives' Record Group 102: Records of the Children's Bureau, 1908-2003 (available here). The National Child Labor Committee Photographs taken by Lewis Hines series within that record groups may be of particular interest (available here).
-The Library of Congress: The Westinghouse Works Collection
"The Westinghouse Works Collection contains 21 actuality films showing various views of Westinghouse companies. Most prominently featured are the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and the Westinghouse Machine Company. The films were intended to showcase the company's operations. Exterior and interior shots of the factories are shown along with scenes of male and female workers performing their duties at the plants."
-The National Archives and Records Administration: The Development of the Industrial US (1870-1900)
This selection of documents chronicle the rise of industrial America in the late nineteenth century.
"This series consists of black-and-white photographic prints given to the Children's Bureau by the National Child Labor Committee. The photographs were taken by investigative photographer Lewis Hine. The almost five hundred photographs represent a fraction of the approximately 5,000 photographs Hine took for the committee to document working and living conditions for children. Pictured are children engaged in a variety of industries located in the Southern, Middle Atlantic, and Northeastern United States. Included are images of children working as harvesters in agricultural field work; pickers in seafood, vegetable, and fruit canneries; workers in cotton mills, and glass, furniture, and cigar factories; and as peddlers and newspaper sellers in street trades. In addition, there are photographs of "breaker boys" in the coal mines and children working in homework occupations, such as artificial flower arranging." A number of the photographs have been digitized and can be viewed online. Researchers interested in this series should also reference the Library of Congress' National Child Labor Committee Collection (available here).
-The National Archives and Records Administration: Patent Case Files, 1836 - 1993
"This series consists of patented case files. Each patented case file includes the jacket, printed specifications and drawings of the issued patent, petitions, applicant's initial specifications, oath of invention, reports by patent attorneys, applicant's drawings, amendments to the petition, powers of attorney, notices of allowances and fee payments, receipts for fees, and correspondence with inventor(s) and their attorneys. The letters patent were given to the inventor." Some of the records in this series have been digitized and are available for viewing online.
-The University of California, Berkley: The Emma Goldman Papers
"The Emma Goldman Papers is part of a national initiative to retrieve the papers of individuals whose life work has had a lasting impact on the course of American history. Since 1980, the Emma Goldman Papers Project at UCB has collected, organized, and edited tens of thousands of documents from around the world by and about Emma Goldman (1869-1940), a leading figure in American anarchism, feminism, and radicalism. In the spirit of Emma Goldman, the EGPP has extended its scholarly research to serve the community-to educate the public about the complexity of engagement in social and political transformation. "
-The University of Chicago Archives: World's Colombian Exposition
The University of Chicago Archives offers a number of photographic materials relating to the World's Colombian Exposition of 1893.
-The University of Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania Labor Legacy
"The Labor Legacy Web site strives to “map” the historical terrain of the labor movement in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania for the use of both the academic and general public."
-The University of Washington: Labor Press Project
"This site brings together information about the history and ongoing influence of newspapers and periodicals published by unions, labor councils, and radical organizations in the Pacific Northwest."