LibGuides: French Studies: 19th & early-20th Century

Digital Collections

The John Hay Library’s major nineteenth-century resources are featured in the Paris in the 19^th Century digital project. The multi-disciplinary approach of this web site serves as a discovery tool to the many illustrated works, prints and caricatures in the collections for students and researchers in History, Art and Architecture, French Studies, and Comparative Literature.

Paris, Capital of the 19th Century
A digital project initiated by the French Studies and Comparative Literature Departments of Brown University. It provides a window into the cultural, political and social context of 19th century Parisian culture. It offers online access to pictorial works and texts selected from the collections at the John Hay Library.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
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Primary source collections of the 19th century, covering the age of industrialization and technological innovation, political revolution, colonialism, nation building, educational reform, and other topics.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online is focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century, with archives releasing incrementally beginning in spring 2012. The nineteenth century was the first great age of industrialization and technological innovation. It was an age of political revolution and reform, nationalism and nation building, the expansion of empire and colonialism, growing literacy and education, and the flowering of culture both popular and high. It was an age that witnessed the development of the power-driven printing press and the massive explosion of written material that dwarfs the output of the centuries that preceded it. Any undertaking that attempts to synthesize the vast array of nineteenth-century content may be at best only provisionally comprehensive.

Special Collections - John Hay Library

The French studies 19th Century primary sources cut across a wide range of named and signature collections, with substantial holdings on the literature and cultural history of the early modern and modern periods, eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century literature and intellectual history.

The John Hay Library holds a small but important set of books on the Paris World Fairs and runs of popular newspapers such as L’Illustration and Le Petit Journal, as well as the “Dreyfus affair periodical collection” with issues of periodicals which represent the point of view of both supporters and adversaries of Albert Dreyfus.

John Hay Library has strong collections in the discipline of gender and sexuality studies as well as poetry, fiction and scientific treatises for nineteenth century and early twentieth century. A copy of the short-lived periodical Akademos which is considered to be the first French magazine of interest to LGBT readers was added to the collection along with several works by Péladan, Jean Cocteau, Natalie Barney, and Renée Vivien. A fine collection of Baudelaire works has been created over the years. Among the notable editions is a numbered copy of Les Fleurs du Mal illustrated with etchings and wood engravings by Charles Rochegrosse and a numbered edition of La Fanfarlo with illustrations by the poet himself, including outstanding editions of translations of Poe by Baudelaire such as the 1856 first edition of Histoires extraordinaires by Michel Lévy frères.

19th Century Newspapers

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2018) This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to full text and full image articles for newspapers dating back to the 19th century.
This historical newspaper provides researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and unparalleled coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Times (London) Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to more than 200 years of the Times, 1795-2019.
1795-2010; researchers can search through the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.
Nineteenth (19th) Century U.S. Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to approximately 1.8 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full text and images from newspapers from urban and rural regions throughout the United States.
Provides access to approximately 1.5 million pages of primary source newspaper content from the 19th century, featuring full text content and images from numerous newspapers from a range of urban and rural regions throughout the U.S. The collection encompasses the entire 19th century, with an emphasis on such topics as the American Civil War, African-American culture and history, Western migration and Antebellum-era life among other subjects.
Nineteenth (19th) Century British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to newspapers selected by the British Library to present 19th century Britain.
Searchable full text of full runs of newspapers specially selected by the British Library to best represent nineteenth-century Britain. This collection includes national and regional newspapers, as well as newspapers from: established country or university towns; the new industrial powerhouses of the manufacturing Midlands; and Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Special attention was paid to include newspapers that helped lead particular political or social movements such as Reform, Chartism, and Home Rule. Penny papers aimed at the working and clerical classes are also included.