Gale News and Teams

A New Course in Gale Digital Scholar Lab: Introduction to Digital Humanities

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│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist│

In today’s rapidly evolving academic landscape, digital tools are reshaping the way we study literature, history, and culture. As digital humanities (DH) becomes increasingly central to research and teaching, instructors—particularly graduate students and early-career faculty—often find themselves faced with the challenge of integrating digital methodologies into their courses. To address this need Introduction to Digital Humanities offers a structured, assignable course designed to equip students with essential digital research skills. It provides an accessible, hands-on approach to digital humanities, helping instructors save valuable time while fostering critical data literacy in students.

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Global Development and Humanitarian Aid: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1919-1997

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│By Clem Delany, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Note: Links to documents in this blog post will be provided on publication of the digital archive.

Like many people in the UK, my first experience of humanitarian appeals was through charity campaigns at school or through Blue Peter. The first one I strongly recall is sending care packages to Romania. Famine in Ethiopia and the need for wells in Africa also loom large in my memories of this era; if Matt Baker told me to give money I said how much (up to a limit of £2)?

Years later, studying history at University, I took a module on the Greek famine of 1941-1942. It was something I had known nothing about, illustrated with stark numbers of Axis requisitions, of the dead and the starving, and by accounts from survivors.

Primary sources for situations such as famines can be a real challenge for scholars; data is shaky, accounts are limited. Few people in a famine zone are there to count heads or write a dissertation; they are either struggling to survive the disaster or there to provide aid.

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An Eighteenth-Century Intersectional Feminist? Exploring the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Eighteenth Century Collections Online

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│By Leila Marhamati, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Maybe “Intersectional Feminist” is taking it a bit far, but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) has certainly been described as a woman ahead of her time. Best known today for the correspondence she maintained while traveling with her husband through the Ottoman Empire from 1716 to 1718, Lady Mary was commonly on the fringes of and often at the forefront of major historical developments in Britain and the Western world. She provided startlingly positive views on non-Western cultures and scientific experimentation at a time when both were viewed with suspicion. And yet, she was still located within a society that embraced hierarchical institutions and systems of oppression.

Using Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), we can trace these many aspects of Lady Mary and, through them, glean insights into the eighteenth century as a whole. This post contains some documents from the forthcoming release Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part III, available in March 2026.

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The Mirror and Women: Female Readers, Female Writers

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│By Lucy McCormick, Gale Ambassador at the University of Birmingham│

The Daily Mirror began life in 1903 as a journal for respectable women – a burgeoning demographic at the fin-de-siècle, to whom the major daily newspapers did not cater. It launched staffed by women and pursued a female (although not exclusively) readership. Adrian Bingham’s article for Gale is a fascinating exploration of the Daily Mirror’s relationship with women. Building upon this rich contextual knowledge, this blog stresses the significance of this venture to embolden female readers and female writers in the androcentric tabloid press.

How did the Mirror depict women? Why did Arthur Harmsworth centralise women in his newspaper? How did women forge new roles for themselves as journalists and readers? This Women’s History Month, we are delving into Gale’s archive of the Mirror from 1903 to find out more.

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How A Girl Should Be: How Female Experiences Have Changed Over Time

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│By Olivia McDermott, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool│

As International Women’s Day begins to approach, it seems fitting that we should reflect upon the many ways in which the female experience has changed over time.

Historically, from a patriarchal lens, the female experience has been aligned with ideas of subjugation, inferiority, and passivity. With the societal expectations of marriage and childrearing being deemed as intrinsic aspects of womanhood, up until the early Victorian period, women’s freedoms were extremely limited. However, this began to change by the end of the eighteenth century, as the passing of The Education Act (1870) allowed girls to receive the same education as boys.

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Using Newspaper Articles to Uncover the History of Eating Disorders from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century

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│By Lebohang Seganoe, Gale Ambassador at the University of Johannesburg│

As a child, you absorb everything you are taught within the community you are raised in. Because your mind is still developing you rarely question how different someone’s reality might be from your own. I grew up in a society that had strong views on beauty standards. These include that a woman in her prime must have a full face and big curves, and she must look like she is eating well so that her potential spouse can see that she can bear as many children as possible. This post will explore different beauty standards and their impact on women’s bodies.

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Mourning and Memory, Transforming Rites: Tracing the Role of Ritual in the Evolution of the British Deathscape

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│By Megan Harlow, Gale Ambassador at Durham University│

Death remains one of the few universal human experiences. After all, as mortal beings, we are all bound to face it. Yet, in today’s British landscape, death and dying have become private, taboo topics—seldom discussed until society and/or the individual is confronted in the wake of loss. For many, encounters with death prove transformative, requiring a renegotiation of identity and an exploration of grief’s emotional complexities. The role of ritual in death and bereavement becomes significant.

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Unlocking the Past: Advancing Discoverability of Gale Primary Sources

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Photographs. Amateur Theatricals, 1890

|By Magaly Taylor, Discovery and Usage Product Manager, Gale│

Archives provide valuable access to the past, enabling educators and researchers in the humanities and social sciences to incorporate historical collections into their work. Primary source archives products are invaluable for research and learning, encapsulating entire historical periods through diverse content like manuscripts, images, and publications.

This blog post explores the use of metadata to discover primary source content and Gale’s activities to enhance the discoverability of their eResources.

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The American Civil War: The International Perspective – The First Digital Archive of Its Kind

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│By Emma Harris, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

A fundamental topic in American history, the American Civil War (1861-1865) was a major event of the nineteenth century, not just in America but also in global politics, with ramifications for the future of slavery and ideas of popular, democratic government. Lecturers and researchers have increasingly been looking to study the war in its international context as the trajectory and outcome of the war impacted those beyond just America—especially in Europe.

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Hacking History with Gale Digital Scholar Lab

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│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist │

On 5th December 2024, the Gale Digital Scholar Lab team, in association with Loyola University Chicago, University Libraries, offered a hands-on workshop freely available to researchers, educators, librarians, and anyone interested in exploring innovative ways to improve their digital humanities (DH) research skills. “Hacking History” brought together a diverse community for a day of collaboration, conversation and collegiality – along with some friendly competition between teams to create digital projects over the course of the day. 

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