Gale Ambassadors

Uncovering New Angles and Arguments with Text Mining

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│By Georgia Platt, Gale Ambassador at Lancaster University│

Six months ago, I knew nothing about Digital Humanities or text mining. It wasn’t really a topic covered in my undergraduate degree in History, and I’d always been a bit unsure of the place technology has in historical research. Then I began my MA in Digital Humanities, which I chose to try and engage with these technological aspects of humanities studies that I hadn’t had the opportunity to explore before. I spent the first ten weeks of this course doing an intensive text mining module, and it revolutionised my approach to historical study.

If you’re curious about text mining but don’t know where to start, or are a digital humanities sceptic looking to be proved wrong, this blog post is for you. I will start with some basic theory of what text mining is and what kinds of questions it can answer, then I’ll put my practical skills to the test with an example from my studies in Victorian crime and punishment.

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History, Politics and Memory: Ostalgie in Contemporary German Society

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│By Matt Hudson, Gale Ambassador at the University of Durham│

October 3rd, 1990 became a symbol of post-Cold War optimism. As the reunification of Germany was marked with joyous celebrations, liberalism had emerged victorious. The collapse of the stagnant East German regime heralded not just the end of totalitarianism and censorship, but also the triumph of ‘people power’.

This picture appears naïve in today’s climate. In the former East Germany (German Democratic Republic or GDR), economic progress since reunification has not prevented voters from supporting the far-right AfD in their droves. Ostalgie, meaning nostalgia for life in the GDR, served as an early warning sign that the so-called ‘end of history’ was a misnomer.

But when did Ostalgie become an observed phenomenon? How did disaffection with life in a united Germany arise? And has this nostalgia been misinterpreted by western reporters?

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Benevolence and Blame: The Question of Race in America’s Early-Twentieth-Century Tuberculosis Crisis

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| By Alice Shadbolt, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool |

Between 1915 and 1940, tuberculosis posed one of the most urgent public health crises for North America and Europe. However, its impact was far from evenly distributed. In the United States, mortality rates amongst Black communities were consistently higher than those recorded amongst white Americans, a disparity that became a central preoccupation of contemporary public health discourse.

Drawing on Gale’s Public Health Archives, which preserves the reports, policy documents, and educational materials produced by municipal and state health departments, this post examines how these institutions approached and explained this disparity. A close reading of these documents reveals how language was strategically deployed to redirect responsibility onto Black communities themselves, pathologising race and obscuring the lived implications of racial inequality.

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Interpreting the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and Global Security in Declassified British Intelligence

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│By Eleanor Turner, Gale Ambassador at the University of Leeds│

Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence offers unique insight into how governments understand and respond to global security threats. The emergence of nuclear weapons in 1945 fundamentally altered the structure of international politics, leading governments to rethink what military conflict could escalate to and the devastating consequences of deploying nuclear weapons. Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence shows how the British government strategised to overcome these changes.

Joint Intelligence Committee: memoranda 21-41. February-September, 1957.
Joint Intelligence Committee: memoranda 21-41. February-September, 1957. MS Cabinet Office: CAB 158: Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee later Committee: Memoranda (JIC Series) CAB 158/28. The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom). Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/KBZRTF084274961/TCBI?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TCBI&xid=36c0c368&pg=137&xty=open

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Contours of Connection: Exploring India–Africa Ties Through Memory, Movement, and Meaning

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│By Anushka Srivastava, Gale Ambassador at the University of Delhi, India│

India-Africa relations are strengthening in a new global scenario, driven by economic complementarity, strategic alignment, and a shared focus on multilateralism. In 2025, India strengthened its ties with Africa through several high-level visits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a significant five-nation tour in July 2025, in Ghana and Namibia, and President Droupadi Murmu made a historic visit to Angola in November 2025.

Understanding the long-standing relationship between India and Africa requires exploring the historical documents that shaped early contact, mobility, diplomacy, economic networks, and political exchange. For this, Gale Primary Sources offers unparalleled access to documents that illuminate how people, commodities, and ideas moved between the two regions.

This blog post traces these linkages through four lenses – historical, diplomatic, economic, and political – using illustrative citations from Gale Primary Sources collections.

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Critical Thinking in Business Studies using Gale Primary Sources

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│By Brendon Ndoro, Gale Ambassador at the University of Cape Town│

In Business studies, it is easy to assume that success is all about securing the best return on investment. However, true academic and professional success requires a deeper, more analytical approach: critical thinking.

The foundational concepts explored in the study of business ethics, particularly covered in the “Business Ethics”1 textbook by Jimmy Winfield, George Hull, and Greg Fried, will be used to explore the topic of critical thinking and how it can be used to distinguish between what is merely profitable and what is genuinely right.

The Times Digital Archive offers us the ability to travel back in time, providing us the opportunity to audit the reasoning of past business leaders and equip ourselves with the logical tools needed to succeed today.

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Discovering American Roots of the Indian Independence Movement through Gale Primary Sources: The Hindu-German Conspiracy Trials in the USA

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Montage of historical images

| By Amandeep, Gale Ambassador at Banaras Hindu University |

Whenever the Indian revolutionary movement outside India is taught in history classes at different universities and colleges, the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 and the revolutionary activities of the Ghadar Movement in the United States certainly bring a thrilling experience to students and teachers. However, over the years, it has become a footnote when it comes to bringing new discourses.

For decades, the revolutionary movements outside India have not been rethought in the ways they should have been. The paucity of primary sources and travel limitations have been among the significant reasons why scholars and students have been unable to rethink and revisit the revolutionary movements abroad, especially in the USA.

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A Right Won, A Civic Duty to Learn: Women’s Civic Education After the Nineteenth Amendment

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│By Kat Weiss, Gale Academic Intern |

In the years leading up to the Nineteenth Amendment and after its ratification in 1920, American women realised that equality did not end with the right to vote. They recognised that they now had a civic duty to their country, to use this newfound right responsibly. With that realisation came a new question: now that women could participate in democracy, how would they learn to practice it?

They did not have access to the same education and resources as their male peers because the system was not built for them; they needed to find new ways to educate themselves and each other. With that in mind, the Nineteenth Amendment opened a new chapter in women’s history, one centred on learning how to exercise civic power. Using primary sources from Gale’s Nineteenth Century Collections Online, we can trace how women across the USA began to define and teach the responsibilities of citizenship.

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Exploring Corporate Social Responsibility Through the Times Digital Archive

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│By Brendon Ndoro, Gale Ambassador at the University of Cape Town│

When does one acknowledge the impact of their decisions on society? How does one remedy their wrongdoings? When does one act in response to the threat their actions bring upon the welfare and sustainability of society and the environment?

These are a few questions Business Studies students may come across when delving into the world of business ethics. A great starting point to answering questions like these lies in understanding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is an ongoing practice in the world of business. It is a management concept focusing on the integration of social and environmental concerns into a business’s operations and relationships with various stakeholders.

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Italian Futurism and Gale Primary Sources

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│By Caley Collins, Gale Ambassador at University College London (UCL)│

Italian Futurism was an avant-garde movement founded in 1909 by F. T. Marinetti upon the publication of his tract The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism. The Futurists aimed to radically break from the past and create new types of literature, art, photography, and even music. They intended to glorify technology, aggression, and speed while destroying artistic and literary conventions.

The movement officially ended in 1944 with Marinetti’s death, however it is often considered to have had two phases. The first, more valiant phase is perceived as having ended in 1916 upon the deaths of several key members of the movement, including Umberto Boccioni, in WWI. In the subsequent years, Futurism moved in a different direction, allying itself with the Italian National Fascist Party and thus occasioning its own downfall. Using Gale Primary Sources, this post will explore the different facets of Futurism’s attempted creative emancipation from the past, alongside the movement’s legacy.

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