Society and Politics

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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El País – El Periódico Global en Español

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│By Phil Virta, Senior Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

¡Bienvenidos a todos! En este artículo aprendemos detalles sobre El País, el periódico global en Español. La palabra “país” se refiere a una nación o territorio que forma una unidad geográfica, política y cultural, con su propio gobierno y leyes.

In English, welcome everyone! In this article we are going to learn about El País, the global Spanish newspaper. The words “el país” mean “the country”, and in this case refer to Spain itself.

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China in Print: Two Centuries of English-Language Reporting, 1827-1974

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│By Lindsay Whitaker-Guest, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Gale Primary Sources has recently released its latest addition to the groundbreaking series China and the Modern World. China and the Modern World: The English Language Press in China, 1827-1974 features 25 English-language newspapers and periodicals published over the course of 150 years of immense change and transformation in China.

These newspapers and periodicals played a significant role in the cultural and political life of major Chinese cities, offering critical and diverse reporting on milestone events. In this post I will delve into these newly digitised titles and discuss some of the stories and insights which can be researched through this unique new resource.

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The Making of Marriage Law: Insights from Colonial Kenya

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| By Lindsay Whitaker-Guest, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources |

Gale Primary Sources recently released its latest module in the landmark legal history series, The Making of Modern Law. The Making of Modern Law: British Colonial Law: Acts, Ordinances, and Proclamations from the Colonies, 1900-1989 contains legislation from all corners of the British Empire and was digitised from the Colonial Office collections held at the National Archives in the UK.

The legislation in the archive covers all aspects of colonial life in a century which saw British-held territories transformed by war, disease, rebellion, and decolonisation. However, for this post we will examine how the empire governed one fundamental aspect of domestic life: marriage.

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Coming Soon: Global Politics and US Foreign Policy: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1918–2000

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

December 2025 will see the launch of a new digital archive, Global Politics and US Foreign Policy: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1918–2000.

This is the digitisation of material from the Studies Department, Records of Groups, and the Records of Meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan, independent US think tank focused on the international relations of the United States and its role in the world.

This role, and public perceptions of it, has altered greatly throughout the twentieth century, from the isolationist principles of the 1920s and 30s, to the American engagement in WWII and subsequent support in Allied recovery processes, to the Cold War, global anti-communist fears, and the growth of American soft power. In 2025, many of the programs of the United States Agency for International Development (established in 1961 and a key tool of US soft power) were shut down and a new phase of US international relations began.

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Terra Nullius: The Legacy of “The Land of No One”

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│By Oralkhanova Alima, Year 11 Student at Nazarbaev Intellectual School in Semey, Kazakhstan│

In an era when concerns about overpopulation and scarcity of natural resources are rising, it may seem paradoxical that certain areas of land remain unclaimed and unwanted. Even today, when countries continue to engage in territorial disputes and conflicts, there still exist regions that have been ignored by the international community. To describe such territories, early international law introduced a specific term – terra nullius, a Latin expression meaning “the land of no one”. Although this term is no longer officially used, the concept of terra nullius continues to captivate people’s minds.

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In the Footsteps of My Avô: Exploring Angola’s Fight for Independence Through Family History

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|Rosa Ferreira, Digital Product Trainer|

Armando Dias De Castro, my avô – my Portuguese grandfather – was a man full of life. He was warm, funny, always ready with a story or a joke. He was also the kindest man you’d ever meet. But when it comes to his time in Angola, I’ve got nothing. No stories, no memories. If he ever spoke about it, I must have been too small to notice, or the words just never stuck.

My uncle, however, recalls many conversations. That makes me believe my avô must have shared his experiences, at least in fragments, though they slipped past me.

It is this gap – between the grandfather I knew and the silence that lingers – that has drawn me into the archives.

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Uncovering India with Gale Primary Sources

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│By Mickey Mehta Arorra, Digital Product Trainer│

India’s history unfolds across centuries of transformation – colonial rule, the struggle for independence, post-colonial reconstruction, and global diplomacy. Much of this complex narrative has long remained buried in distant or hard-to-reach archives. Now, Gale Primary Sources brings these rich and rare documents into the digital realm, making them accessible to students, educators, and researchers across India.

With collections such as Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories, The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treaties, 1800-1926, and Women’s Studies Archive, learners can dive deep into archival material that brings India’s layered past to life in vivid detail.

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Solving the Third Condiment Mystery with Primary Source Documents

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Dinner table from 1895 combined with source from the article showing a photo of a cruet

|By Kevin Kohls, Marketing Manager| The internet loves a good mystery. They allow content creators to put on their detective hats to try to determine fact from fiction and provide a real opportunity to answer questions that had previously been unknown. When I saw a YouTube video which mentioned the “Victorian third condiment mystery” earlier … Read more

Spanish Flu in the Time of COVID-19

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│By Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

The first half of the 2020s brought with it political and social upheaval on a scale not seen for generations. Nothing touched the lives of more people than the COVID-19 infections that were reported in the opening days of the decade, and led to the deaths of more than seven million people worldwide. To understand these once-in-a-lifetime events, journalists turned to the most recent example of a global pandemic – still just within living memory: the ‘Spanish Flu’.

With the addition of issues for 2020 to 2024 in The Times Digital Archive, it’s possible to research the development of these two in parallel for the first time.

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