British Studies

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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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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Representations of Girls in History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century

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│By Lucy McCormick, Gale Ambassador at the University of Birmingham│ Earlier this year, Gale launched History of Disabilities: Disabilities in Society, Seventeenth to Twentieth Century – a rich digital archive of monographs, manuscripts, and ephemera, sourced from the New York Academy of Medicine. This offers countless avenues for exciting historical research. To provide an example, … Read more

Studying Colonialism in Complementary Archives: Nineteenth Century Collections Online and Decolonization

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│By Louis Venter, Gale Ambassador at the University of the Free State│

If you ask any seasoned historian what makes historical research unique, they will emphasise the crucial role of primary sources, which define and distinguish history from other forms of academic writing. In an ever-digitising world, historians can now access digital scans of genuine archival material from anywhere, eliminating the need to travel to distant archives, and making research more efficient.

Bringing together primary sources from multiple archives can enhance one’s research, and Gale Primary Sources offers two key complementary digital archives that can be used in tandem to study colonialism – Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Europe and Africa, Colonialism and Culture and Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories.

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Going off Script: How Gale Primary Sources Can Be Used in Theatre Studies

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

For a subject such as drama, primary sources are continuously overlooked. Much academic study preceding degree level tends to focus on the practical realm of theatre. Though it is an important aspect, this sometimes leads to contextual ideas being ignored.

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Concepts of ‘the Nation’ in Britain and Beyond

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│By Jess Briony Hodgson, Gale Ambassador at the University of Sheffield│

Britain has always had a complex identity historically speaking – from Alfred the Great and the nature of medieval kingdoms, through to the fallout from Brexit, the way in which Britons conceptualise their nation and nationality has always been changing – and this makes primary source work all the more interesting.

When using primary sources such as those found in Gale’s digital archives, one main challenge is removing our own understandings of ‘the nation’ from the equation, so we can properly analyse the information and make accurate interpretations and comparisons. One space in which we can see a microcosm of all these changes is print media, particularly newspapers, which will have (for the most part) aimed to capture readers’ opinions and concerns, highlighting the changes in concepts such as the nation.

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Exploring the Inspiration for Romanticism: Was it a Counter-Enlightenment? 

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│By Isabelle Partridge, Gale Ambassador at the University of Exeter│

Emotion, nature and individualism are some of the key themes of Romanticism. This cultural movement became popular in Western Europe during the late eighteenth century and was expressed primarily through art and literature. However, the major intellectual movement which preceded Romanticism was the Enlightenment, during which philosophers emphasised rationalism in the pursuit of knowledge. Thus, Romanticism has often been posed as an opposite reaction to the Enlightenment.

Through using Gale Primary Sources, I have gained access to a number of notable works from the Romantic period, from paintings to poems, as well as the opportunity to explore how these works have been perceived since their initial creation. Primary sources highlight how Romanticism was a dynamic and varied movement. Romanticism responded not only to the Enlightenment, but the many political and social developments, such as revolution and industrialization, which had created a backdrop for the turn of the nineteenth century. 

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Making Peace Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Primary Sources

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│By Tom Taborn, Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford│

Primary sources can be, let’s face it, intimidating. In the first few weeks of university the idea that we should use them was constantly drummed into me. I, like most other students I know, immediately ignored this advice, and ploughed into the swelling lists of secondary sources. Primary sources seemed like a distraction from the stress of churning out an essay, and the few students who did use them seemed like god-like beings who’d mastered pomodoro timers and bullet journaling in the pram.

Over the course of my first year, however, I realised that they were exactly the opposite. Primary sources are the stressed student’s best friend. Reading what real people thought, how they talked, and what they felt, can make the trickiest topics easier. And more than that, they can be fun. The archives in Gale Primary Sources made using primary sources so much less terrifying as a student for me. This is the story of how my worst essay was saved by a primary source, and how yours can be too.

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