Browse Primary Sources

Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.

The Third Incident of 14 July 1789

This engraving from the Berthault series depicts Stanislas Maillard bravely climbing on a plank over the dry moat surrounding the fortress to accept from one of the soldiers Launay’s "capitulation" of the Bastille.

Bamboo River II, Tale of Genji Painting Scroll

The greatest work produced during the Heian era was The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, lady-in-waiting to Empress Akiko. Considered the world’s first novel, Genji is written as an absorbing portrait of Heian court life, the splendor of its rituals, and aesthetic culture.

Photograph of Fatima the Moroccan

By 1900, only the Kingdom of Morocco remained more or less independent of European rule, although European competition for Morocco was intense between Spain, France, and Germany. Between 1899 and 1912, French armies progressively occupied the country using Algeria as a base.

Beautiful Fatima

Photography was critical to imperialism. The French army (and the British army in India) employed the camera’s lens to chronicle military exploits, first in Algeria during the 1850s, and later in Tunisia and Morocco. With advances in photographic technology, portrait studios were established in Europe and in European empires.

Malinche Sculpture

A sculpted figure by an internationally-recognized Native American activist, writer and visual artist. The materials chosen by Jimmie Durham create an image of Malinche that seems emptied of life and perhaps not fully human. He stresses the darker underside of Malinche’s history. Her face is half human, half snakeskin. Scrawny legs, made of polyester batting, cannot support the figure.

The Dream of Malinche

This painting, by a Mexican artist engaged with the international movement of Surrealism, represents a slumbering Malinche; her body serves as the ground supporting an unnamed Mexican community and church. This image evokes certain female earth deities known to the Aztecs, and it sustains the metaphor of the Mexican nation having been built upon the “ground” laid by Malinche’s actions.

In Memoriam

In 1857, British rule in India was challenged when Indian sepoy troops of the British Indian Army began a year-long insurrection against the British. To the British, the most shocking aspect of the events in India was the massacre of white women and children by Indian men. There was extensive coverage in the press and illustrated journals, which stimulated calls for revenge.

Scotland Forever

Painted by Elizabeth Butler, Scotland Forever (1881), depicts the charge of the Heavy Cavalry at the battle of Waterloo fought in 1815. The British victory at Waterloo ended the Napoleonic Wars, and ensured Britain’s position as the worlds most dominant imperial power.

The Children of Edward Holden Cruttenden

This 18th-century painting of the children of Edward Cruttenden depicted with their ayah was painted in Britain by Joshua Reynolds. The earliest immigrants from India came to Britain as the servants of employees of the East India Company. Many Indian women came to Britain employed as ayahs or nannies.

Photograph of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Activist

This photograph of a powerful woman, Burmese activist Aung San Suu Kyi, shows her use of national dress in a Southeast Asian political context. Aung San Suu Kyi was educated overseas and married to an Englishman. Yet she always wears Burmese national dress complete with a flower in her hair.

Painting of Imelda Marcos, Philippine First Lady

Politicians are astute experts on the symbols and meaning of dress as part of self-representation. For women, the politics of dress are highly significant. This painting depicts a powerful woman, Former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos and shows her use of national dress in the Southeast Asian political context.

Sati Handprints

This image of the hands of Hindu widows and concubines of the ruling family of the Rajput state of Jodhpur, also known as Marwar, memorializes the devotion of these women and the high status of the men for whom the women committed sati.

Sati Engraving: A Gentoo Woman Burning Herself

From the late 1500s and into early 1800s, adventurous and artistically talented European men and a few women traveled to Asia and India, in particular, to see sites and cultures considered exotic. They recorded their impression in prose and in sketches, the latter being transformed into engravings that illustrated their published accounts of their travels.

Susanna and the Elders

Susanna and the Elders, a 17th-century Italian painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, portrays the biblical story of Susanna, a virtuous Jewish woman preyed upon by two judges, important members of the community. Without her knowing, the men spied on her while she bathed.

Drawing of Digging Stick and Stone Weights

The Khoikhoi were semi-nomadic pastoralists (herders of sheep and cattle), who hunted game and gathered edible plants, nuts, roots, berries, and honey to supplement their diets. There was a division of labor between men and women: men hunted and tended the cattle while women looked after small stock and gathered food in the surrounding countryside.

Market in Southeastern Nigeria

This is an image of local women at a market in southeastern Nigeria in the 1930s. In the precolonial period, women in this society had a very strong role in the economy. They were, in fact, the major traders in palm oil. As palm oil becomes a more valuable export commodity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, men take over that trade.

Commission Hearing Excerpt

Commission Hearing Excerpt

This is an excerpt from a commission hearing conducted in southeastern Nigeria in 1930 by British colonial officials. The hearing investigated a series of disturbances by local women following a rumor that the British were going to tax women. This excerpt is a statement by one of these woman.

Manifest Record from the S.S. Atenas

This document is part of a manifest record from the SS Atenas. This ship sailed from Kingston, Jamaica, to New York City in 1920. These records provide information on individual passengers for 29 categories, including age, race, gender, marital status, occupation, how the cost for the voyage was paid, and the nearest relative living in New York.

Guadeloupean Household Workers at Ellis Island

This is a photograph of household workers from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe just after their arrival in New York in 1911.

This source is a part of the Analyzing Manifest Records methods module.

An image of sound waves with the text "play audio" under.

Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project

The Colonial Childhoods Oral History Project (CCOHP) comprises recorded interviews with 165 New Zealanders, male and female, Maori and Pakeha, the majority of whom were born before 1903. Interviews focus on the period before an individual’s 15th birthday.