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Modern (1800 CE - 1950 CE)

Brothers Grimm cover
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"How Some Children Played at Slaughtering"

The pioneering collection of fairy tales published by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the first half of the 19th century reflects both the romantic interest in the national past—that is, in the cultural origins and "childhood" of the German people—and the burgeoning efforts to create a literature tail

Title page image for The Chinese Boy and Girl
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The Chinese Boy and Girl

Issac Taylor Headland (1859-1942), a resident of Beijing and a scholar at Peking (Beijing) University, joined other contemporaries interested in both popular culture and folklore in his own study of daily life in China.

Thumbnail image for Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes
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Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes

Isaac Taylor Headland (1859-1942), a resident of Beijing and a scholar at Peking (Beijing) University, joined other contemporaries interested in both popular culture and folklore in collecting and transcribing Chinese children's rhymes.

Through Masai Land title page
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Through Masai Land

Joseph Thomson traveled through Kenya Maasailand from 1883 to 1884 on a journey of exploration from the coast to Mt Kenya and Lake Victoria, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. He was the second European to visit the area.

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Women's Union Telegram

That women in significant numbers were active participants in the Puerto Rican labor movement of the 1930s did not escape the attention of the government. Women’s unions demanded their rights through political channels as well as protest and striking.

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Indian Tales of the Great Ones

Born in 1870 into a Parsee family in India, Cornelia Sorabji (1870–1954) became a writer and a lawyer. By the end of the Victorian period, many elite Indian men had traveled to Britain to study.

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The High-Caste Hindu Woman

Literacy among Indian women was low during the 19th century, and so primary sources written by Indian women are rare for this period. One notable exception is Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922), an influential Indian woman social reformer from Maharashtra in western India.

Title pages of India’s Cries to British Humanity thumbnail image
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India’s Cries to British Humanity

Toward the end of the 1700s, the evangelical movement in Britain argued that one’s commitment to Christ should be reflected in action, primarily the effort to end slavery in the British empire and to proselytize or seek converts among the “heathen.” Initially, the English East India Company had p

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Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque

From 1600 to the early 1800s, few officials of the English East Indian Company lived with English wives in India. This practice began to change as transportation became easier with the development of steamships.

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Rajah Rammohun Roy Excerpts

Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1832), a highly educated Bengali brahman from a well-to-do landed family, had worked in the lower levels of the Company bureaucracy.