newspapers

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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Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection: Part II

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

In December 2024, Gale Primary Sources released part two of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection, sourced from the British Library. Adding to the original, previously digitised collection of Reverend Charles Burney are an additional 200-odd titles of newspapers, newsbooks, and broadsheets from across the period.

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Leveraging Large Language Models for Post-OCR Correction of Nineteenth-Century British Newspapers

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Montage of images from this blog post, mixed with images from British Library Newspapers archive

│By Alan Thomas, AI Research Engineer at the Centre for Machine Intelligence, University of Sheffield│

Poor optical character recognition (OCR) quality is a major obstacle for humanities scholars seeking to make use of digitised primary sources such as historical newspapers. To improve the quality of noisily OCR’d historical documents, we introduce BLN600 – an open-access dataset derived from Gale’s British Library Newspapers – and showcase the potential of large language models (LLMs) for post-OCR correction using Llama.

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Who was the Chevalier de Saint-Georges?

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│By Carolyn Beckford, Gale Product Trainer│

Joseph Boulogne, later adopted as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was born in Guadeloupe, a former French colony. He was a French violinist, conductor, composer, and a soldier.     

Boulogne was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in European music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, symphonies, stage works, and opera comique. He was also a contemporary and rival of Mozart, although it’s likely that racism obscured his recognition as a great composer.

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Exploring Genealogy in Gale Primary Sources

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│By Emma Harris, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

Gale Primary Sources offers a multitude of digital archives for all manners of historical research. But researchers may not realise that Gale’s archives can be used to explore one popular area of history – family history, or genealogy. Researching family history can often have its limitations, particularly geographical, yet digital archives help to break down these barriers, allowing researchers to find material from a range of locations that would usually not be accessible without travel.

Over the years, my family has been mapping out the history of our relatives, creating a broader picture of where we came from. So, aware of all the useful documents in Gale Primary Sources, I decided to see what extra information I could glean on my relatives, whilst also showing how certain Gale archives are especially useful for genealogical research.

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The Influence of British Media on its Politics: Insights from Gale Primary Sources

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│By Satakshi Rahi, Gale Ambassador at King’s College London│

Exploring the profound influence of British media on its politics unveils a narrative shaped over centuries of transformation. From the advent of print journalism to today’s digital dominance, British media has wielded significant power in shaping public opinion, driving policy agendas, and defining political discourse. Leveraging insights from Gale Primary Sources, this exploration delves into pivotal historical moments and contemporary challenges, providing a nuanced perspective on how British media continues to mould the political landscape.

The material from Gale‘s extensive archives highlights the crucial role of media literacy and informed engagement in navigating today’s complex media landscape, ensuring transparency and accountability in public discourse while acknowledging British media’s pivotal role in shaping the nation’s political narrative.

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Exploring the History of America with American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society

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│By Philip Virta, Senior Acquisitions Editor│

What is the American Antiquarian Society and Where Did it All Begin?

Isaiah Thomas (not the basketball player) was a printer, publisher, and a patriot. He fought as a Minuteman at the battles of Lexington and Concord, and published the Massachusetts Spy in support of the American Revolution. Thomas appreciated information in all its printed formats (this was the early 1800’s, so no television, radio, internet, cell phones, etc.) and began to save what he could get his hands on. Eventually, in 1812, he founded the American Antiquarian Society to house his growing collection.

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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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Finding Meaning in K-Means: Clustering Analysis in Gale Digital Scholar Lab

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│By Sarah L. Ketchley, Senior Digital Humanities Specialist│

Of the six tools in Gale Digital Scholar Lab, clustering is often considered the most challenging methodology to interpret effectively. This blog post will explore the nature of this analysis tool and offer some tips for running an analysis.

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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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