Category: 20th Century

The Sanborn Maps Special Indexes in Eight Centuries
05 December 2023 by Paratext Editorial


The Sanborn Maps Special Indexes in Eight Centuries

The Sanborn maps. Ask any historian of early American history “what’s a Sanborn map?” and you’re likely to receive an earful. The maps, which cover American cities decade-by-decade, chart the rapid change and growth of this country’s urban areas in a way matched by few other primary sources. The digitized versions of Sanborn maps have been used by historians for years. However, there exists a vital tool which has not been accessible in an integrated way until(read more)




“A Trifling Return…for the Great Service”: Learning from the Industrial Arts Index
02 October 2023 by Grayson Van Beuren


“A Trifling Return…for the Great Service”: Learning from the Industrial Arts Index

As we head into the last quarter of 2023, we’ve been getting inquiries from researchers about what is “exclusive” to Paratext’s Eight Centuries. As a response, we’re reaching back into our blog archive to republish some posts on sources and methodologies that remain just as relevant today as when they were first posted. This article, originally published in June 2018, was part of the  “Exploring” blog series looking at various exclusive sources(read more)




Sources as Windows to Narratives: Periodical Indexes – Harder to Access but Still Insightful
25 September 2023 by Grayson Van Beuren


Sources as Windows to Narratives: Periodical Indexes – Harder to Access but Still Insightful

As we head into the last quarter of 2023, we’ve been getting inquiries from researchers about what is “exclusive” to Paratext’s Eight Centuries. As a response, we’re reaching back into our blog archive to republish some posts on sources and methodologies that remain just as relevant today as when they were first posted. This article, originally published in September 2018, addresses one of the key central genre of source exclusive to Eight Centuries: the(read more)




Now Available to Search in United States Masterfile: NASA Index to Photograph Files
03 July 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in United States Masterfile: NASA Index to Photograph Files

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to United States Masterfile: the NASA Index to Photograph Files, 1958-1991. This resource joins the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Repository and the NASA Planetary Data System Digital Products archive in United States Masterfile, giving researchers access to a wider variety of NASA-derived resources than ever before. Providing searchable descriptions of nearly 65 thousand images produced by NASA from the late 1950s to the(read more)




Recently added to Eight Centuries: Tate Collection Catalog
15 May 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Recently added to Eight Centuries: Tate Collection Catalog

Paratext is pleased to announce a new source available to your patrons. Now ready to search in Eight Centuries: the Tate Collection. Founded in 1897 and originally named the National Gallery of British Art, the Tate has since grown into a four gallery institution spread across the UK, from London to Liverpool and Cornwall. The Tate Collection in Eight Centuries contains records for the nearly 70,000 objects that comprise the holdings of the museum. Links to the Tate catalog in each record(read more)




Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Art Institute of Chicago Catalog
22 February 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Art Institute of Chicago Catalog

Another recent addition to Eight Centuries is now ready to search by your patrons: the Art Institute of Chicago Catalog. Founded in 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the premier art institutions in the United States. The catalog searchable in Eight Centuries contains over 120,000 records describing artworks from as far back as the ancient world and as recent as the contemporary period. Links to catalog entries on the Art Institute website are provided, which include full images(read more)




Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Metropolitan Museum of Art
01 February 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Another recent addition to Eight Centuries is now ready to search by your patrons: records of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access Collection. Founded in 1870 in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest art museums in the world with a collection stretching over 5,000 years of world art history. The Met OA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises over 200 thousand records, containing links to catalog entries, as well as image links where(read more)




Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: MoMA Collection Data
18 January 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: MoMA Collection Data

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: records of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Collection in New York City. Founded in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art is one of the world’s premier collections of art from the modern period and beyond. The MoMA collection in Eight Centuries contains records to artworks dating from the eighteenth century to the present day. The MoMA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises nearly 140 thousand records,(read more)




Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Cleveland Museum of Art Collection
04 January 2023 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Cleveland Museum of Art Collection

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: records of the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. Founded in 1913, the Cleveland Museum of Art remains one of the premier public art institutions in the United States. The CMA’s collection stretches from the ancient British Isles and Egypt to contemporary artists working in the twenty-first century. The CMA collection searchable in Eight Centuries comprises nearly 64 thousand records, containing links to(read more)




Now Available to Search in United States Masterfile: NASA STI Repository
07 December 2022 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in United States Masterfile: NASA STI Repository

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to United States Masterfile: the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Repository. A resource containing over 500 thousand records and counting, NASA’s Scientific and Technical Information Repository contains documents from as far back as the days of NACA to as recently as 2022. The NASA STI repository contains open source reports, technical documents, metadata, videos, sound recordings, and images relating to the past and(read more)




Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Biodiversity Heritage Library
16 November 2022 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in Eight Centuries: Biodiversity Heritage Library

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to Eight Centuries: the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). A database founded in 2006 and maintained by a consortium of United States and European libraries and academies, the BHL operates as an Open Source resource for the biological research community. The BHL data contained in Eight Centuries comprises over 166 thousand records to biology texts ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Within the Biodiversity(read more)




Federal Register, 1994 to Current: Now Available to Search in U.S. Documents Masterfile
18 July 2022 by Paratext Editorial


Federal Register, 1994 to Current: Now Available to Search in U.S. Documents Masterfile

The entire online publication run of the Federal Register, the official periodical of the United States federal government, is now available to search by U.S. Documents Masterfile users. A publication of the National Archives and Records Administration, the Federal Register has been published online since 1994. U.S. Documents Masterfile contains the full set of online issues of the Register, a corpus of nearly 900,000 records—all with full text online. Within this resource,(read more)




Now Available to Search in U.S. Documents Masterfile: Foreign Relations of the United States Series
13 June 2022 by Paratext Editorial


Now Available to Search in U.S. Documents Masterfile: Foreign Relations of the United States Series

Paratext is happy to announce another recent addition to U.S. Documents Masterfile: the Bibliographic Metadata of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series. A publication of the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series is the official record of U.S. foreign policy going back to 1861. Originally contained in 500 physical volumes, the digital version available through U.S. Documents Masterfile links to full text online(read more)




Two New Sources Now in USDM: Compilation of Presidential Documents & U.S. Geological Survey Publications
21 March 2022 by Paratext Editorial


Two New Sources Now in USDM: Compilation of Presidential Documents & U.S. Geological Survey Publications

Paratext is pleased to announce two new sources now available to search in U.S. Documents Masterfile: the Compilation of Presidential Documents collection and the U.S. Geological Survey Publications Warehouse index. The Compilation of Presidential Documents is an ongoing collection of documents going back to 1993 pertaining to the day-to-day activities of the office of the President of the United States. Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records(read more)




A Fish Woman, a Cyprian Noble, and a Punk Rocker Couple Walk into a Bar: Narratives of Human Experience in Europeana
15 February 2022 by Grayson Van Beuren


A Fish Woman, a Cyprian Noble, and a Punk Rocker Couple Walk into a Bar: Narratives of Human Experience in Europeana

What do two ‘80s punk rockers, a half-fish/half-woman, and a Cyprian big shot have in common? Besides sounding like the beginning of a bad joke, these are all subjects found in source material cataloged in Europeana—a massive repository of cultural heritage bringing together records from thousands of institutions across Europe which is now searchable in Eight Centuries. One of the most remarkable qualities of Europeana in Eight Centuries is its vastness: nearly 53 million records(read more)




Things I Learned While Researching the Atlantic Monthly
07 December 2021 by Grayson Van Beuren


Things I Learned While Researching the Atlantic Monthly

In 2021 we added an entirely new feature for subscribers of multiple products: Cross Search. This feature allows easy instant searching of a search term across Eight Centuries, U.S. Documents Masterfile, and Reference Universe. To celebrate this exciting new feature, we’re looking back at different sources now easily accessible across products via Cross Search. Today: the Atlantic Monthly historical index available to search in 8C. With apologies to the late columnist Syd Harris(read more)




British National Bibliography Records Now Searchable in Eight Centuries
16 November 2020 by Paratext Editorial


British National Bibliography Records Now Searchable in Eight Centuries

Paratext is proud to announce that we've added all pre-1961 British National Bibliography content to Eight Centuries. Originally founded by the British Museum and currently supported by the British Library, the British National Bibliography has continuously compiled the publishing output of Great Britain since its creation in 1949. Users can now search 158,000 records to magazines, books, and newspapers — some dating as far back as the 14th century. The BNB content embraces(read more)




Modernist Journal Records Now Searchable in Eight Centuries
28 September 2020 by Paratext Editorial


Modernist Journal Records Now Searchable in Eight Centuries

Paratext is pleased to announce that records from the Modernist Journals Project is now accessible via Eight Centuries. The Modernist Journals Project (MJP) is joint cataloging and digitizing venture between Brown University and the University of Tulsa which comprises records of journal output of the modernist literary period from 1890 to 1922. The MJP adds nearly ten thousand new periodical content records to Eight Centuries. Furthermore, in addition to the records themselves, MJP(read more)




New Adam Matthew Content Now Accessible via Eight Centuries
09 September 2020 by Paratext Editorial


New Adam Matthew Content Now Accessible via Eight Centuries

Paratext is pleased to announce that additional content from Adam Matthew is now accessible via Eight Centuries.   Adam Matthew, an imprint of SAGE, is an award-winning publisher of digital primary source collections for the humanities and social sciences, covering subject areas from medieval family life to 20th-century history and culture.   Nearly 40,000 links from 11 collections have been added to Eight Century’s Image/Media section, broadening research for all(read more)




“‘Snap-Shots’ of the Scenery”: Aerial Photography at the Turn of the Century
29 April 2020 by Grayson Van Beuren


“‘Snap-Shots’ of the Scenery”: Aerial Photography at the Turn of the Century

Today we continue our series exploring the most out-of-the-way corners of the history of science to be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. Those unfamiliar with this fascinating source from the Royal Society should check out our description of the CSP. The first aerial photographs date from long before powered flight. Though we capture such pictures relatively easily using satellites and drones nowadays, people began taking photos from dizzying heights back when hydrogen balloons(read more)




“Perfectly Adapted to Its Purpose and Fairly Indestructible”: A Cutting-Edge Tech Review from 1901
24 March 2020 by Grayson Van Beuren


“Perfectly Adapted to Its Purpose and Fairly Indestructible”: A Cutting-Edge Tech Review from 1901

This is the first post in a series exploring the most out-of-the-way corners of the history of science to be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers. Those unfamiliar with this fascinating source from the Royal Society should check out our description of the CSP. This post is about a device that was everywhere in retail and business until roughly the 1970s, at which point it quietly dropped out of the public eye. I’m talking about the mechanical calculator called the Comptometer.(read more)




Documenting the American South & Chronicling America - Additional OA Content Now Online
12 February 2020 by Paratext Editorial


Documenting the American South & Chronicling America  - Additional OA  Content Now Online

Paratext is pleased to announce the addition of two Open Access resources which join the millions of proprietary primary source records in the Eight Centuries database: Documenting the American South and Chronicling America.   These two sources add over 150,000 entirely new records, with thousands of links to high quality full text and metadata.   Documenting the American South, a project of the University of North Carolina, makes digitized content from the UNC Library(read more)




“A Great Blow to All Truth”: The Dreyfus Affair of Turn-of-the-Century France
08 October 2019 by Grayson Van Beuren


“A Great Blow to All Truth”: The Dreyfus Affair of Turn-of-the-Century France

“[…] what a spot of mud on your name—I was going to say on your reign—is this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war, under order, has just dared to acquit Esterhazy, a great blow to all truth, all justice. And it is finished, France has this stain on her cheek, History will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could be committed.” –Section from “J’Accuse…!,” open letter from Émile Zola to(read more)




“Whirl up, sea”: The Life and Poetry of H.D.
09 September 2019 by Grayson Van Beuren


“Whirl up, sea”: The Life and Poetry of H.D.

Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines, Splash your great pines On our rocks, Hurl your green over us— Cover us with your pools of fir. “Oread,” Hilda “H.D.” Doolittle, 1914     This remains poet Hilda Doolittle’s (1886 – 1961) most famous piece of work. It is a wonderful example of the Modernist poetical school of Imagism: an effort to pare down poetry to the essentials of imagery and metaphor.1 In this case,(read more)




Government Reports and Colloquial Confusion: Capturing the Ephemeral with the “Popular Names” Index
06 December 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


Government Reports and Colloquial Confusion: Capturing the Ephemeral with the “Popular Names” Index

“Since many government publications become known by short titles that appear nowhere on the piece, and since libraries catalog them under institutional titles, a device for tying the two together is needed.” - Donald F. Wisdom, Foreword to Popular Names of U.S. Government Reports, 4th ed., 1984 A recurring challenge for historians is so-called “common knowledge.” Too often insights into day-to-day life, descriptions of extinct practices, and material(read more)




“The Pressure of Military Service”: The Great War’s Impact on Scholarly Editing Projects
21 November 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


“The Pressure of Military Service”: The Great War’s Impact on Scholarly Editing Projects

The First World War affected the world in profound and irrevocable ways, not least the field of literature. The impact of the Great War on literature has been well-documented, both in terms of how changes in outlook were reflected in the books, poems, short stories, and articles produced by during and after the war, and in terms of the generation of authors destroyed by mechanized warfare on a large scale.1 Perhaps less-studied is how the war’s effect reached the publishing industry(read more)




Sources as Windows to Narrative: Periodical Indexes – Harder to Access, Highly Insightful
05 September 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


Sources as Windows to Narrative: Periodical Indexes – Harder to Access, Highly Insightful

Periodical indexes are not often considered valuable source material unto themselves. There is a tendency to see them simply as neutral orderings of objective reality. After all, how can a list of sources be anything more than a means to more (and better) sources? How can a list of sources contain an agenda or narrative? Quite well, it would seem. As curated lists of source material, indexes are susceptible to internal biases and narratives as least as much as the editorial cartoons we(read more)




“The Honeypot Approach”: The Origin and Development of the NYPL Public Domain Collection
26 July 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


“The Honeypot Approach”: The Origin and Development of the NYPL Public Domain Collection

Exploring the NYPL Public Domain Collection… Today we will look at the New York Public Library’s Public Domain Collection. The NYPL recently made approximately 190,000 digitized public domain items from their special collections available online for unrestricted use. Why does the NYPL have such a large library of digitized material? Why do they have such a large special collection at all? To answer these questions, we have explore  the genesis of the NYPL collection in(read more)




"A Profitable, Elevating, and Attractive Profession”: Bettering Farming through the Farmers' Bulletin
12 July 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


"A Profitable, Elevating, and Attractive Profession”: Bettering Farming through the Farmers' Bulletin

Exploring the Farmers’ Bulletin… Our “Exploring” series continues with the Farmers’ Bulletin, a publication from the United States Department of Agriculture that first appeared in 1889. For over a century, the Bulletin has disseminated the latest research out of Agricultural Experiment Stations across the country with the aim of leading farmers to bigger crop yields and more rewarding home lives. Persuit of this goal has sometimes led the Bulletin to publish(read more)




Why Another Magazine Index, Mr. Faxon?
28 June 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


Why Another Magazine Index, Mr. Faxon?

Exploring the Annual Magazine Subject-Index… Our "Exploring" series continues with Frederick Faxon’s Annual Magazine Subject-Index, which ran from 1907 until 1949. When Faxon started his index in 1907, several large and mostly-comprehensive periodical indexes already dominated the library market. So why did he bother starting yet one more? As it turns out, this was a question front and center in Faxon’s mind from the outset—and one to which he had a(read more)




Congressional Research Reports Now Available in U.S. Documents Masterfile
11 June 2018 by Paratext Editorial


Congressional Research Reports Now Available in U.S. Documents Masterfile

Thanks to the work of EveryCRSReport.com, researchers are now able to access nearly 15,000 Congressional Research Service (CRS Reports), with links to full-text sources where available in U.S. Documents Masterfile: 1774 – 2018. EveryCRSReport.com is a joint project by Demand Progress and the Congressional Data Coalition, who have made their bulk CRS report data freely available online. Reports by the Congressional Research Service are the encyclopedic research(read more)




“A Trifling Return…for the Great Service”
06 June 2018 by Grayson Van Beuren


“A Trifling Return…for the Great Service”

Exploring the Industrial Arts Index... Continuing with our “Exploring” blog series, today we will look at the Industrial Arts Index. Before the current-day crowd of scientific and engineering online discovery services existed, staying up-to-date in one’s field involved visiting the reference section of the local library and using their subject indexes. The Industrial Arts Index was one such tool, designed to make it easy to find the most widely-used and useful articles in(read more)




Largest Repository for History of Science Periodicals Now Online
30 November 2016 by Paratext Editorial


Largest Repository for History of Science Periodicals Now Online

356 years after The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge held their first 'learned society' meeting in 1660, Paratext announces the addition of The Society's International Catalogue of Scientific Literature, 1901-1914 to 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930. This is the continuation of the monumental Catalogue of Scientific Papers 1800-1900, which Paratext deployed in 2012.   The International Catalogue is the largest single editorial(read more)




Adam Matthew Content Now Accessible via 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930
21 June 2016 by Paratext Editorial


Adam Matthew Content Now Accessible via 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930

Paratext is pleased to announce that extensive content from Adam Matthew is now accessible via 19th Century Masterfile: 1106-1930. Adam Matthew, an imprint of SAGE, is an award-winning publisher of digital primary source collections for the humanities and social sciences, covering subject areas from medieval family life to 20th-century history and culture. Nearly 100,000 links from 33 collections are being added to 19th Century Masterfile’s Image/Media section, broadening research(read more)




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