Research Guides: Primary Sources: Pop Culture

Pop Culture Resources

Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture 1790-1920
Full-text collection of documents, primarily from the US and Britain, on the evolution of crime and punishment. The archive's focus is on the most rapid period of evolution for crime and its associated legal/penal systems: the long nineteenth century, a period of major social upheaval and technological development.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
Includes US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater, as well as film fan magazines and music press titles. Useful for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries. Contains issues published through the year 2000.

UTK Library has subscribed to Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive collections :
-Collection I: Music, Radio and the Stage (1880-2000)
-Collection II: Cinema, Film and Television (1905-2000).
For more information, see this guide.
March of Time 1935-1967
A newsreel series produced by Time Inc. from 1935-1967 and shown in movie theaters and television. This collection is a channel on Alexander Street Video.
Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992
Full-text of popular British humor magazine.
Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)
Indexes the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890-1982. Limited to 2 simultaneous users.
Victorian Popular Culture (1800-1930s)
Full-text resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain and the U.S. Divided into four sections: Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic; Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment; and Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments & the Advent of Cinema.

Ad* Access
Images for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. From Duke University.
Advertising Archives
Collection of digitized advertisements from the United States and the United Kingdom ranging from the 1900's-2000's
AdViews
Collection of televised commercials from 1950's-1980's. This collection covers a range of popular companies covering food, finance, tv shows, and more.
Emergence of Advertising in American : 1850-1920
Over 3,300 advertising items and publications dating from 1850 to 1920, illustrating the rise of consumer culture and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States.
History of Advertising Trust
Large collection of print advertisements, ghost signs, and TV commercials documenting the history of advertising in the United Kingdom.
Medicine and Madison Avenue
Collection of advertisements for medicines, tonics, tinctures, and various other remedies from the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Radio Shack Catalogs
Digitized versions of yearly Radio Shack catalogs dating back to the 1930s. Shows the evolution of computers, cell phones, music players, and more.

ARTStor
More than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. With a registered account you can also curate groups of images, share them, and download them directly into PowerPoint presentations.

Logging In: You do not need to log in to ARTStor on campus.
However, to download images you must register for an account. After you have registered for an account, you will have 120 days of remote access. After 120 days you will need to log in to ARTStor from a computer on campus--or through your library’s proxy--in order to reset your remote access for another 120 days.

Anna Catherine Wiley Sketches
This digital collection comprises over 150 of Wiley’s early works, illustrating her development as an artist. The pieces include figure drawings, pencil sketches, and bookplate designs as well as her ink illustrations for the University of Tennessee’s yearbook, The Volunteer.
Cartoon Drawing (Library of Congress)
Offers more than 9,000 original drawings for editorial cartoons, caricatures, and comic strips spanning the late 1700s to the present, primarily from 1880 to 1980. The cartoons cover people and events throughout the world, but most of the images were intended for publication in American newspapers and magazines.
Cartoon Prints, American (Library of Congress)
Offers access to a large collection of historic political art and cartoons in the form of caricature and satire.
Charlie Daniel Editorial Cartoon Collection
Collection of hand-drawn, original cartoons from the well-known Knoxville editorial cartoonist. For best use, use the themes listed on the collection's introduction page to navigate.
Ed Gamble Cartoon Collection
Although Gamble refuses to label himself an editorial cartoonist, the majority of his cartoons illustrate his commentary on current events and personalities over the course of 40 years. Many of his cartoons depict political campaigns, foreign wars, political scandals, economic and social issues, and popular culture fads and icons. He lampooned U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, as well as international political figures ranging from Margaret Thatcher to Osama bin Ladin.
From Pi Beta Phi to Arrowmont Digital Collection
This digital collection contains photographs of the early Settlement School, the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and the Gatlinburg community, as well as scrapbooks written and compiled by Settlement School teachers. Letters, diaries, and a collection of historical essays relate the Phi Beta Phi to Arrowmont story. Also featured are articles from The Arrow, curriculum documents, and examples of crafts from contemporary Arrowmont.
Museum of Modern Art
Evolving collection containing almost 200,000 works of modern and
contemporary art. More than 78,000 works are currently available online

London Low Life : Street Culture, Social Reform and the Victorian Underworld
Contains color digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 19th and early 20th century London. Also includes secondary sources such as maps and essays.
Popular Culture in Britain & America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll Counterculture, Peace and Protest
Explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975 in Britain and the U.S. Full-text of documents, images, and video.
Sixties : Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974
Primary source material, including diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary, on the 1960s in the United States. Topics include the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the associated protest movement, radical movements, and counter-culture.

CoPa Commercial Pattern Archive
The Commercial Pattern Archive database, CoPA, provides a unique tool for researchers and designers to recreate or date clothing from 1868 to 2000. There are several collections from the States, Canada and the UK represented in the database which functions like a Union Catalog of pattern collections
Vogue Archive (1892-present)
Every issue and every page of Vogue.

Cashin (Bonnie) Collect of Fashion, Theater, and Film Costume Design, 1913-2000
The collection includes fashion design illustrations, writings on design, contractual paperwork, photographs of clothing designs, and press materials including press releases and editorial coverage.

America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894 to 1915 (Library of Congress)
Provides historic films from the years 1894-1915 documenting the work of a variety of blue collar professions as well as leisure sporting activities such as boxing, football, parades, and swimming.
An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490 to 1920 (Library of Congress)
Provides access to historic social dance manuals documenting social customs related to ballroom dance. Majority of the manuals provided by this resource originate from the United States and Europe.
Bain Collection (Library of Congress)
Photographic collection documenting various aspects of American public life such as sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations.
Benjamin K. Edwards Baseball Cards Collection (Library of Congress)
Provides access to digitized historic baseball cards, a popular American collecting habit from the late 19th-early 20th century.
University of Tennessee Football Programs
The Volunteer Football Programs and Guides offer a unique glimpse into the history and traditions of the University of Tennessee football team.
University of Tennessee Men's Swimming and Diving Programs
Featured in this digital collection are the University of Tennessee Men's Swimming and Diving media guides that were published in print from 1968 through 2011.

American Song
A streaming audio database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past. The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.

Billboard Archives in Google Books
Small collection of Billboard magazine from various years. (1940, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 200, 2005, & 2010)
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Digital Collections
Digitized collections from the historic Country Music Hall of Fame.
David Van Vactor Music Collection
The David Van Vactor Music Collection includes multiple drafts and final versions of compositions from all eras of Van Vactor’s long career.
University of Tennessee Sheet Music Collection
A large collection of sheet music published between the early 1800s and the mid-1900s. The bulk of this collection was donated by local historian Ronald Allen and many of the works have ties to Tennessee.

American Archive of Public Broadcasting
This collection includes local news and public affairs programs, local history productions that document the heritage of local communities, and programs dealing with education, environmental issues, music, art, literature, dance, poetry, religion, and even filmmaking on a local level.
The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
Collection of in-depth video conversations with key figures in television, both in front of and behind the camera.

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
An archival research resource containing the essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles.

UTK Library has subscribed to Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive collections :
-Collection I: Music, Radio and the Stage (1880-2000)
-Collection II: Cinema, Film and Television (1905-2000).
For more information, see this guide.
Silent Film Online (1890s-1930s)
Contains silent feature films, serials, and shorts from the 1890s to the 1930s that represent the foundation of modern cinematic technique and film theory.