Black History is strongly represented across many of Senate House Library’s collections, particularly the library’s area collections of United States studies, Commonwealth studies and Latin American studies, for the peoples of the Caribbean. The main history collections on the fifth floor feature the histories of Black peoples who have settled in Britain, Europe and elsewhere. Other aspects of Black lives are spread across the library’s social science collections. New entries into the collection can be found in the Periodicals Room on the fourth floor.

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

5th floor

Periodicals Room gallery

6th floor

United States Studies Collection

Commonwealth Studies collection

Latin American Studies collection

7th floor

Special Collections

The Ron Heisler collection contains pamphlets and ephemera relating to the civil rights movement in the United States, and race discrimination, racism and anti-racism in Great Britain.

The Goldsmiths’ Library of Economic Literature holds a considerable amount of primary sources from the 18th and 19th century on the slave trade and abolition movement. Some of this material is available online on The Making of the Modern World.

The Porteus Library, which constitutes the working library of Beilby Porteus (1731-1809), Bishop of London and a leading advocate for the abolition of the slave trade, contains items relating to enslavement and the trade in enslaved people.

The Library’s Political Pamphlet collections, compiled by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies from current and former members of the Commonwealth, include materials from several Caribbean and African countries. They largely date from the 1960s and 1970s and give insight into processes of decolonisation and transitions to independence. The pamphlets can be explored by country through Senate House Library’s archive catalogue by using the Advanced Search function and filtering by the Reference code “PP” (standing for Political Pamphlets).

Archives

We hold several archives, including those of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, which have important sources for the study of Black history.

• records on apartheid in South Africa
• the papers of the African National Congress  
• the papers of the Caribbean Council for Europe (CCE)
• materials from the Britain Tanzania Society
• materials from the Britain Zimbabwe Society
• a photographic collection of Soweto and the 1976 uprising (c1960-c1977) from the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa
• archives on the history of enslavement and enslaved people
• the papers of C L R James (1901 – 1989), Trinidadian writer and political activist
• the papers of Billy Strachan (1921-1998), Jamaican air force pilot, lawyer and political activist
• the papers of Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews (1901-1968), South African political activist and academic
• microfilm copies of the papers of Richard Hart (1917-2013), Jamaican historian and politician
• the Paul and Adelaide Joseph archive (covering ca. 1962-2022), South African anti-apartheid activists

E-resources

Our e-resources offer a range of options to study the topics which can be viewed in the Black histories and studies category on our Eresources A-Z list including among others Black Studies Center and Black Thought and Culture.

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue. Please note that some of the terminology used in the catalogue may not reflect current language use.

• Africans
• African Americans
• African diaspora
• Black people
• Race discrimination
• West Indians
• Slavery
• Racism
• Women, Black

For Black British History:

• Africans -- Great Britain -- History.
• Black people -- England.
• Black people -- England -- London.
• Black people -- Great Britain -- Social conditions.
• Ethnicity -- Great Britain.
• Great Britain -- Race relations.
• Immigrants -- Great Britain.
• Jamaicans in London.
• Minorities -- Great Britain.
• Multiculturalism -- Great Britain.
• Racism -- Great Britain.
• West Indians in London.
• West Indians -- Great Britain.
• West Indians -- Great Britain -- Social conditions.

Additional resources

The Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) has a helpful guide on Caribbean Studies Collections.

The resources Senate House Library offers to study cultural history are broad and varied and intersect with many other collection strengths. British cultural history is strongly represented, especially the culture of the Victorian and Edwardian era. European cultural history is another strength of the collection with specialist holdings in German history, which can be found in the former Institute of Germanic Studies library in the Middlesex North Reading Room (4th floor). Beyond Europe, the Library has strong holdings concerning the cultures of the current and former member nations of the Commonwealth, Latin America and the United States on the 6th floor (for more information see our guides on Commonwealth studies and Latin American studies).

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

5th floor

7th floor

Special collections

The library holds two unique collections to study Spanish cultural history, the Eliot-Phelips Collection and the Gili Catalan Collection (for more information on our European collections see our guide on Art and cultural memory). Russian cultural history and the interactions of Europeans with Russia is documented in the M.S. Anderson Collection. Beyond Europe, the Library has strong holdings concerning the cultures of the current and former member nations of the Commonwealth as well as those of Latin America (for more information see our guides on Commonwealth studies and Latin American studies).  

One of the unique strengths of the collections is in the history of magic and the occult, represented in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature (for more information see our guide on The paranormal, the occult and the magical).    

E-resources

• Bloomsbury Cultural History 
• ECCO: Eighteenth Century Collections Online 
• Early Modern England 
• Food and Drink in History 
• Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 
• Victorian Popular Culture  

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue:   

• Architecture and history  
• Art and history  
• Cultural -- History
• Civilization -- [country]
• Cultural history of women
• Design and history
• Ethnohistory
• Intellectual life
• Intellectual history
• Literature and history
• Manners and customs
• Motion pictures and history
• Music and history
• Progress
• Television and history
• Specific civilizations, for example “Islamic Civilization”

Works on the economic and social histories of Britain and Europe can be found within the history collections and other parts of the library collections. The Library also has significant holdings on the economic and social history of the United States, Latin America, and the former and current members of the Commonwealth, all of which can be found on the 6th floor.

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

5th floor

6th floor

United States Studies collection

7th floor

Special collections and archives

The Library’s most significant holding in economic history is the Goldsmiths’ Library of Economic Literature with around 70,000 printed items spanning from the 15th to the 20th century. Access to the full text of most items in the Goldsmiths’ Library published before 1851 and some published 1851-1914 is available online on The Making of the Modern World.

The collections feature especially strong holdings on the social history of 19th-century Britain and its social reform movements. Among these are the papers of the social reformer and researcher Charles Booth, the John Burns collection of over 5,000 books, pamphlets and periodical volumes and the Family Welfare Association Library, which has now become the charity Family Action. 

The Library has collected many materials representing the lives and thought of alternative social movements and groups. Some example of these are archives related to the temperance movement and the Ron Heisler collection of left-wing and radical political movements (for more information see our guide on Political activism, protest and counter-culture).

E-resources

• Business, Economic & Labour History 
• Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange 
• Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism 
• The Making of the Modern World 
• Mass Observation 
• Medieval Family Life 
• Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain  
• Women and Social Movements 

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue: 

• Aristocracy
• Business
• Capitalism
• Civilization
• Commerce
• [Country] -- Economic conditions
• [Country] -- Social conditions
• Economic history
• Economic History -- [country/period of history]
• Economics, political aspects
• Labor
• Labor and laboring classes
• Manners and customs
• Social Conflict
• Social History
• Working Class

As the library of one of the oldest universities in the UK, Senate House Library has amassed important materials on the history of education. One of them is the Quick Memorial Library with over 1,000 printed items on education from the mid-16th to the end of the 19th century. In addition, we have several archives on education, including the University of London’s own archive. 

One of the more unusual collections in the Library is the EPCOM collection of about 400 school textbooks used during the Third Reich which were confiscated by the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in the post-war period.  

As part of our e-resources, we subscribe to the Education Magazine Archive. 

History of gender and sexuality

Senate House Library holds numerous collections to research the history of sexuality and gender. Among our special collections we hold the Craig collection that consists mainly of early to mid-twentieth-century books in English, French and German on sexual customs and practices alongside some works of literary and artistic erotica, offering an intriguing insight into the history of sexuality. 

Supplementing our printed holdings are the following e-resources: 

• Defining Gender, 1450-1910 
• Gender: Identity and Social Change 
• Men’s Magazine Archive 
• Sex and Sexuality 

Women’s history 

Among our collections to study women’s history there are many items in the Ron Heisler collection which give insight into feminist movements throughout the 19th and 20th centuries (for more information see our guide on Political activism, protest and counter-culture). 

Supplementing our printed holdings are the following e-resources: 

• Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present 
• Struggle for Women's Rights: Organizational Records, 1880-1990 
• Women and Social Movements in the U.S. 
• Women and Social Movements, International 
• Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820 
• Women in the National Archives 
• Women's Magazine Archive (1846-2005) 
• Women's Studies 

LGBTQIA+ history 

LGBTQIA+ history and culture are increasingly significant collecting areas a Senate House Library. The Library’s Ron Heisler collection includes items which give insight into queer activism throughout the 20th century (for more information see our guide on Political activism, protest and counter-culture).  

We have a guide to e-resources for the study of LGBTQ+ studies including Archives of Sexuality and Gender, LGBT Thought and Culture and LGBT Magazine Archive. 

Part of the deposits at Senate House Library include the papers of several significant 20th-century historians, many of which had affiliations with the University of London and its federal members. 

English historian and former president of the Royal Historical Society (1901-1905) Sir George Walter Prothero’s collection of English and European history between 1880 and 1914 is also part of the Library’s collections.

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies archives, held at Senate House Library, also contain papers of the historian Sir (William) Keith Hancock (1898-1988).

Senate House holds a small but extensively used and popular collection on the history of science which is located on the 7^th floor. New additions to the collection on the history of science can be found in the Periodicals Room on the fourth floor.

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

7th floor

Special collections

The Library holds the De Morgan library which boasts an extensive collection of rare books on the history of mathematics. The rare books in the collection from pre-1600 have been digitised and are available as part of our e-resources.

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue:   

• Science – History -- [century]
• Science -- [country] -- [country]
• Science, Medieval
• Science, Renaissance.
• Science -- Philosophy – History
• Scientific apparatus and instruments
• Scientific expeditions
• Scientists
• Medicine -- History -- [century]
• Medicine -- [country] -- History

The history of travel and exploration are widely covered in the Library’s collections. Our holdings also support research into the history of migration, particularly the study of exile and forced migration in European history.  

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

5th floor

7th floor

Special collections

One of the highlights of our collections is the M.S. Anderson Collection, which features many travel narratives, personal accounts of time spent in Russia and other writings documenting western European perceptions of Russia between 1525 and 1917. Another significant source for those studying these histories is the E.G.R. Taylor Collection of Historic Printed Maps.

E-resources

Supplementing our printed holdings are the following e-resources: 

• Age of Exploration 
• Border and Migration Studies online 
• Medieval Travel Writing 
• Migration to New Worlds 
• Missionary Studies 
• Travel Writing, Spectacle and World History

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue:   

• Adventure and adventurers
• [Country] -- Description and travel
• [Country] -- Discovery and exploration.
• Discoveries in geography
• Emigration and immigration
• Maps
• Outer space exploration
• Pilgrims and pilgrimages
• Voyages and travels
• Voyages, Imaginary

Senate House Library houses the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICWS) collection, an extensive research-level collection that covers the Commonwealth and its member nations across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Oceania and Europe, their histories and the history of the British Empire (for more information see our guide on Commonwealth studies).  

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals Room)

Periodicals Room gallery

5th floor

6th floor

Commonwealth Studies collection

Latin American Studies collection

Special collections and archives

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICWS) has over 230 archival collections. The archives contain materials relating to the history of the British Empire and the Commonwealth from the 18th to the 20th century. Many Commonwealth countries and former British colonies are represented, but holdings on South Africa and the Caribbean are especially strong. The archives of Commonwealth organisations (such as the Commonwealth Trade Union Council and the Commonwealth Press Union) and the papers of Commonwealth Studies researchers are further strengths among the holdings. ICWS archives can be searched through Senate House Library’s archive catalogue by using the Advanced Search function and filtering by the Repository “Institute of Commonwealth Studies”. 

Political archives of pamphlets collected by ICWS from current and former members of the Commonwealth extend to material from over 60 countries. They largely date from the 1960s and 1970s and give insight into processes of decolonisation and transitions to independence. The pamphlets can be explored through Senate House Library’s catalogue. 

Besides ICWS’s holdings Senate House Library’s special collections and archives provide further material to study the British Empire and Commonwealth. The Goldsmiths Library of Economic Literature covers British imperial economics, trade and related issues during the 16th-20th centuries. The Prothero Collection covers the period 1880-1914 including materials on Irish home rule. The Bromhead Library includes holdings on the early colonisation of Australia. The Ron Heisler collection includes print materials from the late 19th- and 20th century relating to anti-imperialist movements. The archives include several manuscripts and collections of papers relating to the British Empire. There are clusters of papers connected to the East India Company (MS56, MS84, MS153, MS226, MS260, MS712, MS713 and MS938) and the South Sea Company (MS89, MS218, MS394 and MS490). The Papers of the Lewin family (fl 1770-1926), who were residents of British India, contain Thomas Herbert Lewin’s papers reflecting his interest in India and its languages. 

For those interested in the history of enslavement and apartheid, detailed archival subject guides are available: 

• Apartheid archives 
• Archives related to enslavement 

E-resources

Our e-resources grant access to further primary source and research materials:  

• African Writers Series  
• Age of Exploration  
• Colonial America  
• Colonial Caribbean, Module I: Settlement, Slavery, and Empire, 1624-1832  
• Colonial State Papers (1574 – 1757)    
• Confidential Print series on Archives Direct  
• Documents on British Policy Overseas‎ (1898 - 1990)   
• East India Company  
• Empire Online  
• Empire Studies   
• Frontier Life  
• India, Raj and Empire 
• Making of the Modern World  
• Missionary Studies  
• Virginia Company Archives  

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue:

• Anti-imperialist movements
• Autonomy and independence movements
• Colonies
• Colonization
• Decolonization
• Great Britain -- Colonies
• Imperialism
• Postcolonialism 

Senate House Library holds an extensive collection on the history of the city of London and its surroundings covering culture, economy, politics, society and topography.

Useful classmarks

4th floor (Periodicals room)

5th floor

Special collections

One highlight of the collection is the Bromhead Library which holds over 4,000 rare printed items on London history. Historical materials published about and within London can also be found across our other special collections.

E-resources

To complement our holdings, we subscribe to the e-resource London Low Life, which includes digitised images of rare materials related to 18th, 19th and early 20th-century London, alongside other digital resources listed on our A-Z Databases list.

Doing your own searches

To discover clusters of material on specific topics, here are some suggested search terms (subject headings) you can use in our online catalogue:   

• London (England) -- Antiquities
• London (England) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
• London (England) -- Commerce
• London (England) -- Description and travel
• London (England) -- Gilds
• London (England) -- History
• London (England) -- Intellectual life
• London (England) -- Politics and government
• London (England) -- Social life and customs
• Minorities -- England -- London

The U.S. Studies collection is located on the 6th floor. 

The U.S. Studies collection is a substantial, research-level collection with broad coverage of the history, institutions and culture of the United States with strengths in Art History, History, and Literature. 

We hold the former library of the United States Information Service, an information agency of the Foreign Service of the U.S. Government which used to be situated in Grosvenor Square, London. At the time of its closure in 1966 the library’s collection more than 25,000 volumes represented the largest and most complete body of American literature in England.  

New acquisitions on U.S. History and the history of the Americas can be found in the Periodicals Room on the fourth floor under the classmarks E and F. 

Special collections and archives

We hold selected archives related to U.S. History on topics such as politics, trade and slavery as well as the Manton Marble Collection of printed materials on American politics, foreign relations and economics.  

E-resources

Selected e-resources for U.S. History include: 

• African American Biographical Database 
• America in World War Two 
• America: History & Life 
• American Consumer Culture 
• American History 
• American Indian Histories and Cultures 
• American West 
• Americana 
• Colonial America 
• Early American Imprints First Series, 1639-1800 and Second Series, 1801-1819 
• Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment 
• Everyday Life and Women in America, c.1800-1920 
• Frontier Life 
• Gilded Age  
• Jewish Life in America 
• Market Research and American Business 
• North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories 
• North American Indian Thought and Culture 
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries 
• Race Relations in America 
• Trade Catalogues and the American Home 
• Women and Social Movements in the U.S.