These pages are now woefully outdated; I haven't updated the links in yonks. Still I resolved not to take the pages down, since there may still be some useful material in here. Just be prepared to be frustrated.


Eighteenth-Century Resources — History

This page, edited by Jack Lynch of Rutgers — Newark, is part of the larger collection of Eighteenth-Century Resources on the Net.

History

General Resources

Internet Modern History Sourcebook (Paul Halsall, Fordham)
A huge and impressive archive of mostly primary material on modern European and American history, including much on the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries.
Documents in Military History (Dave Stewart, Hillsdale College)
Primary documents, many abridged, on Dettingen, Culloden, the American and French Revolutions, and miscellaneous military matters.
Current Value of Old Money (Roy Davies)
Pointers to information (on-line and in print) on the relative value of money through history. Very handy.
Money, Power & Prose: An Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Financial Revolution in the British Isles, 1688-1756: A Working Bibliography of Bublished Sources
A bibliography (in PDF format) of a great many sources on economic history.
18th Century History: The Age of Reason and Change (Rick Brainard)
An attractive meta-site on C18 history, with a chronology, and extensive but miscellaneous original resources and links.
A huge, searchable database of wills in the National Archives of Great Britain. Invaluable for genealogical research. O si sic omnes!

Chronologies

Eighteenth-Century Chronology (Jack Lynch, Rutgers)
An in-progress chronology on eighteenth-century world history, including literature, theatre, politics, science, religion, music, and art, from 1660 to 1800. Coverage is still spotty, and British culture is disproportionately represented.
A fine place to start on later eighteenth-century history. An extensive chronology with elaborate search capabilities: O si sic omnes!
Early Modern Chronology (Columbia)
Extensive timeline of European history, 1453 to 1715.

Enlightenment

The European Enlightenment (Richard Hooker, Washington State)
Extensive and attractive overview of 17th- and 18th-c. Europe. Makes considerable use of frames and JavaScript, which will give many browsers trouble.

Exploration

Sir John Franklin
Information and links on the explorer.
Discoverers Web (Netherlands)
Maps and discussions of world explorers from antiquity to the present.
Maritime History Virtual Archives (Sweden)
Includes some eighteenth-century information.
American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts of Early American Exploration and Settlement
Contains "more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later." Includes books and manuscripts.

British History

History — The 18th Century (The Mining Company)
An overview of 18th-c. Britain.
The British Empire (National Archives, UK)
An exhibition on empire. It's aimed mostly at school-age students, but includes useful primary documents.
Georgian Index
A fan site with a great deal of miscellaneous information on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Britain.
Greenwood's Map of London, 1827
High-resolution scan of the early 19th-c. map, allowing the reader to zoom in.
The John Hampden Society
Information on the Society and its events, with a brief adulatory profile of Hampden.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 (Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., and Matthew Kramer, Univ. of Georgia)
Discussions, chronologies, quotations, and bibliographies on the Glorious Revolution. Graphics-heavy.
An excellent, extensive, and scholarly archive on the South Sea Bubble by a team of scholars.
The Jacobite Heritage (Noel McFerran)
Biographies, primary documents, genealogies, essays, and popular songs on the Stuart claimants to the throne and the Jacobite rebellions.
Statistical Accounts of Scotland — EDINA
Surveys of the 1790s and 1830s, with extensive information on demographics, economics, agriculture, education, and so on. Very impressive.
Irish Penal Laws (Univ. of Minnesota Law Library)
An impressive collection of primary documents on the Irish Penal Laws ("Laws in Ireland for the Suppression of Popery") from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Very impressive.
The Hannah Snell Home Page (Matthew Stephens)
Information on the woman from mid-century who dressed as a man and served as a marine. Includes biography, chronology, genealogy, and promotes the editor's new book.
H.M.S. Bounty (Philippe Coupard)
An unscholarly but fairly extensive collection of information on the Bounty, compiled by a hobbyist and model builder. Inlcudes a brief history and a bibliography. In French.
The First English Coffee-Houses, c. 1670-1675 (Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham)
Short primary texts on coffee houses.
The Hypertext John Evelyn Diary
Selections from the diaries.
The Pepys Library
Information on the Library, with brief biographical information on Pepys.
Pepys' Diary
An ongoing on-line edition of the Diary, with a new entry each day, allowing you to read along with Pepys day-by-day. Many annotations.
Rob Roy on the Web (Tim Spalding)
A useful set of biographies, bibliographies, filmographies, and links on Robert "Roy" MacGregor (1671-1734).
How to be an Eighteenth-Century Gentleman (Steven Wexler)
An annotated bibliography on the conceptions of the English gentleman.
Restoration Print Culture: A Multimedia Presentation (Francis Steen, UCSB)
Primary documents on the Exclusion Crisis, from the 1670s through the Revolution.
The Altered State: England, Literature, and the Pub (Steven Earnshaw)
Selections from a book which "looks at how inns, taverns, alehouses and pubs have appeared in literature from Chaucer to the present day." Includes bibliographies and extracts. Requires frames.
Invitation to a Funeral Tour (Molly Brown)
"A free-style jaunt around Restoration London." Promotional site for book by the author.
The British Abolition Movement (Mark Aronowitz, Miami Univ.)
A student project history, literature, and art of the British abolition movement. Well done.
The best place to start for information on Equiano. Includes a bibliography, maps of Equiano's travels, selections from his Narrative, portraits, and links.
Jekyll's life, an annotated bibliography, selections from Sancho's letters, and links, with more to come. Very impressive.
The New Child: British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood (University Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, UC Berkeley)
An illustrated exhibition on changing conceptions of childhood.

Monarchs and Prime Minsters

Royal Genealogies (PSU)
Extensive genealogies of British monarchs.
Monarchs of Britain (Encyclopedia of Britannica)
Includes brief biographies and extensive genealogies.
The Prime Ministers (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Begins with Walpole, and includes brief biographies and bibliographies for all of Britain's Prime Ministers.

Crime, Piracy, and Low Life (not to be confused with the monarchs and prime ministers above)

A searchable database of over 20,000 criminal trials and growing. A remarkable scholarly resource. O si sic omnes!
Complete Newgate Calendar (Texas)
A complete and searchable archive of the 1926 edition of the Complete Newgate Calendar.
Tyburn Tree (Charlie Mitchell, Loyola)
A well-prepared collection of materials on execution in early modern England.
Index of Piracy (Geocities)
A fine meta-page of piracy resources. Like all Geocities sites, irritatingly commercial.
Isle of Tortuga (formerly Homepage Wastrel: Piracy)
Includes historical and biographical information on pirates.
Dry Drunk: The Culture of Tobacco in 17th- and 18th-century Europe (Elizabeth Wyckoff, New York Public Library)
Illustrated exhibition on tobacco and snuff.

Newspapers, Journals, Broadsides, and Print Culture

Nearly ten thousand records on early American libraries. A major source of information on library history from Princeton. O si sic omnes!
Concise History of the British Newspaper: The British Library Newspaper Library (British Library)
Timeline on newspaper history, with several illustrations.
Internet Library of Early Journals (Bodleian)
Page images of long (but not complete) runs of several eigtheenth- and nineteenth-century periodicals, including The Annual Register (1758-78), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1843-63), The Gentleman's Magazine (1731-50), and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1757-77).
The London Gazette — Munday Septemb 3, to Munday Septemb 10, 1666
Selections on the Great Fire.
A very extensive database index to several decades of one of the oldest continuously published English-language newspapers. O si sic omnes!
British Newspaper Coverage of the French Revolution: A Small Archive of the British View of Unspeakable Events in the French Revolution (Alan Liu, UCSB)
A few early newspaper reports from 1792 and 1793.
"A private collection of street literature held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It comprises a wide range of types, from street ballads through chapbooks and tracts to valentines, from Britain and mostly from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Several hundred texts and several thousand images are searchable by author, title, date, and first line. A very important collection.
A searchable collection of 1,800 Scottish broadsides from 1650 to 1910. Transcriptions and page images. Aimed at general readers, but also useful for scholars.
Palaeography: Reading Old Handwriting, 1500-1800: A Practical Online Tutorial (National Archives, UK)
A useful guide for beginners.
Zeitschriften der Aufklärung (Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld)
Page images from forty-five newspapers, totaling more than 80,000 articles, on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century science and literature. In German.

American History

From Revolution to Reconstruction (George M. Welling)
A large hypertextual archive of information, especially primary documents, on American history, with strong coverage of the colonial and revolutionary periods.
Records of American legislative bodies from the Continental Congress in 1774 to 1873. Full text and page images of the House Journal, the Senate Journal, the Senate Executive Journal, the Annals of Congress, the Journals of the Continental Congress, Elliot's Debates, Farrand's Records, Maclay's Journal, and Statutes at Large. Invaluable. O si sic omnes!
Past Portal (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)
An impressive and growing archive of page images of 18th-c. American newspapers and books, including the full run of the Virginia Gazette (1736-1780).
The Avalon Project: 18th Century Documents (Yale Law)
Extensive archive of American historical documents.
Early American Documents (Emory)
High-resolution (and therefore large) facsimiles of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence (including Jefferson's draft), and Bill of Rights.
A remarkable annotated edition of the U.S. Constitution, with extensive commentary and contextual material on every clause. O si sic omnes!
Archiving Early America
Includes the Keigwin and Matthews collection of historic newspapers.
Society of Early Americanists (Irvine)
Information on the Society, with links to E-texts, information on teaching, dissertations, recent and forthcoming publications, and other Web resources.
Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture
Information on the Institute and its events and publications, including William and Mary Quarterly.
Historic Object & Image (Geoffrey Gross)
Photographs on the material culture of early America. Still small, but the photos are attractive.
Classics of American Colonial History
Full text of scholarly articles (and a few books) on Colonial America from the 1890s through the early 1920s (all out of copyright in the US).
13 Originals: Founding the American Colonies
A good set of links structured around a chronology of the thirteen American colonies.
General Society of Colonial Wars
Links to several state societies, which vary widely in the extent and value of the information they provide.
The Society of Colonial Wars in Connecticut
Most useful is a very extensive chronology, with links from the timeline to longer discussions of military and political history.
Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783
Description of the CD-ROM.
The Plymouth Colony Archive Project (Christopher Fennell, Virginia)
Extensive information on late 17th-c. Plymouth Colony.
Witchcraft in Salem Village (Richard Trask, Virginia)
Extensive archive on the 1692 trials.
The Leslie Brock Center for the Study of Colonial Currency (Virginia)
Useful primary and secondary documents on early American currency.
The Early America Review
Contents and texts of the print journal.
White Oak Society
A "living-history" guide to the 18th-c. fur trade.
Common-place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life
"Created to bridge the gap between what academic historians write and what the public wants to read, Common-place brings together historians and history buffs, high school teachers and archivists, collectors and college students, to explore and exchange ideas about American history."
An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera (Library of Congress)
More than 10,000 digitized images of American ephemera from 1600 to 2000.
The Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, ca. 1600-1925 (Library of Congress)
A guide to the collection.
Continental Congress & Constitutional Convention Broadsides Home Page (Library of Congress)
A guide to the collection of 274 documents.
An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920 (Library of Congress)
A collection of more than 200 dance manuals.
A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation (Library of Congress)
Page images of records of Congressional debates beginning in 1774.

The American Revolution

AmericanRevolution.org
An extensive site on the American War of Independence. The audience is mostly amateur historians, though there is useful material for scholars as well. There's also a wonderfully comprehensive set of links.
Center of the Storm
A series of newspaper articles from the Newark Star-Ledger on New Jersey's role in the American Revolution.

Maps

The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789 (Library of Congress)
A searchable collection of early American maps.
Exploring the West from Monticello: An Exhibition of Maps and Navigational Instruments (Virginia)
Includes a number of 18th-c. maps.
Colonial and Revolutionary America (Georgia)
Georgia's Rare Map Collection includes sections for Dozens of images of early maps.

Slavery

DPLS Archive: Slave Movement During the 18th and 19th Centuries (Wisconsin)
"This site provides access to the raw data and documentation which contains information on the following slave trade topics from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: records of slave ship movement between Africa and the Americas, slave ships of eighteenth century France, slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, Virginia slave trade in the eighteenth century, English slave trade (House of Lords Survey), Angola slave trade in the eighteenth century, internal slave trade to Rio de Janeiro, slave trade to Havana, Cuba, Nantes slave trade in the eighteenth century, and slave trade to Jamaica."
Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789 (Eddie Becker, Holt House)
A very extensive timeline on American slavery and racism from 1619 to the present. Well documented.
Slave Narratives (Steven Mintz)
Seventeenth- through nineteenth-century accounts of slavery.
African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship (Library of Congress)
An exhibition of 240 items in the LoC collections documenting the history of African Americans, from slavery through the civil rights movement.
Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 (Library of Congress)
More then a hundred pamphlets and books on trials relating to American slavery.

Regional History

Louisiana
Center for Regional Studies (Southeastern Louisiana Univ.)
Information on the Center and links to other resources.
Maryland
Maryland Loyalists and the American Revolution (M. Christopher New)
flashy and sensational look at Maryland's loyalists, promoting the author's book.
New Jersey
New Jersey during the Revolution (Glenn Valis)
A good set of amateur pages on Revolutionary history in New Jersey, with hyperlinked narrative histories.
Ohio
The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 (American Memory, Library of Congress)
A guide to the collection, with some on-line resources.
Pennsylvania
Biographical Dictionary of Pennsylvania Legislators (Temple Univ.)
Companion to the in-progress biographical dictionary on Pennsylvania lawmakers from the 17th through 20th centuries.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania)
Some useful information on Pennsylvania history.
Virginia
Colonial Records Project
Index of digital facsimiles of documents on early Virginia.
Colonial Williamsburg Home Page
Aimed at tourists rather than scholars.
Early Virginia Religious Petitions (Library of Congress)
Images of more than 400 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature from 1774 to 1802.

American Historical Figures

Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin: A Documentary History (J. A. Leo Lemay, Delaware)
Extensive chronology of Franklin's life. Graphics-heavy; requires frames.
The World of Benjamin Franklin (Franklin Institute, Philadelphia)
Accessible introduction to Franklin, aimed at beginners. Little of scholarly value, but handy for students.
Franklin Links (ushistory.org)
A good set of annotated links on Benjamin Franklin resources on the Web.
Thomas Jefferson
Comprehensive bibliographies of works on Jefferson from 1826 to 1990. Invaluable.
Monticello: Thomas Jefferson Portal
A large database of the catalogue of the library at Monticello.
Thomas Jefferson Papers (Library of Congress)
A guide to the 27,000 Jefferson-related documents in the Library of Congress.
Thomas Jefferson Online Resources at the University of Virginia Electronic Text Center
An overview of Virginia's resources on their founder.
Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government (Eyler Robert Coates, Virginia)
Quotations from Jefferson with a strong Libertarian bent.
James Madison
Papers of James Madison (Virginia)
Short biography, bibliography, and discussion of the publication project.
Thomas Paine
The Works of Thomas Paine
The Frethought collection. Links to several dozen E-texts.
Thomas Paine National Historical Association
Large archive of Paine's works, with information on the Association.
William Penn
William Penn, Visionary Proprietor (Tuomi J. Forrest, Virginia)
Brief introduction to Penn's life.
Paul Revere
The Paul Revere House
Information for visitors to the house, with brief biographical and historical essays and illustrations.
George Washington
George Washington Papers (Library of Congress)
An in-progress edition of over 65,000 MSS from the Library of Congress.
George Washington Papers (Virginia)
Information on the publishing project, with selected documents, essays, and an index of the published volumes.
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster: Dartmouth's Favorite Son (Dartmouth)

Canadian History

Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage/Patrimoine de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador
Large collection of information on Newfoundland and Labrador history. In French and English.
Fortress of Louisbourg/Forteresse de Louisbourg: The Official Louisbourg Institute/Institut de Louisbourg Research Site for the Fortress of Louisbourg
An extensive and well-organized resource on the 18th-c. Canadian fortress and its history.
CO 194 Finding Aids (Olaf U. Janzen, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland)
A guide to the most important collection of primary documents on Newfoundland's early history.
A Reader's Guide to the History of Newfoundland and Labrador to 1869 (Olaf U. Janzen, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland)
A well organized and clearly written companion to early Newfoundland history.

European History

General European History

The Ryhiner Project
Catalogue of the extensive early modern map collection.
Home Page Bibiena: I Bibiena: Una famiglia europea (Bologna)
A history of the Bibiena family, 17th- and 18th-c. architects, including extensive bibliographies. In Italian.
Belle van Zuylen/Madame de Charriè (Netherlands)
Extensive site on Belle van Zuylen, with biography, chronologies, bibliographies, photographs of places, &c. In Dutch and French.
FASTI
Resources on the history of universities. In English and Dutch.
History of Catalonia
A collection that includes:

France

The French Revolution section of The Voice of the Shuttle (Alan Liu, UCSB)
The best place to start.
Accounts of Louis XIV (Hanover)
A collection of primary texts.
L'Age d'Or — French and English Baroque
Popular rather than scholarly introduction to Baroque art and culture ("Lord and Lady, Officers and Gentlemen, would you grant me the pleasure to invite you to a hopefully enjoyable journey through time into the splendour of the Baroque Age and the military might of Kirke's Lambs").
Royalty.nu — French History — Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and the French Revolution
Short biographies and a bibliography of popular books.
Les libertés au XVIIIe siècle
French E-texts from the late 18th century on political liberty.
French Revolution Documents Collection (Indiana Univ. Libraries)
Searchable index to an extensive collection of documents on Revolutionary Europe. (Index only; no full text.)
Tableau des avocats au Parlement de Paris pour l'année 1770 (Hopkins; in French)
The 540 names on the Tableau, which survives in only three copies.
French Revolutionary Pamphlets (ARTFL)
Facsimiles of three pamplets, 1789-1791.
Words and Deeds of Madness in 18th-C. Paris (Laurent Cartayrade)
An accessible collection of interdictions in legal cases over the sanity of 18th-c. Parisians. Still sparse, but intriguing.
Napoleon
Napoleon Series
Popular Web site on Napoleon ("a place where people interested in Napoleonic history can meet to exchange ideas and knowledge or just to talk about their favourite subject").
Napoleonic Literature
Electronic texts of full books (out of copyright) on Napoleon.
Napoleon Bonaparte Internet Guide (Paul Hilferink, Netherlands)
A good set of links to Napoleonic resources on the Net.
Napoleon Guide
A good overview of the period for amateur historians.
Salons
Salon Life (Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham)
Several short extracts of contemporary accounts of the salons of Julie de Lespinasse and Madame Geoffrin.
Salons (André Bonchard)
An introduction to salons around the world, including those of Scudery, Sévigné, Graffigny, Deffand, Baron d'Holbach, Staël, Elizabeth Robinson Montagu, and many others. In French.

Germany

Munchausen.org - The Website for Research in Munchausology (Bernhard Wiebel)
An extensive site on Baron Munchausen, including a bibliography and many prints. In German and in English; the German part of the site is more comprehensive.

Italy

The Medici Archive Project (Johns Hopkins)
A collection of "documentary sources for the arts and humanities: 1537-1743."
Cromohs: Cyber Review of Modern Historiography (Italy)
General site on modern historiography, with E-texts, guide to Internet resources, and annual volumes of the review itself.

Netherlands

Netherlands Historical Data Archive
Primary sources.

Russia

Peter the Great and the Rise of Russia, 1682-1725 (Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham)
Short extracts from Burnet, Von Korb, Gordon, and Missy.
Catherine the Great (Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham)
Short extracts from the Baron de Breteuil and Catherine's own laws.

Other History

I've found little 18th-c. information relating to the world outside Western Europe and North America. Please let me know if you come across anything I haven't listed.
EH.R: Forum: Re-thinking 18th Century China
Archive of a discussion group on 18th-c. Chinese economic history. Technical and specialized.
Sikh History
A large and impressive page on Sikh culture and history, including a section on 18th-c. Sikh warriors.
The Sword of Tippu Sultan (K. L. Kamat)
Brief illustrated biography of the Indian ruler, 1753-1799. Unscholarly but useful.
Mumbai/Bombay: 18th Century History (India)
Brief sketch of Bombay history.
History of the Philippines — Eighteenth Century (Austria)
Brief chronology of major events in Philippine history.

Military History

United States Naval History: A Bibliography (U.S. Navy)
"This edition [1993] of United States Naval History: A Bibliography incorporates more than 450 titles chosen from the large body of naval historical literature published since the bibliography's sixth edition appeared in 1972." Very thorough; some items annotated.
The French and Indian War (Syracuse)
A thorough but unscholarly site.
Braddock's March Home Page
A site commemorating Gen. Edward Braddock's march to Fort Duquesne in 1755. Includes descriptions of the march, maps, a timeline, and a bibliography.
Col. Washington's Frontier Forts Association
Information on a number of forts and battlefields from the early part of the French and Indian War in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
Fort Edwards Colonial Archaeological Site
Information on the history of the West Virginia site in the French and Indian War, with information on the current visitors' center.

Amateur Historiography and Historical Re-Enactment (a highly selective list)

RevList: The Webpage for the Revolutionary War Mailing List
"An active community of living historians, historical writers, genealogists, and other persons interested in the period of time during which the American War of Independence was fought." Unscholarly but extensive, and well suited to historical re-enactors and amateur historians.
The American Revolution WebRing
A collection of several dozen sites on the American Revoution, mostly by amateur historians and historical re-enactors.
Eighteenth Century Ring
A WebRing of over sixty sites, mostly unscholarly, on many miscellaneous topics.
The Rococo Ring
A WebRing of 17 sites, mostly on historical costume and re-enactment.
Reenactor.net — The Colonial Period
A collection of resources for historical re-enactors on the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Part of a larger site on historical re-enactment from antiquity to recent history.
French Marines (David Rent)
A good collection of links for historical re-enactors.
The Continental Line
An extensive collection of resources for Revolutionary War re-enactors, including links and selections from their newsletter.
Pulteney's Regiment (13th Foot) — 18th-Century Re-enactment
A group that specializes in the period 1742-50, especially the Jacobite rebellion. Not scholarly, but it contains some useful information.

Several historic buildings are discussed on the Art, Architecture, and Landscape Gardening page; the history of economics appears on the Other Fields page.