Historical Methodology

Interface in English or other, major European languages. Content in multiple languages.
Europe-wide unified search of digitized collections. Images, audio, texts, and more. Funded by the EU. Covers more than 1,000 years of history. Strongest for 1500 to 2000.
Open Access.

Interface in English. Content in English or other languages.
Digitized collections from the Library of Congress, includes manuscripts, books, photos, maps, audio recordings, and more. Strongest between the 17th and 21st centuries. Content dating back to B.C.E.
Open Access.

This collection includes more than 100,000 digital facsimiles of objects (e.g., ceramics, brass implements, etc.) and art (e.g., paintings, illustrations, etc.). Interface in Chinese or English, metadata entirely in Chinese. Browsing possible in English.

A selection of cookbooks from China as well as Americanized versions of Chinese cuisine dating from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

Cookbooks published in the United States from 1800 to 1920 from New York University's collection.

An online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century.

A dozen facsimiles of US cookbooks from the late 19th and 20 centuries.

No longer updated, this blog featured the University of Texas Mexican cookbook collection.

Explore medicinal and culinary recipes through the ages with this collection of 16th-19th century domestic recipe manuscripts.

Publications from 1832 to 1921. Many of these “receipt” books provide insight into 19th-century and early 20th-century South Carolina foodways. Geographically, the collection covers many parts of the state, including Kingstree (Kingstree Cook Book 1921), Spartanburg (Spartanburg Cook Book 1917), Sumter (Best War Recipes 1917), and, of course, Charleston.

Includes books from the Young Research Library Department of Special Collections at UCLA, The Bancroft Library at The University of California, Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library. These fascinating books take us back to an America in the early decades of the 20th century covering topics on cookery, textiles, family and home, budgeting, domestic sciences, and many other delightful topics.

"The Culinary Institute of America’s special collection of 30,000 historical menus includes menus from CIA restaurants and donations from major menu collectors, including George Lang, Chapman S. Root, Vinnie Oakes, and Roy Andries de Groot. Assembled over decades, the collection illustrates the history of dining in America and abroad, with menus from all of the states and over 80 countries, as well as ships, railroads and airlines."

"The Historic Menus digital collection includes a variety of menus from the Milwaukee area from the early twentieth century to the present."

Currently available are restaurant menus from the 1930s to the present. LaRC also preserves menus and brochures for hotel restaurants, as well as drink lists and promotional flyers for bars. Those extend to the 1910s and will go online during the summer and fall of 2012. Third, LaRC preserves banquet menus for organizations holding meetings and conventions. Extending back to the 1870s, we hope to put those online in the fall of 2012 and spring of 2013.

More than 1,500 digital facsimiles of menus from across Nevada with a focus on Los Vegas from the 20th century.

"This collection represents menus, placemats, and other graphic materials from many of the Puget Sound area's most famous restaurants and dining facilities in the years between 1889 and 2003. Restaurants in all styles and classes of trade are represented, from lunch counters to first class gourmet fare. Also included in the collection are travel-related menus from ships, railroads, and airplanes. Among the many historical menus in the collection are those from the Space Needle Restaurant, Ivar's Acres of Clams, the Dog House, and cruises aboard the Alaska and Pacific Steam Ship Lines."

"With approximately 45,000 menus dating from the 1840s to the present, The New York Public Library’s restaurant menu collection is one of the largest in the world, used by historians, chefs, novelists and everyday food enthusiasts. Trouble is, the menus are very difficult to search for the greatest treasures they contain: specific information about dishes, prices, the organization of meals, and all the stories these things tell us about the history of food and culture."

Gusto! showcases historic and contemporary facets of Victoria's culinary landscape. [State Library Victoria]

Dozens of recipe books focused on alcoholic beverages from across the 20th century in English.

This digital collection features a broad spectrum of materials related to the production, packaging, and marketing of food, including advertisements, printed ephemera, recipe books, and photographs. Subjects represented in the collection include food additives and adulteration, flavoring essences, and safety standards, as well as food-adjacent topics such as sugar, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and margarine.

The NALDC offers rich searching, browsing and retrieval of digital materials and collections (including dietary, poultry, fruits and vegetables, etc.), and provides reliable, long-term online access to selected publications.

The Human Ecology Collection brings together, in digital form, primary and secondary materials relating to human ecology as well as archival photos documenting the history of the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals.

US collections of housekeeping and cookbooks as well as guidelines for industrial and agricultural arts from the 19th and 20th centuries.