Broadside
Just as programs are sold at sporting events today, broadsides -- styled at the time as "Last Dying Speeches" or "Bloody Murders" -- were sold to the audiences that gathered to witness public executions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. These ephemeral publications were intended for the middle or lower classes, and most sold for a penny or less. Published in British towns and cities by printers who specialized in this type of street literature, a typical example features an illustration (usually of the criminal, the crime scene, or the execution); an account of the crime and (sometimes) the trial; and the purported confession of the criminal, often cautioning the reader in doggerel verse to avoid the fate awaiting the perpetrator.
In the centuries before there were newspapers and 24-hour news channels, the general public had to rely on street literature to find out what was going on. The most popular form of this for nearly 300 years was 'broadsides' - the tabloids of their day. Sometimes pinned up on walls in houses and ale-houses, these single sheets carried public notices, news, speeches and songs that could be read (or sung) aloud.
The National Library of Scotland's online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides lets you see for yourself what 'the word on the street' was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910. Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, tragedy, royalty and superstitions - all these and more are here.
Center for Digital Initiatives Box A, Brown University Providence, RI 02912 (401) 863-2817 About This Collection Broadsides are single-sheet publications, often issued as ephemera or announcements. The Harris Broadsides Collection is a comprehensive collection of American poetry published in broadside format from colonial times to the present. The collection offers materials covering a broad spectrum of American life, and includes poetry of every description: 18th and 19th century ballads, verse describing newsworthy events, poetic effusions of sentimentality and patriotism, comic verse, and much more. When completed, this digital project will include over 20,000 titles.
Kirk Collection Box A Brown University Library Providence, RI 02912 Tovah Reis Developed & hosted by Center for Digital Initiatives Box A Brown University Library Providence, RI 02912 cdi@brown.edu About This Collection The digitized items in the Alcohol, Temperance and Prohibition Collection are from the Alcoholism and Addiction Studies Collection , as well as from various collections in the Brown University Library — broadsides, sheet music, pamphlets and government publications.
Center for Digital Scholarship Box A, Brown University Providence, RI 02912 About This Collection Lincoln broadsides were created and used to advertise and educate Americans about, as well as to commemorate, the Sixteenth President of the United States. They document the didactic use of Lincoln's image in the public sphere and suggest Lincoln's important place in American culture as a national role model to citizens at all levels of society. Adult and child, manufacturer, seller and purchaser, artist and businessman, private civic organization and public institution — all are represented as producers and consumers of the print materials included in this collection.
History of the Susan H. Douglas Collection The central goal of the project is to preserve, digitize, and catalog all items in the Susan H. Douglas Collection of Political Americana. Acquired from an individual collector between 1957 and 1961, the Douglas collection includes approximately 5,500 items of American political campaign memorabilia and commemorative items dating to between 1789 and 1960. Mrs. Douglas characterized them as: ballots, bric-a-brac (larger three-dimensional objects), broadsides, buttons, cartoons, maps and charts, pamphlets, paper miscellaneous, parade items, posters, prints, ribbons, sheet music, songbooks, textiles, trinkets, and wearing apparel.
The Bodleian Library has unparalleled holdings of over 30,000 ballads in several major collections. Broadside ballads are important source material for:
popular literary history
music history
social history
art history
printing history
The Broadside Ballads project, undertaken with funding from the NFF Specialised Research Collections initiative, aims to make the ballads and ballad sheets available to the research community.
The John Johnson Collection About Introduction The John Johnson Collection is the product of a unique partnership between the Bodleian Library and ProQuest to conserve, catalogue and digitise more than 65,000 items drawn from the Bodleian's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. The project, which has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) through its Digitisation Programme , broadens access to a wide array of rare or unique archival materials documenting various aspects of everyday life in Britain in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library has extensive holdings of Canadian pamphlets and broadsides in a great diversity of subject areas from agriculture and land settlement to politics and government to education, temperance, transportation, natural resources, and the arts. The collection encompasses examples from the earliest period of printing in Canada, such as the 1763 prospectus for the Quebec Gazette, to a 1930 price list of officer's uniforms issued by the Montreal firm of W. Scully. Within the broad class of pamphlets and broadsides a variety of genres is represented, including programs, campaign literature, catalogues, reports, and many forms of advertising. The collection includes items in English, French, German and several aboriginal languages.
This digitization project of these two newspapers is the first ever undertaken by the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library.
In April 2004, the National Institute of Korean History (NIKH) approached the Library to propose the digitization of one of the East Asian Library's holdings: Minjoong Shinmoon. This was part of the NIKH's five-year project begun in 2001 to collect historical materials relating to Korean history published overseas. After reviewing our Korean collection, the Library also suggested including The New Korea Times in the same project.
The National Institute of Korean History is a South Korean government organization responsible for investigating, collecting, and compiling historical materials.
Introduction The Special Collections at the Toronto Reference Library reveal a wonderful diversity of focus, form, age and content. Together, they form a cultural legacy that began in the late nineteenth century with the opening of Toronto's first public library. They continue to grow through acquisition and donation to ensure that users today and tomorrow have free access to their cultural and literary heritage. From the humble to the exquisite, each item in the collection has been treasured and preserved, and its story maintained by the librarians of the Toronto Public Library. In celebration of the Toronto Reference Library's thirtieth year at 789 Yonge Street, we proudly present a special exhibition from these collected works.
The Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamplet Collection Using the Collection The collection of broadsides and pamphlets can be accessed via the Library's CONTENTdm server and can be browsed as well as being fully searchable by keyword, title, series title, and author. Collection Searches About the Collection Included among the publications authored by Gerrit Smith are various circulars, speeches, sermons, and tracts which deal with such topics as abolition, suffrage, temperance, transportation, and the postal system. With this project, we can now provide full text access to 214 of these important publications.