Guides: HIST 433: British Queer History: Home

Getting Started

British History
by Kristen Howard Last Updated Apr 1, 2025 438 views this year
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
by Michael David MILLER Last Updated Jan 20, 2025 552 views this year

A Gay History of Britain by Matt Cook; Robert Mills; Randolph Trumbach; H. G. Cocks
Call Number: HQ76.2 G7 G39 2007
Publication Date: 2007
The book explores the changing ways in which male-male sex and love have been perceived and experienced from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the present.
A Lesbian History of Britain by Rebecca Jennings
Call Number: HQ75.6 G7 J46 2007
Publication Date: 2007
Drawing on a wide range of historical sources - court records, newspaper reports, medical records, novels, oral histories and personal papers - A Lesbian History of Britain presents the extraordinary history of lesbian experience in Britain.

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Find books

Library Catalogue

Reminders for catalogue searching:

Use the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to find books on the same topic
Scroll to the bottom of a catalogue record to browse the virtual shelf

Find peer-reviewed articles

Historical Abstracts (EBSCO)
This database contains references to journal articles, book reviews and some dissertations about the history of all parts of the world from 1450 on, EXCLUDING Canada and the United States. In the search options, select "Peer Reviewed" and enter "Historical Period" (e.g., Start Year: 1850 To End Year: 1917).
Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) (Brepols)
From landing page, click on Bibliography of British and Irish History. Provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth, during all periods for which written documentation is available - from 55BC to the present. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History, available online from 2002 to 2009. The complete database now contains over 635,000 records, and is updated three times a year.

Find Primary Sources

Newspapers & Magazines

Newspapers
by Humanities and Social Sciences Library Last Updated Nov 1, 2024 7228 views this year

British Library Newspapers (Gale Primary Sources)
Full-text database containing digitized regional and local newspapers published in Britain between the mid-eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.
Access to parts I-V, not part VI- Ireland, 1797-1950.
LGBT Magazine Archive (ProQuest)
Archival runs of 26 of the most influential, longest-running serial publications covering LGBT interests including the UK title Gay Times.

Thematic Digital Collections

Sex and Sexuality (Adam Matthew)
This collection explores changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities and sexual behaviours from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Investigating the breadth and complexity of human sexual understanding through the work of leading sexologists, sex researchers, organizations and personal accounts.

Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century (Gale)
This collection is made up of more than five thousand rare and unique books covering sex, sexuality, and gender issues across the sciences and humanities and throughout history. This online archive includes three unique collections:
1. The Private Case from the British Library, comprised of printed books segregated from the main library from the 1850s to 1990 on grounds of obscenity.
2. Special Subject Units from Sex Research: Early Literature from Statistics to Erotica, a collection from the Alfred C. Kinsey Institute for Sex Research dating from 1700 to 1860.
3. A collection of rare and unique books from the New York Academy of Medicine, consisting of more than 1,400 monographs covering a variety of topics in sex, sexuality, and gender studies.

Archives of Sexuality and Gender (Gale Primary Sources)
LGBTQ history and culture since 1940. Archive containing historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals, personal correspondence, interviews, publications, gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries.
Includes reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health.Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.

Homosexuality in 18th-century England
An online sourcebook compiled by Rictor Norton.
Homosexuality in 19th-century England
An online sourcebook compiled by Rictor Norton.
Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914
Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet features over 420 trial narratives involving the crimes and passions of both renowned and ordinary people.

Nineteenth-Century Writings on Homosexuality: A Sourcebook by Chris White (Editor)
Call Number: PR1111 .H57 N56 1999
Available in print and eBook formats.

Mass Observation Online (Adam Matthew)
Access to one of the most important archives for the study of Social History in the modern era. Contains scans of original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the Mass Observation organisation, as well as printed publications, photographs and interactive features.
Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 (Adam Matthew)
Contains collections of original manuscript, typescript and ephemera archival material about civil rights, protest movements and popular culture from key libraries in Britain and America.
Mass Observation Project (Adam Matthew)
Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, its founders' aim was to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. Still growing, it is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s-2000s and the thousands of responses to them from the hundreds of Mass Observers.

Citations

History as a discipline uses the Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition) for citations, and usually the Notes-Bibliography form. This requires creating properly formatted footnotes footnotes and a Bibliography for your assignments. Resources to understand the Chicago style of citations are included below.

Note: Chicago Manual of Style updated to the 18th edition in September 2024.

HCS Guide to the Chicago Manual of Style
A guide to the Chicago Manual of Style developed for students in History and Classics (18th edition).

The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition
Publication Date: 2024
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Ninth Edition by Kate L. Turabian
Call Number: LB2369 T8 2018
Publication Date: 2018
A guide to Chicago Manual of Style with more information on hard-to-cite or unusual sources than the original manual. Note that this manual has not yet been updated to reflect the changes in the 18th edition of Chicago.

Guides

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Quick Guide
McGill Library Citation Subject Guide
Under "citation styles by subject", select "History" for more resources on Chicago style.

Library Support

Chicago Workshops
McGill Librarians offer virtual Chicago Citation Style workshops every term. Follow this link to find and register for upcoming workshops!
Citation Management
Attend a workshop to learn how to use Zotero or EndNote, useful citation management systems. Zotero is highly recommended for History students!

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