Databases /Social Sciences /Anthropology

Databases

Academic Video Online (AVON)VCU VIVA
Thousands of streaming videos covering a wide range of disciplines. Includes documentaries, interviews, feature films, news, and more distributed by PBS, BBC, CNN, CBS, Sony, A&E, Contemporary Arts Media, Royal Shakespeare, and many others.

Africa-Wide InformationVCU
Multidisciplinary index to research and publications by Africans and about Africa. Content includes dozens of bibliographic databases.

American Indian Histories and CulturesVCU
Manuscripts, artwork, photographs, maps and print materials documenting American Indian history from American Indian and European perspectives, dating from 16th-century European settlement through the civil rights movements of the mid-20th century.

American WestVCU
Manuscripts, printed works, records, maps and ephemera from the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western Americana, documenting the cultural, social, commercial, and environmental history of westward expansion from the 18th to mid-20th century.

Anthropological Index Online (AIO)
Citations to articles found in the periodicals collection of The Anthropology Library at the British Museum.

AnthrosourceVCU
Digital searchable database containing past, present, and future publications of the American Anthropological Association. Includes articles from AAA journals, newsletters, bulletins, and monographs.

Bibliography of Asian StudiesVCU
Research on East, Southeast, and South Asia. Covers a wide range of subject areas, with special focus on humanities and social sciences. Published by the Association for Asian Studies.

Bibliography of Native North AmericansVCU
Citations for books, essays, journal articles, and government documents of the United States and Canada pertaining to native North Americans. Coverage from 1558 to present.

Caribbean SearchVCU
Full text content pertaining to the countries and people of the Caribbean, including extensive data on the current status and history of geographic regions.

China: Culture and SocietyVCU
Digitized pamphlets from the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia, published between 1750 and 1929, featuring addresses and speeches, essays, journals, meeting minutes, lectures, and reports. Includes scholarly essays and other secondary sources.

China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980VCU
Correspondence, maps, official papers, photographs, illustrations, and other primary source material detailing China's interaction with the West from the earliest English embassy to the Nixon visits in China in 1972-1974.

Church Missionary Society PeriodicalsVCU
Publications from the Church Mission Society spanning the 19th to the 21st century, documenting global missionary history against a backdrop of conflict, colonialism, and globalization.

Covidence (Pilot access provided until Dec 2025)
Covidence is a collaborative tool that streamlines systematic review workflows for screening, data extraction, and quality assessment. See instructions for requesting an account.

Defining GenderVCU
Diaries, letters, poetry, books, pamphlets, ephemera, and other digitized primary source material depicting gender, leisure and consumer culture in British society between the 15th and 20th centuries.

Docuseek Complete CollectionVCU VIVA
Documentaries covering anthropology, area studies, the arts, criminal justice, education, environmental studies, global studies, health, history, political science, psychology, sciences, sociology, women's studies, and more.

eHRAF World Cultures (Human Relations Area Files)VCU
Cross-cultural database of ethnographic collections covering all aspects of cultural and social life, organized into cultures and ethnic groups. Primary full-text source material in anthropology, archaeology, and sociology.

Eighteenth Century JournalsVCU
Rare journals printed between 1685 and 1835 in the UK and the US, covering all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Journals range from political journals to colonial newspapers, poetic reviews to fashion magazines.

Ethnic Diversity SourceVCU
Full text database covering the culture, traditions, social treatment and lived experiences of different ethnic groups in America. Includes thousands of books, biographies, primary source documents, speeches, letters, interviews, videos, and more.

Ethnographic Video Online Vols. I and IIVCU
Hundreds of classic and contemporary documentaries on the study of human culture and behavior covering every region of the world.

Ethnomusicology: Global Field RecordingsVCU
Global collection of ethnomusicological field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera.

Everyday Life and Women in America, c.1800-1920VCU
Rare books, pamphlets, periodicals, and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes.

FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service)VCU
The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) is a one-of-a-kind archive of transcripts of foreign broadcasts & news that provides insight into the 2nd half of the 20th century (1941-1996). Many are firsthand reports of events as they occurred.

Films on Demand Master Academic CollectionVCU
Streaming films covering core academic subjects. Also includes archival films and newsreels.

Frontier Life: Borderlands, Settlement and Colonial EncountersVCU
Correspondences, diaries, business records, legal documents, publications, and other primary source materials documenting the European colonization of North America, Africa, and Australasia between 1650 and 1920.

Grand TourVCU
Manuscript, visual and printed works documenting the history of Anglo-European continental travel for pleasure, business and diplomacy from 1550 to 1850, and travel’s influence on street life, architecture, urban planning, literature, and philosophy.

India, Raj and EmpireVCU
Manuscripts and other primary sources documenting, from a British colonial perspective, the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.

Indian Trade in the Southeastern Spanish Borderlands: Papers of Panton, Leslie and CompanyVCU
Legal, political, and diplomatic documents recording the operations of the trading firm Panton, Leslie & Co., providing insight for the ethnographic study of Indigenous people of the Southeast.

Indigenous Peoples: North AmericaVCU
Primary-source collections from Canadian and American institutions, providing insight into the cultural, political, and social history of Native peoples. Includes manuscripts, newspapers, Bibles, dictionaries, and primers in Indigenous languages.

Jewish Life in America, c.1654-1954VCU
Digitized manuscript collections from the American Jewish Historical Society in New York, documenting the history of American Jewish communities from the 17th through 20th centuries.

Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of TourismVCU
Guidebooks, brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs, personal travel journals and other primary source materials documenting the development of mass tourism from the mid-1800s through the 1980s.

Mass Observation OnlineVCU
Digitized original manuscript and typescript papers created and collected by the original Mass Observation organization, founded in 1937 to study the everyday lives of ordinary people in Britain between the 1930s and 50s.

Medieval Family Life: The Paston, Cely, Plumpton, Stonor and Armburgh PapersVCU
Digitized and transcripted copies of five family letter collections dating between 1400 and 1490, including the Paston Family Papers. Also includes a chronology, visual gallery, interactive map, glossary, and family trees.

Medieval Travel WritingVCU
Digitized international manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries, with a focus on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India, and China. Documents attitudes and preconceptions of people across Europe in the medieval period.

Meiji JapanVCU
Manuscripts for the study of Meiji society, culture, ethnology and education from the papers of Edward S Morse. Diaries, journals, correspondences, scrapbooks, and other materials span 1856 to 1925.

Migration to New WorldsVCU
Primary sources documenting migration from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to North America and Australasia during the 19th and 20th centuries. Materials range from personal accounts to photographs and printed ephemera.

Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975VCU
Printed and manuscript sources, visual material, ephemera, and video clips covering 1950s to 1970s popular culture in Britain and America, and its intersection with major events of the period.

Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926VCU
Digitized books, newspapers, maps, sermons, legislation, and more providing original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, and other topics from 1500 to the early 1900s. Drawn from Joseph Sabin's bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana.

Sex & SexualityVCU
Research papers, organization records, newsletters, photographs, comics, and other archival materials documenting changing attitudes towards human sexuality, gender identities, and sexual behaviors from the 19th century to the present.

Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007VCU
Digitized manuscripts, court records, pamphlets, books, paintings, maps, and images from 1490 to 2007, covering the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.

Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International PropagandaVCU
Documentary films, features and newsreels by filmmakers from the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Britain, and Latin America, filmed from the Russian revolution to the end of the Cold War.

Travel Writing, Spectacle and World HistoryVCU
Digitized collection of American women's travel diaries, correspondences, manuscripts, photographs, postcards and ephemera ranging from 1835 to 1976, sourced from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.

Victorian Popular CultureVCU
Objects, printed books, ephemera, posters, photographs, playbills, and other primary sources relating to popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe from 1779 to 1930. Covers entertainment forms from stage magic to the advent of cinema.

Vivvix (formerly AdSpender)VCU
Tracks millions of brands across 18 media and ranks top spenders by industry, parent, brand, etc. Find how, when and where the competition spends their advertising dollars.

World's Fairs: A Global History of ExpositionsVCU
Digitized primary source material from world's fairs and exhibitions spanning 1851 to 2015. Documents include fair committee minutes and correspondences, catalogues and guide books, photographs, maps, souvenir artifacts, and audio interviews.