Research Guides: Dance: Find Primary Sources

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Subjects: Dance, English, History, Language, Literacy & Culture, Modern Languages & Linguistics, Music, Theatre

New York Public Library (NYPL) Digital Collections
NYPL Digital Gallery access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more. Below are links to specific collections that may be useful for Dance research.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

Fashion History Timeline
A repository of images cultivated by the Fashion Institute of Technology at SUNY. "The Fashion History Timeline is an open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe."
V&A Fashion
Spanning four centuries, the V&A’s Fashion collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world. Key items in the collection include rare 17th-century gowns, 18th-century ‘mantua’ dresses, 1930s eveningwear, 1960s daywear and post-war couture. Plus a growing number of pieces from 21st-century designers.

National Newspapers (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Full Text
Indexes, abstracts and provides full text for the following: Baltimore Sun: 1990 - present, Christian Science Monitor: 1980 - present, New York Times + Book Review & Magazine: 1980 - present, NYT in Espanol, 2020-, Wall Street Journal: 1984 - present, Washington Post: 1987 - present
Does not include pictures or graphics
New York Times Historical (1851-2010) (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Coverage: Full Text
New York Times full page and article images (.pdfs) from 1851-2001. Includes indexing and abstracting of the newspaper with fully searchable text back to the first issue.

Early Dance Circle
"The Early Dance Circle (EDC) is a UK charity that aims to promote the enjoyment, performance and study of historical dance in the UK and beyond."
Library of Congress: Social Dance Manuals 1490-1920
"A collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories."
Library of Congress Ballet Russe Collection
"This web presentation includes a wide range of Ballets Russes objects, including photographs, scrapbooks, writings, costume and set designs, choreographic notes, music scores, diaries, and programs."
Library of Congress Martha Graham Collection
"In this Web presentation, we follow Martha Graham's work between 1918 and 1949, and offer a selection of materials related to them – concert programs, clippings (including press announcements and reviews), libretti, scripts and photographs."
Library of Congress Katherine Dunham Collection
"This collection consists of moving image materials that document the extraordinary journey of a woman who changed the face of American modern dance. The Collection highlights Dunham’s early explorations as an anthropologist in the 1930s as she observed a multitude of movement types and dance forms."