In collaboration with The British Library, The Kinsey Institute and New York Academy of Medicine, Gale, a Cengage company, has released the third instalment of its award-winning Archives of Sexuality & Gender series. Archives of Sexuality & Gender, Part III: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century, looks further back in time to the ways people experienced, interpreted, and understood sex, gender and other facets of sexuality in the early modern and modern period.
Examining topics such as patterns of fertility and sexual practice; prostitution, religion and sexuality; the medical and legal construction of sexualities and the rise of sexology, it not only offers a reflection of the cultural attitudes of the past, but also provides a window into how sexuality and gender roles were viewed and evolved over time.
Part III includes approximately one million pages of never-before-digitised primary sources, expanding the study of gender and sexuality and supporting research in medicine, biology, anthropology, law, the classics, art, and erotic literature.
Much of the content in this resource has traditionally been available only through restricted access in reading rooms; now researchers can explore different aspects of sex and sexuality, as well as examine how social attitudes and mores have changed over time, online in one archive. More information about Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century can be found in this blog post on The Gale Review.
“The British Library’s Private Case offers extraordinary insights into many facets of human sexuality over at least three centuries, from an 18th century directory of sex workers in the Covent Garden area of London, to the literary output of the Marquis de Sade and the pseudonymous authors of the Merryland Books,” said Adrian Edwards, Head of Printed Heritage at the British Library. “By digitising this collection…we hope to make this collection visible and available as never before.”
If you’re interested in receiving more information about this archive, click here.
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Thanks to Jessica Edwards of Cengage for writing this article about this resource.