Online Special Collections
- AM Search This link opens in a new window
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UCLA subscribes to selected AM (formerly Adam Matthew) databases comprised of digitized archival material and primary sources. You can use AM Search to search across all of them. UCLA has access to licensed AM content published through 2023. Formerly known as Adam Matthew Archive Explorer.
- Bonnie Cashin Collection of Fashion, Theater and Film Costume Design, 1913-2000 (UCLA)Images from fashion designer Bonnie Cashin's specific lines and collections, focusing on her extensive, pioneering work in ready-to-wear fashion. Includes press releases, unedited black and white photo proofs from fashion shoots, photographs of her costume designs, her sketches and swatch boards, press clippings, and fashion editorials and brochures, among other materials.
- British Newsreels, 1911-1930: Culture and Society on Film This link opens in a new window
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Supplied by the British Film Institute and Imperial War Museums, British Newsreels, 1911-1930: Culture and Society on Film showcases a large collection of newsreels produced by the Topical Film Company and provides a glimpse into the early twentieth century - from everyday interests, such as sport and fashion, to coverage of key events, such as the First World War, the Suffragette Movement, and the establishment of the Irish Free State. - Broadcasting America This link opens in a new window
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This resource enables research into the development of mass broadcasting through the papers of pioneer David Sarnoff. Sarnoff’s work with RCA pushed the company to become a broadcasting, home media and technological powerhouse of the twentieth century. The bulk of the material spans the 1920s to the 1970s, representing the decades of David Sarnoff’s career at RCA. Some additional content covers pre-1920s broadcasting developments, and the final years of RCA before its sale in 1986. - FBI File: Hollywood and J. Edgar Hoover: Communists in the Motion Picture Industry (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
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FBI investigative reports from the Cold War chronicling the working of major film studios such as MGM, Paramount, RKO, and Warner Brothers, and studio management and labor union power struggles. - FBI File: Hollywood and J. Edgar Hoover: Investigations of Actors and Directors (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
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Reports covering 1925-1961. Subjects include: American Federation of Labor; Communist International; front organizations; Council of Hollywood Guilds and Unions; Screen Directors Guild; Screen Office Employees Guild; Screen Cartoonists Guild; Screen Writers Guild; Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee; Hollywood Ten; FBI support of anticommunist organizations; Humphrey Bogart; Charles Chaplin; Cecil B. DeMille; Katharine Hepburn; Gary Cooper; Frank Sinatra; among other topics.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation Surveillance Files: Communist Activity in the Entertainment Industry, 1942-1958
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Primary sources from the database History Vault., digitized materials from the FBI Reading Room, Washington, D.C..
- Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
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A cross-search platform of 21 databases available from the Gale Group, including historical newspapers (formerly NewsVault), The Making of Modern Law, U.S. Declassified Documents Online, among others. They can be searched as a group or as a selected subset. - Hindi Cinema: Histories of Film-making This link opens in a new window
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Features interviews with leading Indian film personalities who contributed to the shaping of the ‘Golden Age’ of Hindi cinema and beyond. Includes supplemental photographs and movie posters. Focuses on Hindi cinema, the industry producing Hindi/Urdu language films popularly known as ‘Bollywood’.
- Hollywood, Censorship, and the Motion Picture Production Code, 1927-1968 (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
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Motion Picture Association of America Production Code Administration collection, selected from the holdings of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California. - Interwar Culture This link opens in a new window
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Includes popular and lesser-known periodicals published during the interwar period (1919-1939). With articles covering culture, entertainment, fashion, home and family life, world current affairs, class, social and welfare issues, these historically significant and highly visual magazines provide a rich insight into these dynamic yet turbulent decades. - Mexican Cinema This link opens in a new window
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Online collection of cinema periodicals, lobby cards, and flyers from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, including Cinema Reporter and Cine Mundial.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975: Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest This link opens in a new window
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This online portal explores the period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. It includes color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, historical news video, ephemera and memorabilia.
- S. Charles Lee Papers, 1919-1962 (UCLA)Drawings, renderings, blueprints, photographs, and surveys relating to the professional career of architect S. Charles Lee. Much of the collection reflects his work as one of the most prolific architects of the art deco movie theatres on the West Coast, including the Bruin Theatre in Westwood, the Los Angeles Theatre, and the Los Angeles Tower Theatre.
- Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda This link opens in a new window
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This collection of films from the communist world reveals war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. It spans most of the twentieth century and covers countries such as the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba. Browse sub-collections for more on subjects covered. - Through the Camera Lens: The Moving Picture World and the Silent Cinema Era, 1907-1927 (Archives Unbound) This link opens in a new window
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Moving Picture World reviewed current releases and published news, features, and interviews relating to all aspects of the industry. News items, the best reviews and feature articles, including advertisements published each week.
- Victorian Popular Culture: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema
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Research portal for the study of popular entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This segment focuses on early moving image technologies, including panoramas and dioramas, magic lanterns and image projection, and early film stars and filmmakers. - Victorian Popular Culture: Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment
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Research portal for the study of popular entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This segment focuses on the variety stage, vaudeville and theatre, and also includes magic lantern shows, early cinema and dioramas.
- Victorians on Film: Entertainment, Innovation & Everyday Life This link opens in a new window
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Includes the British Film Institute’s Victorian Film Collection and the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, as well as a selection of special early large format films. This material provides a glimpse into the lives of the late Victorians and Edwardians captured between 1895 and 1913 by some of Britain’s earliest film pioneers and innovators.