Online Museum Collections
Many museums offer online exhibits and databases about different textiles from various regions around the world. You can visit their websites to view images, annotations, and other information that can help jumpstart your research. Some links contains instructions for accessing the information you might need, so be sure to click the More link to view additional details.
If you have a recommendation for a museum database that's not listed here, email Monique Clark (mclark24@luc.edu).
- Anthropology Collection Search | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (US)This is a curated database of anthropological items available through the National Museum of Natural History. The collection consists of over 3 million items in archaeology, ethnology, and human skeletal biology. Additionally, the museum contains the National Anthropological Archives which contains historical materials related to the study of anthropology dating back over 150 years.
- Art and Life in Africa | Stanley Museum of Art.This is an archival version of a website that was hosted by the University of Iowa.
- Art Institute of Chicago CollectionsSearch for textiles and related objects at the Art Institute of Chicago. Use the filters underneath the search box to search by Artwork Type and Places.
- British Museum CollectionThe British Museum Collection online allows access to almost four and a half million objects in more than two million records.
- Collections Search Center | Smithsonian Institute (US)Search over 18.1 million records of museum objects, archives and library materials including more than 8.1 million online images, audio & videos and blog posts.
- Cornell Fashion and Textile CollectionThe Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection (CF+TC) includes more than 10,000 items of apparel, accessories, and flat textiles dating from the eighteenth century to present, including substantial collections of functional clothing, technical textiles, and ethnographic costume.
- EuropeanaExplore over 51 million artworks, artefacts, books, videos and sounds from across Europe. Use the search box to find materials about textiles.
- Fashion HistoryTimelineThe 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.
- Field Museum CollectionA collection of over 250,000 items curated by the Field Museum in Chicago.
- Fowler Museum (UCLA)The Fowler’s collections comprise more than 120,000 art and ethnographic and 600,000 archaeological objects representing ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures of Africa, Native and Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific.
- General African Art Videos | Christopher RoyVideos of contemporary art and life in West Africa, including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, and Nigeria.
- George Washington University Textile MuseumGW is home to nearly 31,000 works of art and artifacts, including extensive textile collections. More than 21,000 works are currently available online, and new records are added weekly.
- Hearst Museum Online Textile ExhibitGuide for Cloth that Stretches: Weaving Community Across Time and Space, an exhibition displayed at the Hearst Anthropology Museum.
- Hearst Museum PortalUse the filters on the left to search by object type, collection place, culture or time period, and more.
- International Textile Collection | University of Leeds (UK)The International Textile Collection (ITC) is made up of several distinct collections of world textiles, along with related objects, documents and manuscripts. It dates from Ancient Egyptian to the present day, with the greater part covering the 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Kent Statue University Museumhe collection goes beyond clothing and textiles to also include American glass, furniture, paintings and other decorative arts. The Museum also houses a library of books and historic periodicals dedicated to fashion and decorative arts.
- Kyoto Costume InstituteThe KCI Digital Archives on the KCI website presents image and text information for the objects in the collection, arranged in chronological order.
- Mingei International MuseumMingei International Museum collects, conserves and exhibits arts of daily use—from traditional cultures to contemporary designers.
- The Museum of International Folk ArtThe museum holds the largest collection of international folk art in the world, numbering more than 160,000 objects from more than 100 countries. The core collection of 2,500 objects was donated by museum founder Florence Dibell Bartlett.
- Royal Ontario MuseumThe Royal Ontario Museum is home to a world-class collection of 18 million artworks, cultural objects, and natural history specimens, featured in 40 gallery and exhibition spaces.
- Search the Collection | Metropolitan Museum of Art (US)View the Met's collection of artworks online, including textiles and related materials.
- Source Database | Fashion History TimelineThe Source Database contains a list of books and other publications about the history of clothing across various places and times. You can use the library's catalog to verify whether we have access to these sources.
- Textile Museum of CanadaThis museum focuses solely on textile arts. Use the filters to search for African textiles.
- Textile Research Center Collection (The Netherlands)The collection of the Textile Research Centre, Leiden, contains over 47,000 textiles, garments and accessories such as headgear, footwear, jewellery and walking sticks. It also includes technical items such as hand spinning and weaving equipment. The objects derive from all over world and date from some seven thousand years ago to the present day. The collection was started in 1997 and since then has grown rapidly.
- Textiles | Iowa Digital LibraryThis links to search results containing textile materials. The museum’s textile collection encompasses both functional and fine art objects ranging from ancient Andean textiles to Dada assemblages by Lil Picard. Other highlights include twentieth-century, handwoven and dyed cloth from West Africa, finely beaded objects from Native North America, hats from Africa and Peru, Turkish flatweaves, and Gee’s Bend–style quilts.
- V&A Museum Textiles CollectionThe V&A holds the national collection of textiles and fashion, which includes more than 75,000 individual objects or sets of objects that span a period of more than 5,000 years, from Predynastic Egypt to the present day.
- Zotero Sources | Fashion History TimelineThis is a crowdsourced list of fashion history and research hosted by the Fashion Institute of New York.
- [ARCHIVED SITE] Afrocentric Fashions and Textiles Links | Costumer's ManifestoThe Costumer's Manifesto was a website that provided extensive resources on Western and Global fashion history. The site is now archived, so some of the links may not be functional. Of interest on this site are the links to traditional African clothing, textiles, and beadwork.
Loyola Anthropology Databases
Consult the databases below for highly-relevant subject-specific information about anthropology and related topics.
- Anthropology Online This link opens in a new windowFull-text collection of ethnographies, field notes, seminal texts, memoirs, and contemporary studies, covering human behavior the world over.
- Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new windowIndexes including international coverage of the fields of anthropology and archaeology, and related interdisciplinary research. Updated monthly. Coverage: 1899s - present.
- AnthroSource This link opens in a new windowComprehensive collection of journals, newsletters, and bulletins, including the complete archival holdings from the American Anthropological Association (AAA).
- Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new windowEthnographic films, documentaries, select feature films, and previously unpublished fieldwork for the study of human culture, behavior and society around the world. Topics include language, food and cooking, economic systems, caste systems, religion, music and the arts, sex, gender, and family.
- GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowIndex of some-full text articles and abstracts related to gender studies, including women's studies, feminism, masculine studies, masculinity studies, transgender studies, LGBTQ, LGBTQA, and sexuality.
- eHRAF World Cultures This link opens in a new windowIndex of cross-cultural and ethnographic descriptive information on all aspects of cultural and social life. Collection is organized by cultures and ethnic groups.
- Indigenous Peoples: North America Archive This link opens in a new windowCovers the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada. The archive includes monograph, manuscript, newspaper, periodical and photograph collections. Sources include the National Archives and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Library, the Alaska Indian Language Collection of Gonzaga University, and the W.S. Prettyman photograph collection of Wichita State University.
- Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology This link opens in a new windowBibliographies covering anthropology.
Research & Learning Librarian
Monique Clark
Contact:
Cudahy Library, Rm 108
773.508.2677