Archives

African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907
This collection presented by the Library of Congress "presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love." The collection can be searched by keyword, or browsed by subject / author. Documents are available full text.

African American Sheet Music, 1850-1920: Selected from the Collections of Brown University
This collection consists of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920. The collection includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period. Numerous titles are associated with the novel and the play Uncle Tom's Cabin. Civil War period music includes songs about African-American soldiers and the plight of the newly emancipated slave. Post-Civil War music reflects the problems of Reconstruction and the beginnings of urbanization and the northern migration of African Americans.

African American Women: Online Archival Collections at Duke University

African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
A digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and creative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920.

Afro-American Sources in Virginia: A Guide to Manuscripts
This site provides access to an updated electronic version of Michael Plunkett's book describing the holdings of 26 institutional collections in Virginia. These sources can be searched by keyword, subject, name, historical period, or geographic location.

Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu
Dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the ancient manuscripts presented in this exhibition cover every aspect of human endeavor and are indicative of the high level of civilization attained by West Africans during the Middle Ages.

The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895.

From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909
This collection presented by the Library of Congress "presents 397 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington."

The Historical Text Archive: Africa
The Historical Text Archive publishes high quality articles, books, essays, documents, historical photos, and links, screened for content, for a broad range of historical subjects.

John Hope Franklin Collection
“The John Hope Franklin Collection is a repository for African and African-American studies documentation and an educational outreach division of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.
Founded in November 1995 with the support of its namesake, the distinguished historian John Hope Franklin, the Collection seeks to collect, preserve, and promote the use of library materials bearing on the history of Africa and people of African descent.”

Slave Letters
Original manuscripts in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University.

University of Chicago Library Jazz Archive
Originally intended to collect and preserve materials from the late 1910s through the 1920s, documenting the birth of "Chicago style" jazz, the collections of the Chicago Jazz archive have expanded to include all jazz styles from oldest to newest, from the 1920s to present. The archive includes online guides to topics such as Chicago Jazz and the Great Migration.

University of Michigan Library’s Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive
Contains documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present. The archive is divided into four main areas of interest: Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent re-segregation trends in American schools.

University of Virginia Electronic Text Center: African American Studies

Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at the Woodson Branch of Chicago Public Library
The largest African American history and literature collection in the Midwest. The strength of the collection is concentrated in African American history in Illinois. Holdings include: 70,000 books, many of them rare; 500 periodical titles, current and retrospective; 75 microfilm research collections, totaling over 5000 reels, bringing together the most significant primary source materials from other Black Studies research collections across the country. Strong coverage documenting the Chicago Renaissance, 1932-1950; including an online digital collection for Literature, Journalism, The Arts, Music, Social Science, and Institutions.

William P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz
From the Library of Congress, the William P. Gottlieb Collection, comprising over sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists, documents the jazz scene from 1938 to 1948, primarily in New York City and Washington, D.C.

World History Archives: The History of Africa as a Whole
Documents to support the study of world history from a working-class and non-Eurocentric perspective.” Includes links of sources on particular geographic regions of Africa.