History, African American
Core Resources
America: History and Life with Full Text 1954+
Indexes books and journal articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Oxford African American Studies Center
Access to the finest reference resources in African American studies. At its core, AASC includes the new Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895; the forthcoming companion set, the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present; the second edition of Black Women in America; and the much-anticipated African American National Biography. Also includes the highly acclaimed Africana, a 5 volume history of the African and African American experience. In addition to these major reference works, AASC offers other key resources from Oxford's reference series, including the Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature.
Supplementary Resources
African American Communities
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
African American Experience
Full-text digital resource exploring African American life and culture. Targeted and thematic search options are featured to find articles, documents, images, and more.
African American Heritage
Primary sources devoted specifically to African American family history, including U.S Federal Census (African Americans only), Freedman's Bank Records, World War I Draft Cards, African American family history books, U.S. Colored Troops Records, vital records, church records, legal records, and more.
African American Newspapers
Complete text of the major African-American newspapers published in the United States during the 19th century.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Online collection of academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, annual reports and other diverse periodicals.
African-American Newspapers, 1827-1998
Full-text collection of African American newspapers printed across the U.S. during the 19th and 20th centuries.
AM explorer
Search engine to Adam Matthew archival materals.
American Civil War Collection, 1860-1922
American Antiquarian Society collection of 13,500 titles includes broadsides, lithographs, maps, monographs, pamphlets, photographs, political cartoons, and stereographs.
American Civil War Research Database
Based on unpublished state rosters, includes information about individual soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.
American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, The
Includes more than 1,000 diaries, letters, and memoirs from both Northern and Southern politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies.
Archives Unbound
Digital collections of historical material on many topics. Includes manuscripts, printed books and periodicals, and government documents. Material comes from the U.S. National Archives, the U.K. National Archives, and many other libraries and archives.
Black Abolitionist Papers
Primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
Black Life in America
The experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media.
Early Encounters in North America
Primary sources detailing encounters between Europeans, Africans, and American Indians between 1500 and 1900. Includes original accounts, letters, logbooks, journals and diaries.
Ethnic NewsWatch
Interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish), full-text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority, and native press.
Evans Digital Edition
Digital library of works published in America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Materials include fiction and non-fiction covering every aspect of American life in the period.
Frontier Life : Borderlands, Settlement & Colonial Encounters
Primary source documents from 1600 to 1920, covering the expansion of European culture into the American West and Southwest, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and British Honduras (Belize). Includes records related to agriculture, trade and commerce, family life, exploration, government, health and medicine, land and property, religion, military history, and women’s history.
Gale Primary Resources
Cross-searching tool for Gale primary source collections (including Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, Indigenous Peoples: North America, and Brazilian and Portuguese History and Culture). Also allows users to analyze content using frequency and term-relationship tools.
History Vault
Digital archive of U.S. history primary sources. Includes government documents, personal papers and organizational records.
HistoryMakers
Oral history interviews with more than 2,600 historically significant African Americans in fields such as the arts, business, education, entertainment, the law, the military, politics, religion, and science.
Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines
Digital edition of nearly 50 American & British newspapers and periodicals published during the American Civil War.
Liberator
Full-text of the weekly abolitionist newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts by William Lloyd Garrison.
ProQuest Civil War Era
Provides online access to an extensive collection of pamphlets and complete runs of selected regional newspaper titles covering 1840-1865. Topics addressed include the Civil War, slavery, abolition, medicine, and the law.
ProQuest History
Combines various historical databases from ProQuest.
Race Relations Abstracts
Bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Race Relations in America
Based at Fisk University from 1943-1970, the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute were set up by the American Missionary Association to investigate problem areas in race relations and develop methods for educating communities and preventing conflict. Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department's staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
Readex AllSearch
Search engine to Readex products.
Reveal Digital Independent Voices
Collection of magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative press from the 1960s, including feminists, anti-war groups, African-Americans, Native-Americans and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
Sage Knowledge
Includes an expansive range of CQ Press and SAGE eBook and eReference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, and professional development titles. Additional CQ Press titles are available in CQ Press Library. Includes the Historic Documents Collection.
Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974
Contains letters, diaries, oral histories, posters, pamphlets, and rare audio and video materials documenting the key events, trends, and movements in 1960s America.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive
Collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions.
Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
Brings together original manuscript and rare printed material from dozens of libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. It includes significant coverage of slavery today, US court records from the local, regional and State Supreme Court level, documents on the Islamic slave trade, as well as sources on urban slavery, interracial education, the Day Law in Kentucky, desegregation and social justice. Also includes material examining European, Islamic and African involvement in the slave trade.
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online
Searches thousands of private writings and personal narratives ranging from the 1550’s to the 21st century. Includes material found in the collections North American Women's Letters and Diaries; British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories; The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; Black Thought and Culture; Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
Comprises nearly 35,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866. Records of the voyages have been found in archives and libraries throughout the Atlantic world. They provide information about vessels, enslaved peoples, slave traders and owners, and trading routes. A variable (Source) cites the records for each voyage in the database. Other variables enable users to search for information about a particular voyage or group of voyages. The website provides full interactive capability to analyze the data and report results in the form of statistical tables, graphs, maps, or on a timeline.
Virginia Company Archives
Digital edition of the papers of the Virginia Company of London (Ferrar Papers), now at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Subject Librarian(s)
Librarian for History and African American Studies
(609) 258-0496
A-17H-2
Firestone Library