History Research Guide

Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina. 

Based on the American Antiquarian Society's landmark collection, American Broadsides and Ephemera offers fully searchable facsimile images of approximately 15,000 broadsides printed between 1820 and 1900 and 15,000 pieces of ephemera printed between 1760 and 1900. The diverse subjects of these broadsides range from contemporary accounts of the Civil War, unusual occurrences and natural disasters to official government proclamations, tax bills and town meeting reports. Featuring many rare items, the pieces of ephemera include clipper ship sailing cards, early trade cards, bill heads, theater and music programs, stock certificates, menus and invitations documenting civic, political and private celebrations.

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together diaries, letters, and memoirs from more than 2,000 authors to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war, including what was happening at home. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and even spies are included. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving not only both the Northern and Southern perspectives, but those of foreign observers also. The materials originate from all regions of the country and are from people who played a variety of roles.

Includes documentation of Gompers' own activities. Gompers’ general correspondence, speeches and writings, conferences, and congressional testimony make up a major portion of the collection. In addition, the National and International Union Correspondence consists largely of letters to and from Gompers. 

Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945

From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, explore the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Within this resource you can use the chronology and data maps to discover facts and events in the history of the American West and view visual resources in bespoke, searchable galleries.

Booker T. Washington believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. He established the League "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. The League promoted the commercial endeavors and economic advancement of African Americans mainly, but not solely in the South, via a network of state and local Negro Business Leagues, and affiliated professional and trade organizations.

Brevier Legislative Reports are a comprehensive record of the debate and speeches delivered from the floor of the Indiana Senate chamber and the Hall of the House of Representatives. They contain a record of each bill introduced in the House and the Senate. At times, the full text of the bill was recorded if it was read on the floor, and was accompanied by the sponsor's statement. The volumes also include veto statements and other messages from the Governor.

The 25 million+ records in C19 Index include the following sources: Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue, The Nineteenth Century publishing program, ProQuest’s American Periodicals, ProQuest’s British Periodicals, Cotgreave's Index, An Index to Legal Periodical Literature, Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 1811–1849, Periodicals Index Online, Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, Stead's Index to Periodical Literature, The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, 1824-1900, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, The U.S. Serial Set, Archive Finder, Palmer's Index to The Times, The "Bookman" Directory of Booksellers, Publishers and Authors, and Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalism.

Includes more than 8,600 digitized items produced for, about and, in some cases, by children and youth in the decades between the 1810s and the 1920s, a period in the history of juvenile culture regarded as the first ‘golden age’ of children’s literature. Spans a range of genres of literature for children, from early forms of devotional and instructional primers through illustrated rhymes, tales, stories, novels, and picture books.

China, America and the Pacific offers an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.

This full-text digital collection is based primarily on manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Library in London, and supplemented by additional sources from seven institutes, such as the Cambridge University Library. Covers multiple perspectives from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people, and tourists. In addition, there are over 400 color paintings, maps and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as many photographs, sketches and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, customs, and events.

Includes newspapers, magazines, printed publications of the Government of Puerto Rico and the Federal Government, rare books published in the 19th and 20th centuries, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, graphics, maps, tape, microforms and other materials.

Document types include: personal narratives, diaries, newspapers, posters, postcards, photographs, printed books, military and government files, ephemera, artwork, personal artifacts and film. Also includes secondary source materials such as interactive maps, and chronologies.

Modules include: Personal Experiences; Propaganda and Recruitment; Visual Perspectives and Narratives; A Global Conflict

Includes access to Modules 1 and 2. The bulk of the material ranges from the sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Module 2 includes six rare Apicius cookbooks, the earliest of which dates from the ninth century.

The earliest documents in this collection are from the seventeenth century but the majority of the material originates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material covering North America covers the varied frontier regions from fur trappers in Canada to cowboys in Texas and government in Baja California. It is divided into the frontier regions of the American East, the American Midwest, the American Southwest, California & Mexico and Canada. It covers the exploration of these regions followed by trade with Native peoples, colonial rivalries, expansion of government and new nations and the final settlement and 'closing' of the frontier.

Africa is mainly represented by its frontiers of the south with the British colonial expansion into modern day South Africa. There is also material relating to the exploration of West Africa and the colonial administration of Lagos.

The beginnings of European Australia and New Zealand are covered by British government documents, starting with Arthur Phillip and the penal colony at Sydney. The frontiers of other parts of Australia are also covered by documents from the UK National Archives and some material from Australian archives.

Finally, there is some material relating to Central America, specifically British Honduras (Belize), in the form of the George Arthur Papers. George Arthur’s career here relates to the other regions featured here as he spent time on the Canadian and Australian frontiers.

The Criminal Case Files constitute the bulk of the collection. The criminal case files consist of correspondence regarding the cases, reports from operatives, mug shots, reward notices, and wanted posters. The Criminal Case File includes files on some of the Pinkerton's most well-known cases including the Pinkerton's pursuit of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), and the Wild Bunch Gang; the work of agent James McParland in infiltrating the Molly Maguires; and Allan Pinkerton's role in thwarting the 1861 assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln; and investigations of train robberies, bank robberies, murder, fraud, and forgeries throughout the United States.

The material covers popular trends such as phrenology, herbal medicine and hydrotherapy, and documents the rise of widespread advertising by commercial manufacturers of medical aids. Materials have an emphasis on ephemera and advertising, aimed at the ordinary man in the street rather than medical professionals. These popular practices were built upon the earlier traditions of folk medicine and materia medica as dispensed by apothecaries, and help to show the relationships and differences between traditional old-style medicine and newly emerging scientific methods.

Under a La Follette's leadership, the Wisconsin state legislature enacted sweeping reforms including railroad regulation and the primary election law which replaced the old caucus and convention system. These important pieces of legislation then served as the models for similar reforms by other states and by the federal government.

Another prominent subject covered is the fair administration of the election process. Troubles often arose as African Americans prepared to exercise their newly won rights to vote and run for office; many letters in the collection call for military intervention to secure these rights. Also included are Letters Received by the Attorney General pertaining to law and order in southern states from 1871-1884 and records of the Freedmen's Hospital and the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company.

Among the collections on the Colonial Era, one notable collection is the Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774. This collection consists of 276 diaries written by 112 people. Highlights of the Revolutionary War and Early National Period are the Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Revere Family Papers, Elbridge Gerry Papers, and Artemas Ward Papers.

The collection highlights works from legendary filmmakers such as Georges Méliès, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, Charles Chaplin, F.W. Murnau, Luis Buñuel, Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Sjostrom, Erich von Stroheim, Carl T. Dreyer, Edwin S. Porter, and many others. And the perspective is global, delivering examples of the silent film movement from Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. Alongside the feature films and shorts is a selection of related documentaries. Silent Film Online is essential for all areas of cinema studies, a fundamental resource for students in theoretical, technical, editing, and production concentrations.

European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Allows users to analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action. Also includes access to the African Names Database, which provides personal details of Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites. It displays the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of each individual.

In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, the resource includes documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm. Includes the following sections: Part I: Debates Over Slavery and Abolition ; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World ; Part III: The Institution of Slavery ; Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

The petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with candor.

The collection includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Also contains hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery, in addition to every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920. Provides word searchable access to all Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880. Also includes access to modern histories of slavery, and a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject.

The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide insight into slave life. The collections document slavery in such enterprises as gold, silver, copper, and lead mining; iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brickmaking, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and heavy construction; and building of railroads and canals.

Collections are sourced from the Rhode Island Historical Society, Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the U.S. National Archives. In addition to records on the slave trade, the resource also includes a series of letters received by the Attorney General on law and order in nineteenth century America. These letters cover the slave trade, general slavery matters including runaway slaves and rights of slaves, and other legal issues.

An important segment of the material focuses on the 1950s and 1960s, when the party's momentum was aided by social unrest and the concomitant increase in civil rights activities. These were also the years when the Socialist Party of America finally received widespread attention from intellectuals and influential government leaders in President Johnson's War on Poverty. The files from 1963 to 1976 document the Socialist Party’s new alignment with the Democratic Party as it worked to forge a labor-liberal coalition. Documents the changes that occurred within the party during the 1960s and early 1970s: the formation of the Social Democrats, U.S.A., of the "Debs Caucus," and the Socialist Party, U.S.A.

Includes access to Parts 1 through 4. Also includes documents related to the correspondence from overseers; documents on slave sales, runaway slaves, discipline, diet, health, and the work loads of adults and children; plantation management, and westward migration to Arkansas and Louisiana prior to the Civil War. The commodities produced by plantation owners--rice, cotton, sugar, tobacco, hemp, and others--accounted for more than half of the nation's exports. Another of the major collections included is the Papers of the Hairston and Wilson families, related families of tobacco planters and merchants from Southside Virginia and Piedmont North Carolina.

Afghanistan's history, internal political development, foreign relations, and very existence as an independent state have largely been determined by its geographic location at the crossroads of Central, West, and South Asia. In modern times, as well as in antiquity, vast armies of the world passed through Afghanistan, temporarily establishing local control and often dominating Iran and northern India. Islam has played a key role in the formation of Afghanistan as well. Although it was the scene of great empires and flourishing trade for over two millennia, Afghanistan did not become a truly independent nation until the twentieth century. In much of the twentieth century, Afghanistan remained neutral. It was not a participant in World War II, nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the U.S. vied for influence by building such infrastructure works as roads, airports, water and sewer systems, and hospitals. The U.S. State Department Central Classified Files are the definitive source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments throughout the world in the twentieth century.

The collection also contains items on numerous law enforcement and civil rights organizations across the country; materials on the suspension of AAPL executive director Renault Robinson from the Chicago Police Department and related lawsuits; and materials pertaining to the National Black Police Association (NBPA).

Includes collections sourced from The National WWII Museum, New Orleans. Covers American military and civilian participation in all major theaters of operations, including the army, navy and air force, marines, merchant marines, coast guard, women’s forces and medical personnel. 

Includes documentation of Gompers' own activities. Gompers’ general correspondence, speeches and writings, conferences, and congressional testimony make up a major portion of the collection. In addition, the National and International Union Correspondence consists largely of letters to and from Gompers. 

Module I Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
Module II Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945

Kennedy files include documents from the 1960 presidential campaign and cover the major issues of the Kennedy presidency. The Johnson administration collections chronicle the seven years of tumult and unparalleled change from the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 and the War on Poverty to civil unrest and fighting in Vietnam. Of particular note is the Confidential File from the Johnson White House Central Files. Nixon administration materials consist of Nixon's White House files as well as a collection of the official transcripts of proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the four major Watergate-related trials.

Includes firsthand reporting on the rise of Indigenous rights in countries around the world; covers African American history, the Civil Rights movement, Hispanic American history, Asian American history, and the evolution of racial justice in America.

From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, explore the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Within this resource you can use the chronology and data maps to discover facts and events in the history of the American West and view visual resources in bespoke, searchable galleries.

Includes access to five modules: LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 1;  LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 2; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France Digital Archive.

Major collections include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

These collections contain documentation from the founding of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the last decade of the 19th century to the riots that followed the verdict in the Rodney King police brutality case in the last decade of the 20th century. In the intervening 100 years, researchers will encounter documentation on subjects like the Great Migration, the East St. Louis Riot of 1917, the activities of members of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs during the New Deal, the March on Washington Movement during World War II, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, the protests in Selma, Alabama, that inspired the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and the National Black Political Convention in 1972.

The BLA arose in reaction to the political, social, and economic oppression of African American people. Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the organization’s program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of Black people in the United States."  

The collection includes documentaries on leading artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, and performers, such as Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Huey P. Newton, Frantz Fanon, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, August Wilson, Bobby Seale, Ethel Waters, Amiri Baraka, and Robert F. Williams.  The database also draws from the Hatch-Billops Collection, a critically acclaimed archive of primary and secondary resource materials focused on Black American art, drama, and literature. Additional content planned for inclusion are the SNCC archives, the NAACP archives, and archives from select Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The collection includes the words of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ida B. Wells, Nikki Giovanni, Mary McLeod Bethune, Carl Rowan, Roy Wilkens, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, Constance Baker Motley, Walter F. White, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, Bobby Seale, Gwendolyn Brooks, Huey P. Newton, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Randall Kennedy, Cornel West, Nelson George, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and hundreds of other notable people.

Black Women Writers includes fiction, poetry, and essays. Among the authors are Nikki Giovanni, Maryse Condé, Barbara Ransby, Angela Davis, Rhoda Reddock, Margaret Walker, Ama Ata Aidoo, Rosa Guy, Sonia Sanchez, Olive Senior, and Barbara Ransby. Works are in their original languages, although an English translation executed by the original author may be available. Works are reproduced in their entirety and when possible, an image of the original page accompanies the text. The dates of the material range from the 1700s to contemporary pieces.

Includes historical context and resources, representing both personal and institutional perspectives, for the growing fields of border(land) studies and migration studies, as well as history, law, politics, diplomacy, area and global studies, anthropology, medicine, the arts, and more. At completion, the collection will include 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images

The Institute's analysis and research, as well as debates and speeches it has hosted, can be found in this online archive, subject-indexed and fully searchable.

China, America and the Pacific offers an extensive range of archival material connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps document this fascinating history.

This full-text digital collection is based primarily on manuscript materials held at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Library in London, and supplemented by additional sources from seven institutes, such as the Cambridge University Library. Covers multiple perspectives from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people, and tourists. In addition, there are over 400 color paintings, maps and drawings by English and Chinese artists, as well as many photographs, sketches and ephemeral items depicting Chinese people, customs, and events.

Beginning in 1946 with reports of the CIA’s predecessor, the Central Intelligence Group, CIA Research Reports reproduces over 1,500 reports on eight areas: Middle East; Soviet Union; Vietnam and Southeast Asia; China; Japan, Korea, and Asian security; Europe; Africa; and Latin America. This series deals with international questions and biographical reports, offering profiles of relatively unknown leaders. The Murphy Collection provides information on war recovery efforts, international aid, and the formation of countries and substantial information on the Chinese Communist Party.

Beginning in the 1940s, a U.S. government organization that became part of the CIA, monitored, recorded and translated any item related to the Cold War from foreign mass media and government publications. The scope of this effort was vast: over time it covered newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts and more from every corner of the world. 

Includes newspapers, magazines, printed publications of the Government of Puerto Rico and the Federal Government, rare books published in the 19th and 20th centuries, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, graphics, maps, tape, microforms and other materials.

Another key collection included consists of the records of the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). The SACB files constitute one of the most valuable resources for the study of left-wing radicalism during the 1950s and 1960s.

Includes access to Modules 1 and 2. The bulk of the material ranges from the sixteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Module 2 includes six rare Apicius cookbooks, the earliest of which dates from the ninth century.

A companion archive to India from Crown Rule to Republic, 1945-1949. The collection is sourced from the Central Files of the General Records of the Department of State. The records are under the jurisdiction of the Legislative and Diplomatic Branch of the Civil Archives, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

Contents: Series I: Black arts movement, 1961-1998 -- Series II: Black nationalism, 1964-1977 -- Series III: Correspondence, 1967-1973 -- Series IV: Newark (New Jersey), 1913-1980 -- Series V: Congress of African People, 1960-1976 -- Series VI: National Black conferences and National Black Assembly, 1968-1975 -- Series VII: Black Women's United Front, 1975-1976 -- Series VIII: Student Organization for Black Unity, 1971 -- Series IX: African Liberation Support Committee, 1973-1976 -- Series X: Revolutionary Communist League, 1974-1982 -- Series XI: African socialism, 1973 -- Series XII: Black Marxists, 1969-1980 -- Series XIII: National Black United Front, 1979-1981 -- Series XIV: Miscellaneous materials, 1978-1988 -- Series XV: Serial publications, 1968-1984 -- Series XVI: Oral histories, 1984-1986 -- Series XVII: Komozi Woodard's office files, 1956-1986.
--OCLC

The Criminal Case Files constitute the bulk of the collection. The criminal case files consist of correspondence regarding the cases, reports from operatives, mug shots, reward notices, and wanted posters. The Criminal Case File includes files on some of the Pinkerton's most well-known cases including the Pinkerton's pursuit of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), and the Wild Bunch Gang; the work of agent James McParland in infiltrating the Molly Maguires; and Allan Pinkerton's role in thwarting the 1861 assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln; and investigations of train robberies, bank robberies, murder, fraud, and forgeries throughout the United States.

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.

The Children's Bureau played an active role in the design and administration of many important social welfare measures including the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act to reduce infant mortality and the campaign to reduce child labor in the 1930s. Documents trace the various stages of Federal involvement in the welfare of children and the development of family law.

Gordon was a pioneer in using mechanical means to document folk musicians. His monthly column in Adventure Magazine, "Old Songs that Men Sing," attracted attention from readers across the United States, and he received thousands of letters containing songs and queries. 

Users will be prompted to confirm that they are over the age of consent to access this resource. Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; surgery and suicide.

Includes research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).

Includes diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary covering the history, culture, and politics of the 1960s. Themes include: arts, music, and leisure ; civil rights ; counter-culture ; law and government ; mass media ; new left and emerging neo-conservative movement ; student activism ; Vietnam War ; women's movement.

An important segment of the material focuses on the 1950s and 1960s, when the party's momentum was aided by social unrest and the concomitant increase in civil rights activities. These were also the years when the Socialist Party of America finally received widespread attention from intellectuals and influential government leaders in President Johnson's War on Poverty. The files from 1963 to 1976 document the Socialist Party’s new alignment with the Democratic Party as it worked to forge a labor-liberal coalition. Documents the changes that occurred within the party during the 1960s and early 1970s: the formation of the Social Democrats, U.S.A., of the "Debs Caucus," and the Socialist Party, U.S.A.

Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina. 

The database includes more than 9,000 articles, biographies, primary documents, and media. In addition to historical accounts ranging from the travails of slavery to key events of 21st-century Black history, The African American Experience offers scholarly commentary addressing African American contributions in the fields of politics, business, social and applied sciences, the military, the arts, and entertainment, keeping pace with the ongoing evolution of the African American narrative and its vital place in U.S. history.

The collection also contains items on numerous law enforcement and civil rights organizations across the country; materials on the suspension of AAPL executive director Renault Robinson from the Chicago Police Department and related lawsuits; and materials pertaining to the National Black Police Association (NBPA).

Created from the Library Company of Philadelphia's acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection, this collection covers the West's discovery and exploitation of Africa; the rise of slavery in the New World along with the growth and success of abolitionist movements; the development of racial thought, including political protest and resistance to racism; descriptions of African American life -- slave and free -- throughout the Americans; and slavery and race in fiction and drama. Also featured are printed works of African American individuals and organizations.

Includes firsthand reporting on the rise of Indigenous rights in countries around the world; covers African American history, the Civil Rights movement, Hispanic American history, Asian American history, and the evolution of racial justice in America.

Created from the holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Black Authors, 1556-1922. Major subject areas addressed in Black Authors include Literature, Ethnic History, Colonialism, Gender Studies, Slavery, and Diaspora Studies. Authors included are Leo Africanus, Ignatius Sancho, Benjamin Banneker, Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, David Ruggles, William Wells Brown, Solomon Northrup, Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, Alexander Crummell, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass, Bethany Veney, Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles W. Chestnutt, Booker T. Washington, James Weldon Johnson, and hundreds of others.

Booker T. Washington believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. He established the League "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro," and headed it until his death. The League promoted the commercial endeavors and economic advancement of African Americans mainly, but not solely in the South, via a network of state and local Negro Business Leagues, and affiliated professional and trade organizations.

Major collections include Civil Rights records from the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush presidencies; the Martin Luther King FBI File and FBI Files on locations of major civil rights demonstrations like Montgomery and Selma, Alabama or St. Augustine, Florida; and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

These collections contain documentation from the founding of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the last decade of the 19th century to the riots that followed the verdict in the Rodney King police brutality case in the last decade of the 20th century. In the intervening 100 years, researchers will encounter documentation on subjects like the Great Migration, the East St. Louis Riot of 1917, the activities of members of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs during the New Deal, the March on Washington Movement during World War II, the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1963 March on Washington, the protests in Selma, Alabama, that inspired the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, and the National Black Political Convention in 1972.

The BLA arose in reaction to the political, social, and economic oppression of African American people. Composed largely of former Black Panthers, the organization’s program was one of "armed struggle" and its stated goal was to "take up arms for the liberation and self-determination of Black people in the United States."  

In addition to fiction, the database includes complete runs of selected literary magazines, such as Kyk-Over-Al and The Beacon.

The collection includes documentaries on leading artists, writers, musicians, playwrights, and performers, such as Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, Huey P. Newton, Frantz Fanon, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, August Wilson, Bobby Seale, Ethel Waters, Amiri Baraka, and Robert F. Williams.  The database also draws from the Hatch-Billops Collection, a critically acclaimed archive of primary and secondary resource materials focused on Black American art, drama, and literature. Additional content planned for inclusion are the SNCC archives, the NAACP archives, and archives from select Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The collection includes the words of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Alain Locke, Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ida B. Wells, Nikki Giovanni, Mary McLeod Bethune, Carl Rowan, Roy Wilkens, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, Constance Baker Motley, Walter F. White, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Jesse Jackson, Bobby Seale, Gwendolyn Brooks, Huey P. Newton, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Randall Kennedy, Cornel West, Nelson George, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and hundreds of other notable people.

Black Women Writers includes fiction, poetry, and essays. Among the authors are Nikki Giovanni, Maryse Condé, Barbara Ransby, Angela Davis, Rhoda Reddock, Margaret Walker, Ama Ata Aidoo, Rosa Guy, Sonia Sanchez, Olive Senior, and Barbara Ransby. Works are in their original languages, although an English translation executed by the original author may be available. Works are reproduced in their entirety and when possible, an image of the original page accompanies the text. The dates of the material range from the 1700s to contemporary pieces.

Also includes Forman’s involvement with the "Black Manifesto" and the Bureau’s "COINTELPRO" investigations into "Black Nationalist - Hate Groups / Internal Security," which include information on the activities of SNCC.  Forman acted as Executive Secretary of SNCC until 1966, arranging transportation, food, and housing for volunteers, and raising funds. From 1967-1969, Forman served as SNCC’s International Affairs Director and became involved with linking SNCC to the black power movement.  He authored a memoir, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, and founded the Unemployment and Poverty Action Committee (UPAC), a nonprofit social action organization, serving as its president from 1974-2003. 

Many of the documents originated with Black "confidential special informants" enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate a variety of organizations. In addition to infiltration, the FBI contributed to the infringement of First Amendment freedoms by making its agents a constant visible presence at radical rallies and meetings. This archive is based on original microfilm.

Contents: COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist "Hate" Groups -- FBI file on A. Philip Randolph -- FBI File on Adam Clayton Powell -- FBI file on the Atlanta child murders (ATKID) -- FBI file on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina -- FBI file on the Committee for Public Justice -- FBI file on Elijah Muhammed -- FBI file on the Highlander Folk School -- FBI file on the Ku Klux Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo -- FBI file on Malcolm X -- FBI file : MIBURN (Mississippi Burning) -- FBI file on the Moorish Science Temple of America -- FBI File on the Murder of Lemuel Penn -- FBI file on Muslim Mosque, Inc. -- FBI file on the NAACP -- FBI file on the National Negro Congress -- FBI file on the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) -- FBI file on Paul Robeson -- FBI file on the Reverend Jesse Jackson -- FBI file on Roy Wilkins -- FBI file on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- FBI file on Thurgood Marshall -- FBI file on W. E. B. Du Bois -- FBI investigation file on Communist infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- FBI surveillance file: Malcolm X -- FBI investigation file on Marcus Garvey. (OCLC)

Contents: Series I: Black arts movement, 1961-1998 -- Series II: Black nationalism, 1964-1977 -- Series III: Correspondence, 1967-1973 -- Series IV: Newark (New Jersey), 1913-1980 -- Series V: Congress of African People, 1960-1976 -- Series VI: National Black conferences and National Black Assembly, 1968-1975 -- Series VII: Black Women's United Front, 1975-1976 -- Series VIII: Student Organization for Black Unity, 1971 -- Series IX: African Liberation Support Committee, 1973-1976 -- Series X: Revolutionary Communist League, 1974-1982 -- Series XI: African socialism, 1973 -- Series XII: Black Marxists, 1969-1980 -- Series XIII: National Black United Front, 1979-1981 -- Series XIV: Miscellaneous materials, 1978-1988 -- Series XV: Serial publications, 1968-1984 -- Series XVI: Oral histories, 1984-1986 -- Series XVII: Komozi Woodard's office files, 1956-1986.
--OCLC

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.

European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Allows users to analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action. Also includes access to the African Names Database, which provides personal details of Africans taken from captured slave ships or from African trading sites. It displays the African name, age, gender, origin, country, and places of embarkation and disembarkation of each individual.

In addition to newspaper collections and books published in the antebellum era, the resource includes documents from several archives originally available only on microfilm. Includes the following sections: Part I: Debates Over Slavery and Abolition ; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World ; Part III: The Institution of Slavery ; Part IV: The Age of Emancipation.

The petitions were collected by Loren Schweninger over a four year period from hundreds of courthouses and historical societies in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The petitions document the realities of slavery at the most immediate local level and with candor.

The collection includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Also contains hundreds of pamphlets and books written about slavery, in addition to every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920. Provides word searchable access to all Congressional debates from the Continental Congress to 1880. Also includes access to modern histories of slavery, and a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject.

The work ledgers in these collections record slave earnings and expenditures and provide insight into slave life. The collections document slavery in such enterprises as gold, silver, copper, and lead mining; iron manufacturing, machine shop work, lumbering, quarrying, brickmaking, tobacco manufacturing, shipbuilding, and heavy construction; and building of railroads and canals.

From early topographical sketches and pioneers’ accounts, to photographs of Buffalo Bill and his ‘Wild West’ stars, explore the fact and the fiction of westward expansion in America from the early eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Within this resource you can use the chronology and data maps to discover facts and events in the history of the American West and view visual resources in bespoke, searchable galleries.

The earliest documents in this collection are from the seventeenth century but the majority of the material originates from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The material covering North America covers the varied frontier regions from fur trappers in Canada to cowboys in Texas and government in Baja California. It is divided into the frontier regions of the American East, the American Midwest, the American Southwest, California & Mexico and Canada. It covers the exploration of these regions followed by trade with Native peoples, colonial rivalries, expansion of government and new nations and the final settlement and 'closing' of the frontier.

Africa is mainly represented by its frontiers of the south with the British colonial expansion into modern day South Africa. There is also material relating to the exploration of West Africa and the colonial administration of Lagos.

The beginnings of European Australia and New Zealand are covered by British government documents, starting with Arthur Phillip and the penal colony at Sydney. The frontiers of other parts of Australia are also covered by documents from the UK National Archives and some material from Australian archives.

Finally, there is some material relating to Central America, specifically British Honduras (Belize), in the form of the George Arthur Papers. George Arthur’s career here relates to the other regions featured here as he spent time on the Canadian and Australian frontiers.

Includes access to five modules: LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 1;  LGBTQ History Since 1940, part 2; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque Nationale de France Digital Archive.

The Children's Bureau played an active role in the design and administration of many important social welfare measures including the 1921 Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act to reduce infant mortality and the campaign to reduce child labor in the 1930s. Documents trace the various stages of Federal involvement in the welfare of children and the development of family law.

Users will be prompted to confirm that they are over the age of consent to access this resource. Please be aware that this resource contains material of a sexually explicit nature. Content includes, but is not limited to, descriptions and imagery of sexual violence; non-consensual sexual activity; sexual activity including minors; surgery and suicide.

Includes research papers and records spanning the tenures of the first three Institute directors; Dr Alfred C. Kinsey (1947-1956), Dr Paul H. Gebhard (1956-1982) and Dr June Reinisch (1982-1993).