African-American Studies: Historical Text Collections

Allows you to search across more than eighty unique primary-source collections reproduced from archives and special libraries around the world. In order to limit your search to databases that the publisher has identified as being significantly related to North America, select: Restrict Search by / Region / North America. AM Explorer includes many databases with substantial content related a wide range of topics, peoples, and periods in American history. For example: Colonial America; American Indian Histories and Cultures; Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975; and African American Communities.

ProQuest History Vault unlocks the wealth of key archival materials with a single search. Researchers can access digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and many more primary source materials. Collections include: Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle; Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War; Women's Studies; American Indians and the American West; American Politics and Society; and International Relations and Military Conflicts. Some of the modules likely to be of key interest within these collections are singled out below in the box titled "Selected Noteworthy Databases." For a list of all modules published within this series, please see CLIO record for ProQuest History Vault.

A streamlined platform for efficiently searching across all Readex collections available through Columbia University Libraries. The list of cross-searchable collections includes African American Periodicals, America's Historical Newspapers, America's Historical Imprints, Hispanic American Newspapers; and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set.

“Aims to provide an electronic archive of unprecedented scope. In addition to offering keyword searching across thousands of collections freely available on the Web, the Letters and Diaries Online platform allows users to perform in-depth fielded searches across all of the letter, diary, and oral history collections published commercially by Alexander Street Press.” The Alexander Street collections cross-searchable here are: The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries; Black Thought and Culture; British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries; Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society; North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories; and North American Women's Letters and Diaries.

Contains pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, photographs, and in-depth oral histories focusing on African American culture, social conditions, and identity in Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina. Includes papers of Austin T. Walden, Herbert T. Jenkins, Thomas J. Pearsall, James B. McMillan, Algernon Lee Butler, and the Chicago Urban League papers, c1916-1985. Also includes the civil rights magazine The Messenger for the years 1925-1928 and materials relating to the Pruitt-Igoe and other housing projects.

"Created from the Library Company of Philadelphia's acclaimed Afro-Americana Collection - an accumulation that began with Benjamin Franklin and steadily increased throughout its entire history - this unique online resource provides researchers with more than 12,000 printed works. These essential books, pamphlets and broadsides, including many lesser-known imprints, hold an unparalleled record of African American history, literature and culture. This collection spans nearly 400 years, from the early 16th to the early 20th century." (from publisher's description)

Provides access to an extensive range of diaries, letters, and memoirs of persons somehow involved in the American Civil War.

"This portal combines three complementary sets of primary source material that explore the history of American consumer culture in the twentieth century via three key themes: research into consumer motivation, the advertising process and the products themselves. Market Research presents reports produced by Ernest Dichter that attempt to reveal consumers' innermost desires and motivations; J. Walter Thompson: Advertising America presents how advertising is produced and how it interacts with consumer culture through the archive and workings of one of the world's oldest and largest advertising agencies; Trade Catalogues and the American Home presents domestic life and material culture by detailing the products sold in the domestic sphere"

"Rotunda's American Founding Era collection offers scholars and students at all levels an invaluable source of primary and secondary materials by some of the era's most enduring figures, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton."

Contains books, maps, artwork, and other primary source materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection. It is divided into two modules: Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859; and Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945.

A wide-ranging digital resource presenting a unique insight into interactions between American Indians and Europeans from their earliest contact, continuing through the turbulence of the American Civil War, the on-going repercussions of government legislation, right up to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. This resource contains material from the Newberry Library's extensive Edward E. Ayer Collection. Includes manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books, photographs and newspapers. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals.

American Memory is a gateway to the Library of Congressś vast resources of digitized American historical materials. Comprising more than 9 million items that document U.S. history and culture, American Memory is organized into more than 100 thematic collections based on their original format, their subject matter, or who first created, assembled, or donated them to the Library. The original formats include manuscripts, prints, photographs, posters, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, books, pamphlets, and sheet music. Each online collection is accompanied by a set of explanatory features designed to make the materials easy to find, use, and understand. Collections may be browsed individually, searched individually (including full-text searching for many written items), or searched across multiple collections.

Searchable database of the American Antiquarian Society's holdings of slavery and abolition materials that includes more than 3,500 works published over the course of more than 100 years.

Original manuscripts, maps, ephemeral material, and rare printed sources from the Graff Collection about the American West, including tales of frontier life, Native Americans, vigilantes, and outlaws, and the growth of urban centres and environmental impact of westward expansion and of life in the borderlands.

Allows you to search across more than eleven collections of historical American publications. Includes: Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922; American Broadsides and Ephemera; American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922; American Civil War Collection, 1860-1922; Early American Imprints I: Evans, 1639-1800 (and supplements); and Early American Imprints II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 (and supplements). Material represented in this database has been sourced from major collections such as those of the American Antiquarian Society, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Wide-ranging collections of information for conducting genealogical and local history research. Includes: digitized images of the United States Federal Census from 1790 forward; the American Genealogical Biographical Index; Passenger and Immigration Lists Index; United Kingdom and United States Directories 1680-1830; court, land, and probate records; and many other resources.

The archive illuminates the experiences not just of the LGBTQ community as a whole, but of individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, religions, political orientations, and geographical locations that constitute this community. Historical records of political and social organizations founded by LGBTQ individuals are featured, as well as publications by and for lesbians and gays, and extensive coverage of governmental responses to the AIDS crisis. The archive also contains personal correspondence and interviews with numerous LGBTQ individuals, among others. The archive includes gay and lesbian newspapers from more than 35 countries, reports, policy statements, and other documents related to gay rights and health, including the worldwide impact of AIDS, materials tracing LGBTQ activism in Britain from 1950 through 1980, and more. In addition, the archive encompasses extensive material related to feminism, women's rights, and women's concerns. Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990.

Series 1 presents a digital collection of historical content pertaining to U.S. Hispanic history, literature and culture. "Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project" -- from which the collections draws its content, is the largest national project ever to locate, preserve and disseminate Hispanic culture of the United States in its written form from colonial times until 1960. The collection accurately conveys the creative life of U.S. Hispanics, and sheds new light on the intellectual vigor and traditional values that have characterized Hispanics from the earliest moments of this country's history through contemporary times.

"The Latino-Hispanic American Experience: Leaders, Writers and Thinkers presents thematic content focusing on the evolution of Hispanic civil rights, religious thought, and the growing presence of women writers from the late 19th and 20th centuries. Rare and relevant books and newspapers --including rare anarchist newspapers -- are presented in their original form. Extensive manuscript collections of both organizations and individuals are included for viewing, indexed for ease of search and maximum discovery. This collection offers a unique approach, focusing exclusively on the Latino-Hispanic history in the United States."--Online provider's description.

"A publishing program focusing on making varied treasures of the Associated Press Corporate Archives, AP Images, and AP Archive available to libraries worldwide." Explores "the history and back story of the venerable Associated Press—decades' worth of wire copy, correspondence, memos, internal publications, and more..." (from publisher's description)

Non-fiction works by African-American leaders and others who have dealt substantially with issues of race in America. Includes books, essays, articles, speeches, letters, interviews, and other materials, some of which have not previously been published.

This collection of primary source documents, archives, films, and ephemera relate to significant border areas and events from the 19th to 21st centuries. It offers researchers historical context and resources, from both personal and institutional perspectives, to 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. The collection continues to expand, and at completion will include 100,000 pages of text, 175 hours of video, and 1,000 images. Materials in the collection are organized around fundamental themes of Border Identities, Border Enforcement and Control, Border Disputes, Border Criminologies, Maritime Borders, Human Trafficking, Sea Migration, Undocumented and Unauthorized Migration, and Global Governance of Migration.

Colonial America makes available all 1,450 volumes of the [Colonial Office] CO 5 series from The National Archives, UK, covering the period 1606 to 1822. CO 5 consists of the original correspondence between the British government and the governments of the American colonies, making it a uniquely rich resource for all historians of the period.

Colonial State Papers provides access to thousands of papers concerning English activities in the American, Canadian, and West Indian colonies between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Colonial State Papers integrates two important research tools as one service: Collection CO 1 from The National Archives (full name: Privy Council and related bodies: America and West Indies, Colonial Papers); and Calendar of State Papers, Colonial: North America and the West Indies 1574-1739. All of the documents from CO 1 have been reproduced as full-colour, high quality images. Users can limit their searches to records that include scanned documents or can search all documents recorded in the Calendar.

Provides access to over letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts concerning events that took place in North America between 1534 and 1860. The focus of the database is on description, travel, and accounts of interactions among various cultural groups.

Provides full-text and full-page-image access to a vast range of English-language and foreign-language titles printed in the United Kingdom between 1701 and 1800, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Includes books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera. Based on the extensive microfilm collection: the Eighteenth Century.

"The United States' principal record of political and historical open source intelligence"--Readex.

"This digital collection of primary source documents helps us to understand existence on the edges of the anglophone world from 1650-1920. Discover the various European and colonial frontier regions of North America, Africa and Australasia through documents that reveal the lives of settlers and indigenous peoples in these areas."

Gateway to North America, from the New York Historical Society, contains over 800,000 pages of content from over 1,500 print and manuscript directories, member lists, travel guides and other sources, chronicling the people and organizations of New York City from the late 18th through the early 20th century. Includes residential, trade and occupational directories; membership lists for professional groups, philanthropic and governmental institutions, ethnic organizations, religious groups and leisure clubs; names and physical descriptions of Civil War deserters and the incarcerated; illustrated advertisements; commercial listings by trade; descriptions of local philanthropic, religious and governmental institutions; travel schedules; maps; postal and tax rates; and town histories.

"In the late 1800's, Dutch physician and feminist Aletta Jacobs and her husband C.V. Gerritsen began collecting books, pamphlets and periodicals reflecting the evolution of a feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights. By the time their successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women's history in the world, with more than 4,700 books, pamphlets and journals spanning four centuries and 15 languages"--Publisher's description (ProQuest, 23 August 2022).Covers years 1543-1945, bulk is 1880-1920, with monographs and serials from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and continental Europe. The collection is especially rich in women's journals, scholarly medical and sociological studies, and housekeeping and advice manuals.

A four-year project to digitize over 1 million pages from the magazines, journals, and newspapers of the alternative press archives of participating librareis. Starting with collections by feminists and the GI press, the collection will grow to include small literary magazines, underground newspapers, LGBT periodicals, the minority press (Latino, Black and Native American) and the extreme right-wing press.

"The archive includes extensive monograph, manuscript, newspaper, periodical and photograph collections.. . . [It] provides users with a robust, diverse, informative source that will enhance research and increase understanding of the historical experiences, cultural traditions and innovations, and political status of Indigenous Peoples in the United States and Canada." (from publisher's description)

LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection includes documents ranging from letters, speeches, interviews, and ephemera covering the political evolution of gay rights as well as memoirs, biographies, poetry, letters and works of fiction that illuminate the lives of lesbians, gays, transgendered, and bisexual individuals and the community. It features select rare works from notable LGBT publishers including Alyson Books and Cleis Press, as well as mainstream trade and university publishers. It is also seeking to represent the major winners of both the Stonewall Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards, many of which are no longer in print.

A fully searchable library of English and American poetry, drama, and prose, plus biographies, bibliographies, and key secondary sources.

Provides full-text and full-page-image access to books from the 1450-1850 period (and 1851-1914 in Part II) , and pre-1906 serials. It focuses on economics interpreted in the widest sense, including political science, history, sociology, and special collections on banking, finance, transportation and manufacturing. It combines the strengths of two pre-eminent collections--the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration--along with supplementary materials from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the libraries of Yale University. The Making of the Modern World, part II: 1851-1914 expands the contents into the early 20th century.

"Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia." Includes "collections from 26 archives, libraries and museums, Migration to New Worlds brings together the movement and memories of millions across two centuries of mass migration."

"The NAACP Papers collection consists of 6 modules. The NAACP Papers collections contains internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country. It charts the NAACP's work and delivers a first-hand view into crucial issues. With a timeline that runs from 1909 to 1972, the NAACP Papers document the realities of segregation in the early 20th century to the triumphs of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and beyond."

Through much of the 19th century, the education, land rights, treaty negotiations and other affairs of Native American tribes were overseen by a cadre of superintendents from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). BIA superintendents scrupulously recorded their interactions with Native American tribes, leaving behind an astoundingly detailed archive that is captured here in full. These primary source documents cover not only encounters between Indigenous people and the U.S. government, but also accounts of Native American cultures during a time when disease and forced relocation were transforming their lives. Now, these rare materials are available for the first time in a readily accessible digital collection, which also contains detailed historical background notes created by the curators of the National Archives."[I]ncludes documents related to dozens of Native tribes from every region of the contiguous United States, including Apache, Arapaho, Blackfeet, Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Klamath, Lummi, Mandan, Mojave, Navajo, Nez Perce, Osage, Potawatomi, Pueblo, Seminole, Sioux, Ute and numerous others."

This collection of digitized primary sources provides access to two hundred years of scientific research and progress in the fields of natural history, natural sciences, medical research, climate science, civil and human rights, education in the sciences, and more. Accessible through the Wiley Digital Archives platform, The New York Academy of Sciences Collection contains an extensive body of diverse and interdisciplinary original materials, including correspondence, fieldwork, gray literature, personal papers, photographs, and proceedings. A core mission of the New York Academy of Sciences is to drive innovative solutions to society's challenges by advancing scientific research, education and policy.

"A multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on primary source collections of the long nineteenth century. . . . The content is sourced from the world's preeminent libraries and archives. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages." Now complete in twelve collections. Collections include: Asia and the West; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature; Europe and Africa; Children's Literature and Childhood; Science, Technology, and Medicine: 1780-1925 (Parts I & II); Women: Transnational Networks and many more.

Several searchable full-text collections of writings by key philosophers and thinkers from ancient times to the present, including Anselm, Aristotle, Augustine, Bentham, Berkeley, Calvin, Descartes, John Dewey, Hegel, Hobbes, Hume, Leibniz, Locke, Luther, Mill, Nietzche, Peirce, Plato, Ricardo, Rousseau, Adam Smith, Thomas Aquinas, Wittgenstein and many others.

Contains books, trade cards, pamphlets, posters, and advertisements for medical information and self treatments marketed toward laypersons in the United States in the 19th century.

Prize Papers Online 1 contains approximately 7,000 interrogations of members of the crew of ships taken during the American Revolutionary War and Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (ca. 1775-1784). It shows images of each interrogation (of two, three, sometimes even six or more pages). Answers to the fourteen most researched questions are transcribed and stored in a searchable database. The digital collection is ordered by names of ships taken.

"Prize Papers Online 2 contains approximately 6,000 interrogations of members of the crew of ships taken during the War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years' War (ca. 1739-1763). It shows images of each interrogation (of two, three, sometimes even six or more pages). Answers to the fourteen most researched questions are transcribed and stored in a searchable database. "

Prize Papers Online 3 contains approximately 4,000 interrogations of members of the crew of ships taken during the First, Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars (ca. 1652-1674) and the War of the Spanish Succession (ca. 1701-1733). It shows images of each interrogation (of two, three, sometimes even six or more pages). Answers to the fourteen most researched questions are transcribed and stored in a searchable database.

Database offers corporate annual reports for U.S. companies from 1884 to the present. Key data (financial, Fortune 500 ranking, industry classification, key people, geographic location, auditor, and related companies) are indexed in the citation and can be searched. Reports can be browsed by company name, industry or date. Cross-searchable to other historical periodical databases

Record of speeches, reports, surveys, and analyses produced by Fisk University's Race Relations Department from 1943-1970. Serves as a document of the civil rights fight during those crucial years, with consentrations on desegregation, migration of African Americans from the rural South to urban centers, the role of the Church in the Civil Rights Movement, race riots and tensions, and the activities of the Civil Rights movement. Includes photographs, posters, scrapbooks, audio recordings of speeches, biographies, an interactive map, teacher's guide, etcetera.

"Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography, this collection contains works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900's. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents that provide original accounts of exploration, trade, colonialism, slavery and abolition, the western movement, Native Americans, military actions and much more. With over 6 million pages from 29,000 works, this collection is a cornerstone in the study of the western hemisphere."

Devoted to the study and understanding of the history of slavery in America and the rest of the world from the 17th century to the late 19th century. Collections sourced from leading relevant institutions, such as the Amistad Research Center, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the British Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.