Research by Subject: HIST 385: Inventing Race: Primary Sources

Primary Source Materials

See the News Sources guide for additional resources, including historical newspapers.

Evans Digital Edition 1639-1800 (Early American Imprints Series I) This link opens in a new window
Evans, 1639-1800 (Early American Imprints, Series I) has been described as the definitive resource for researching 17th- and 18th-century America. This digital collection contains virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in America over a 160-year period. Early American Imprints, Series I is based on Charles Evans’ “American Bibliography” and Roger Bristol’s supplement.
See America’s Historical Imprints
Shaw Shoemaker Digital Edition (Early American Imprints Series II) This link opens in a new window
Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 (Early American Imprints, Series II) provides a set of American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century. It is based on the noted “American Bibliography, 1801-1819” by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
See America’s Historical Imprints
African American Periodicals 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
Explore African American history, culture and daily life in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Slavery & Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive This link opens in a new window
Includes collections from the U.S. and Europe on the worldwide movement for the abolition of slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Includes books, pamphlets, periodicals and broadsides addressing 19th and early 20th century political, social and gender issues, religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, health and family life.
American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922 This link opens in a new window
Features the digital edition of the American Antiquarian Society’s holdings of slavery and abolition materials, with more than 3,500 works published over more than 100 years. Materials include books, pamphlets, and ephemera.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: Challenges and Triumphs in the Pursuit of Equality This link opens in a new window
In this website, we present primary source documents from several of the time periods in American History when the river of the Black Freedom Struggle ran more powerfully, while not losing sight of the fierce, often violent opposition that Black people have faced on the road to freedom.

This website contains approximately 1,600 documents focused on six different phases of Black Freedom:

Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

African Online Digital Library (AODL)
AODL is an open access digital library of African cultural heritage materials created by Michigan State University in collaboration with museums, archives, scholars, and communities around the world.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, one of The New York Public Library’s renowned research libraries, is a world-leading cultural institution devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.
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Search NYPL's Digital Collections for online images: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture
The Avery Research Center was established to collect, preserve, and make public the unique historical and cultural heritage of African Americans in Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry. Avery’s archival collections, museum exhibitions, and public programming reflect these diverse populations as well as the wider African Diaspora.
The Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection
The Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection is a collaborative project to provide digital access to materials documenting the roles and experiences of Black Women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights, and civic activism between the 1850s and 1960.
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The materials in this collection include photographs, correspondence, speeches, event programs, publications, oral histories, and other artifacts.
Discovering American Women's History Online
This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
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The database offers the following features:

Detailed descriptions and links to more than 700 digital collections
Quick access to basic and advanced searches on every page
Options for browsing by subject (300+ entries), place, time period, and primary source type
Options for narrowing search results by subject, time period, place, and primary source type
An interactive map links more than 500 locations (towns, schools, buildings) with relevant online primary sources.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Voyages database
Includes data and information on nearly 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries. Database enables searching by ship, nation, voyage dates, slave characteristics, place voyage began/ended, and more.
John Hope Franklin Research Center
The Franklin Research Center collects, preserves and promotes the use of published and unpublished primary sources for the exploration, understanding and advancement of scholarship of the history and culture of Africa and people of the African Diaspora in the Americas.
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To view online collections, visit the Duke University Digital Collections to search: https://repository.duke.edu/dc
Anti-Slavery Examiner (via HathiTrust)
Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, the Anti-Slavery Examiner appealed to the people of the United States to unite with the Society in maintaining common and unquestioned political rights. Speeches and letters on anti-slavery were reprinted. Testimony from slaveholders and other material taken mainly from slave state newspapers attempted to present slavery as it was.
NAACP photographs of African American women in the military services during World War II
Emphasis is on activities of the Army Nurse Corps and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), later called Women's Army Corps (WAC), at bases in Australia, England, France, and the United States. Activities include training, recruitment, clerical work, and recreation, such as Army nurses playing cards and knitting, and a WAAC band in a parade. Includes portraits of officers and new recruits.
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Prominent people depicted include: Mary McLeod Bethune at a National Civilian Advisory Committee luncheon, Fort Des Moines, Iowa; Joe Louis welcoming a group of new WAAC enlistees; Walter White visiting the WAAC training center at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. One photo of tennis instructor of the 3510 WAF Squadron, Randolph Air Force Base.
National Museum of African American History & Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more
Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico
Exhibition brochure for LACMA exhibition Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico