Letters and Papers
Researchers often find important information in the letters and papers of abolitionists. Black Boston activist William Cooper Nell's papers are particularly helpful, as are the Black Abolitionist Papers and the Letters of William Lloyd Garrison.
The Frederick Douglass Papers: Correspondence, 1842-1865 by ISBN: 0300135602Publication Date: 2009-12-08
The Harriet Jacobs Family Papers by Call Number: E444.J17A4 2008ISBN: 9780807831311Publication Date: 2008-11-01
The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass by Call Number: E449.D736 1950ISBN: 9780717801190Publication Date: 1975-01-01
Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott by Call Number: HQ1413.M68S45 2002ISBN: 0252026748Publication Date: 2002-01-09
William Cooper Nell, Nineteenth-Century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist by ISBN: 9781574780192Publication Date: 2002-01-01
African American Women
- Black Women in America (2nd ed.) by
- Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life: Their Words, Their Thoughts, Their Feelings by
- Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities by
- We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century by
- The Work of the Afro-American Woman by
Search Google Books and HathiTrust for Digitized Books and Other Materials
Find information about African Americans by searching the full text of millions of books in Google Books and the HathiTrust Digital Library. Note the name of the library that provided the book as well as the book's title, author(s), publisher name and location, date, and the page(s) where the information can be found.
If there are no options for printing or downloading, try to take a screenshot of the page that you need and/or check your library catalog to see if your library has a copy of the book.
In some cases, you will find your search terms highlighted in the text but won't be able to view the book. If there are copyright restrictions, the entire book will not be displayed.
- Afro-Americana Imprints (1535-1922) This link opens in a new windowOver 12,000 printed works; books, pamphlets and broadsides from the Library Company’s Afro-Americana Collection.
Biographical Directories
- Black Biography, 1790-1950: A Cumulative Index byThis is an index to 350 historical black biographical dictionaries. In addition to brief biographical information, the book includes geographical and occupational indexes. Additional dictionaries covered by this index are available on microfiche and some can also be found online at HathiTrust or Google Books. The invaluable indexing provided by this publication is not available online.
- Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction by
Geographic Places
Search for these and other geographic-specific books in WorldCat or your library catalog. Use keywords or Library of Congress Subject Headings such as African Americans--California or Slavery--Tennessee.
- The African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780-1930: Elites and Dilemmas by
- Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City by
- Blacks in Gold Rush California by
Websites of Interest
- African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907The collection presents a 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." (Library of Congress)
- African-American Studies Research Guide: Open AccessThe Columbia University Libraries library guide describes freely-available web collections related to African American studies.
- African American Women Writers of the Nineteenth CenturyThe New York Public Library Digital Library Collections (Digital Schomburg)
- Digital Public Library of AmericaThe DPLA portal searches collections held by US archives, libraries and museums.
- Documenting the American SouthDocumenting the American South is a digital publishing initiative that offers "Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture." (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909396 pamphlets from the Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division that complement those from its Daniel A. P. Murray Collection.
- Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection | Cornell University LibraryMore than 10,000 titles, including pamphlets and leaflets, that document the anti-slavery movement at local, regional, and national levels.