Scholarly Conversation
To better understand the primary source material you are encountering, you may wish to read up on what other scholars have written.
To find books, please use the Library Catalog
Drop the menu to Subject (keyword), and enter the title of the work. The results will include scholarly analyses of the work.
Alternatively, you can Drop the menu to Subject (keyword), and enter the name of the author. This will return biographies (which often include critical analyses of the author's works) as well as reviews and criticism.
To find journal articles, please consult one of the following:
MLA International Bibliography
Literature
- African American Poetry Database This link opens in a new window
Contains nearly 3,000 poems by African-American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Black Drama Third Edition This link opens in a new windowFull text of plays written by dramatists from Africa, the Caribbean, and North America, and detailed information about productions, theaters, production companies, and other ephemera related to the plays. 1850+
Personal Papers
- Black Abolitionist Papers This link opens in a new windowPrimary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865.
- Manuscript Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new windowCollection of previously unpublished letters and diaries by women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries documenting the details of their lives and illuminating the roles women played within their families, their communities, and the social and political movements of their times. The collection is drawn entirely from the extensive holdings of the American Antiquarian Society.
- North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Full text database of women's personal writings.
SOUND RECORDINGS
- Library of Congress Audio RecordingsDigitized recordings going back to the 19th century
- African American SongDocuments the history of African American music in an online music listening service. Contains a diverse range of genres such as jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives, among others.
Images
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowDigital library of more than one million images in the areas of art, architecture, the humanities, and social sciences with a set of tools to view, present, and manage images for research and pedagogical purposes.
Legal materials
- WestlawNext Campus Research This link opens in a new windowComprehensive database of legal materials, including cases, statutes, and regulations of the U.S. government and the various state governments; includes the legal encyclopedia American Jurisprudence 2nd and American Law Reports; case law from 1789 to present; current statutes and regulations. Documents can also be accessed through broad subject categories such as Civil Rights, International Law and Environmental Law.
Finding Primary Sources in Books
Some primary sources are collected in books, which you can find the library catalog.
To find the papers of an individual, search for that person as an author, e.g. Douglass, Frederick
To find the records of an organization or government body, use the name of the organization as an author e.g. American Anti-Slavery Society
Include one of these words as a keyword or a subject:
- sources
- diaries
- correspondence
- [place name]—Description and travel
- personal narrative
If you find something that looks useful, look at the detailed view of the catalog record and try to identify the "subject" assigned. For many topics in history, there's an official term used in all Anglo-American library catalogs, like:
- Slaves—United States—Correspondence
- Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)—Sources
- African American women--diaries
To find works published in a particular time and place, explore the search options. It is usually possible to limit your search by date, language, or location of publication.
For Context
- African American Experience This link opens in a new window
Full-text digital resource exploring African American life and culture. Targeted and thematic search options are featured to find articles, documents, images, and more.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowAccess 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.