How to Use This Guide
Welcome to the Tisch Library guide for African Americans in U.S. History to 1865. Use the table of contents to find definitions, topic overviews, books, articles, and more that will help you with your research.
If you don't find what you are looking for or need help navigating this guide or any of the resources it contains, don't hesitate to contact the author of this guide or Ask a Librarian.
Getting to Know Your Topic
Specialized reference sources--like dictionaries and subject encyclopedias, provide overviews of topics and descriptions of concepts and ideas. They can also provide definitions, statistics, and other details. You can use this type of source to help narrow your research topic, find data to support your thesis, and identify keywords and main ideas to use as search terms.
This page includes some of the most relevant resources for this class. But be sure to browse the shelves in the Reference Collection or ask your librarian for help finding more!
- Oxford African American Studies CenterThe Oxford African American Studies Center is a comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events that have shaped African American and African history and culture.
- Oxford ReferenceProvides web access to more than 100 major Oxford University Press dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works in the humanities, social sciences, foreign languages, science, technology and medicine, the performing arts, and religion. Works can be searched separately or across the entire databases. Includes over 1.5 million entries.
- Credo ReferenceOnline reference resources from numerous publishers. This reference resource can be searched by individual title, broad subject headings, cross-references, audio and images. Use its research mapper to search for terms and topics that are interconnected and displayed in (a) visual form. Examples of titles are: Bloomsbury Guide to Art, Bridgeman Art Library Archive, Columbia Encyclopedia, Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Harvard Dictionary of Music, and the Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. The complete list of titles is available on the CREDO Reference site.
- SAGE KnowledgeThe SAGE Knowledge platform provides cross-searching of SAGE resources including reference works, ebooks, and CQ Press. Included titles represent many disciplines within the social sciences such as juvenile justice, terrorism, social theory, crime, African American society, social welfare, education and many more themes.
Encyclopedias in the Reference Collection
The library's collection includes a significant number of online and print encyclopedias focused on African American History. The titles below represent a small selection of useful material, so please be sure to browse the shelves or use JumboSearch to find more!
Encyclopedia of African American Culture and HistoryCall Number: Reference E185 .E54 2006The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History is a five volume work dealing with all aspects of the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day.
Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895Call Number: Reference E185 .E545 2006Documents the full range of the African American experience, from the arrival of the first slave ship to the death of Frederick Douglass.
Encyclopedia of African American SocietyCall Number: EBookThe first comprehensive yet accessible reference in this field to give voice to the turbulent historical trends-slavery, segregation, "separate but equal"-that are often ignored in favor of mere facts.
The Kentucky African American EncyclopediaCall Number: EBookThis is an essential guide to the black experience in Kentucky, including biographical sketches of politicians and community leaders as well as pioneers in art, science, and industry.
Specialized Web Resources
There are a lot of relevant resources on the web where you can find historical background information as well as collections of primary source documents and much more. Have fun exploring!
- A History of Racial Injustice: TimelineCreated by the Equal Justice Initiative, the timeline traces African American history from 1619 to the present, including background information, primary source photos and documents, and much more.
- African American Freedom Trail ProjectThe African American Freedom Trail Project is a city-wide network and community-based archive, housed at Tufts University. Inspired by the scholarship of the late Tufts Professor Gerald R. Gill (1948-2007) on civil rights and the history of Black Boston. Driven by faculty and student research, the project maps African American public history sites, while developing collaborative, community-based public history projects across greater Boston.
- Documenting the American South from UNC Chapel HillDocumenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides online access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture.
- Museum of African American HistoryThe Museum of African American History is New England’s largest museum dedicated to preserving, conserving and interpreting the contributions of African Americans. In Boston and Nantucket, the Museum has preserved four historic sites and two Black Heritage Trails® that tell the story of organized black communities from the Colonial Period through the 19th century.
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & CultureThe 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.
