LibGuides: History 173; American Studies 180; Africana Studies 147: Black and Native New England: Primary Sources

Related Guides

Many more primary sources are listed on these guides!

Tufts Digital Collections and Archives Materials

The Tuftonian
1864-1965
Call number: LD5398 .T78 in Tisch Bound Periodicals and Archives
Absorbed and continued as Tufts Weekly.
Tufts Weekly, 1895-1968
The Tufts Weekly was the student newspaper from 1895 through 1968. It was replaced by the Observer in 1969.
Call numbers: LH1.T8 W44 v.6 (1900) - v.74 (1968) Tisch Oversize Periodical, MICRO R315 v.21 (1917) - v.68 (1963) and Archives v.1 (Jan. 01, 1895) - v.74 (Jan. 01, 1968)
Tufts Observer Archives
1969 to the present
Available in DCA not online, yet.
Call Number: UP055
Tufts Daily Online
1980 to the present
Usually about a year behind

Covering 1944-1998, but subject to 20- and 75-year restrictions

Call Number UA018

Lincoln Filene Center Records
• This collection contains publications, office files, and correspondence pertaining to the Lincoln Filene Center from 1944-1998. Some material was pulled by Russell Miller in preparation for his history of Tufts University, Light on the Hill.
Lincoln Filene Center Records, Series 2
o Negro Self-Concept: Implications for School and Citizenship, Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Development 1964
o Negro Self Concept Conference Report 1965
o Negro Self-Concept: Implications for School and Citizenship 1965

Dickinson, Hill and Co. Slave Merchant records, 1838-1865
Call Number MS181
This collection contains slavery transaction correspondence. Highly significant as the only extant collection of Dickenson, Hill and Co. is at the American Antiquarian Society and it was assumed that Dickenson had ceased business in the 1850s.
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The Dickinson, Hill & Co. slave merchant and auctioneer firm was based in Richmond Virginia and originally operated under the name R. H. Dickinson & Brother. It operated from at least 1845 until well into the Civil War.
Pre-Civil War and Civil War Southern Railroad Tickets and Receipts, 1859-1865
Call Number MS186
This collection contains railroad tickets for slaves, the general public and for confederate soldiers.
Ryder Collection of Confederate History, 1770-1890
Call Number MS011
Included are records of the Confederate government, letters, reports, receipts, loans, prison reports, etc. Also included is a collection of cartes de visite of military leaders from the Confederacy and the Union during the American Civil War (1861-1865).
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Reverend William Henry Ryder (1822-1888) was a successful Universalist preacher and pastor, recognized for his involvement in interests at home and in foreign missions. Reverend Ryder was a strong supporter of the Union cause during the Civil War. He traveled to Richmond as an agent of the Sanitary Commission at the end of the war to collect material for the upcoming Sanitary Commission Fair.
Confederate States of America Bonds, Loans, Currency, and Stamp, 1861-1865
Call Number MS187
This collection contains currency, loans, bonds, and a stamp by the Confederate States and two civil war currency notes from Virginia banks.
Elizabeth Ahn Toupin Papers, 1935-06-2013-06
Call Number MS064
(Subject to 20- and 75-year restrictions)
Elizabeth Ahn Toupin was Assistant Dean of Jackson College and then Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education at Tufts University. During her tenure she oversaw drastic changes in the policies regarding privacy and parietals in the dorms, and was engaged in providing safe ways for students to demonstrate and express their opinions about political and social conflicts of the day. Throughout her career, Toupin worked for the integration and equality of women and minorities at Tufts. She has published on the academic performance of Asian American students and also several cookbooks, and was instrumental in introducing Asian art to the North East.

West Medford African-American Remembrance Project, 2005-2012
Call Number MS123
• The collection includes oral histories created as part of The West Medford Afro-American Remembrance Project, conducted by Tufts Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Associate Professor, Rosalind Shaw. The aim of the West Medford Afro-American Remembrance Project is to document the lives and achievements of those who were pioneers in that community. The interviews that document these achievements are by those pioneers and the people that knew the subjects.

DCA Material for Black and Native New England

Search the Tufts Digital Library

Books, Newspapers & Periodicals

Early American Imprints I: Evans, 1639-1800
An online collection reproducing every extant book, pamphlet, and broadside published in America from 1639 to 1800 - the complete printed, non-serial source materials of American culture for the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Two separate collections. Be sure to go up a level to Archive of Americana to search both collections
Early American Imprints II: Shaw Shoemaker, 1801-1819
Books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints listed in the distinguished bibliography by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
Afro-Americana Imprints 1535-1922
Twelve thousand works from the Library Company of Philadelphia’s renowned Afro-Americana Collection. Includes books, pamphlets, anti-abolition literature, anti-slave-trade literature, slave narratives, sermons, and much more!
America's Historical Newspapers
Selection of U.S. newspapers from 1690-1922
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Contains hundreds of historic newspapers listed in Clarence Brigham's authoritative bibliography and in additional subsequent bibliographies with an emphasis on newspapers that began publication before 1820.
Ethnic News Watch (1959-present)
Immigrant, and minority press titles. Includes African-American and African, Jewish, Hispanic and a variety of nationalities.
American Periodicals
1740 to 1900
American Periodicals contains the full text of a wide variety of early American periodicals such as The American Apollo (1792-1792), The Boston Weekly - Magazine (1743-1743), and The Philadelphia Minerva (1795-1798).
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century
This collection of newspapers "contains a wealth of information about cultural life and history during the 1800s and is rich with first-hand reports of the major events and issues of the day..."
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
More than 170 periodicals by and about African-Americans: academic and political journals, commercial magazines,
institutional newsletters, bulletins of organizations, annual reports, and other genres.

Native Americans

Yale Indian Papers Project
The Yale Indian Papers Project’s efforts will culminate in a searchable electronic document collection known as the New England Indian Papers Series. The Series will consist of various manuscript materials from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and parts of Eastern New York and Long Island.
Native Americans in the Digital Public Library of America
Images, texts, sound, etc.
Early Encounters in North America
Letters, diaries and other accounts of early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans from the mid-1600s through the mid 1800s
Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894
Library of Congress, American Memory, A Century of Lawmaking
"The Schedule of Indian Land Cessions comprises 709 entries with links to the related map or maps for each entry. The tables and essays are available in both searchable text and page images and the maps are available in images. Due to the complexity of information presented in each entry, it is strongly recommended that users print out both pages of a table entry for comparison with the related map."

Specialized Resources for Race and Slavery

Documenting the American South (DocSouth)
A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Library of Congress, American Memory Project -- African American History
There are many relevant collections in this section, including slave narratives.
North American Slave Narratives
Part of the Documenting the American South.
"North American Slave Narratives" collects books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. This collection includes all the existing autobiographical narratives of fugitive and former slaves published as broadsides, pamphlets, or books in English up to 1920. Also included are many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves and some significant fictionalized slave narratives published in English before 1920.
The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written During the Crisis, 1800-1860
Print: Tisch Book Stacks E 185 .W8877 1969
American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
From the University of Virginia.
This web site provides an opportunity to read a sample of these narratives, and to see some of the photographs taken at the time of the interviews. The entire collection of narratives can be found in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972-79). See below for complete print set and supplements.
The American Slave: a Composite Autobiography
Print: 17 vols. Tisch Book Stacks E 441 .A58
Entire collection of narratives from above site.
The American Slave: a Composite Autobiography: Supplement, Series 1
Print: 10 vols. Tisch Book Stacks E 444 .A45 SUPPL.1
The American Slave: a Composite Autobiography: Supplement, Series 2
Print: 10 vols. Tisch Book Stacks E 444 .A45 SUPPL.2
Slavery & Antislavery: A Transnational Archive
Digital primary source collection made up of four parts, Part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition; Part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World; Part III: Institution of Slavery; Part IV: Age of Emancipation. Includes digitized books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, manuscripts, private papers, and letters touching on all aspects of historical slavery.
All records are also in the online catalog.
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Databases
Search the Voyages Database, examine estimates of the slave trade, explore African-Origins, use maps and the timeline and chronology
The Transatlantic Slave Trade
Part of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's In Motion series
The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
From the University of Virginia, the 1,280 images in this collection have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery.
New-York Historical Society: Manuscript Collections Relating to Slavery
The library of the New-York Historical Society holds among its many resources a substantial collection of manuscript materials documenting American slavery and the slave trade in the Atlantic world. What you can find online, you could easily visit!
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
The Cornell University Library owns one of the richest collections of anti-slavery and Civil War materials in the world, thanks in large part to Cornell's first President, Andrew Dickson White, who developed an early interest in both fostering, and documenting the abolitionist movement and the Civil War.
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia: Virginia Runaways, Slave Advertisements, Runaway Advertisements
The Geography of Slavery in Virginia is a digital collection of advertisements for runaway and captured slaves and servants in 18th- and 19th-century Virginia newspapers. Building on the rich descriptions of individual slaves and servants in the ads, the project offers a personal, geographical and documentary context for the study of slavery in Virginia, from colonial times to the Civil War.
Freedmen and Southern Society Project
From the University of Maryland, this collection contains online versions of primary sources such as proclamations, letters from slaves, court testimony, and other documents from the National Archives as well as essays on the period 1861-1867.
Early Encounters in North America
Letters, diaries and other accounts of early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans from the mid-1600s through the mid 1800s

Civil Rights Collections

Civil Rights Digital Library
From the Digital Library of Georgia
"The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) is the most ambitious and comprehensive initiative to date to deliver educational content on the Civil Rights Movement via the Web."
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive
The Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive is an Internet-accessible, fully searchable database of digitized versions of rare and unique library and archival resources on race relations in Mississippi.
Martin Luther King Papers Online
From the The Archive of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change
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The documents reveal the scholar, the father, and the pastor. Through these papers we see the United States of America at one of its most vulnerable, most honest and perhaps most human moments in history.
Television News of the Civil Rights Era
University of Virginia Library. Virginia Center for Digital History. “An archive containing film footage from the nightly news from two local television stations in Virginia. Included are clips of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, the governors of the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as segments documenting school desegregation, public meetings, local debates over civil rights matters, and interviews with citizens.”
SNCC 1960-1966: Six years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Black Power was the guiding philosophy of SNCC in its later years. It began to develop and take hold sometime after 1964, and came to prominence in 1966 when Stokely Charmicael became head of the organization.
The March On Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project
This digital collection presents primary sources from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries and the Wisconsin Historical Society that provide a window onto Milwaukee’s civil rights history.
State of Siege: Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement - American RadioWorks
From America Public Media
Rochester Black Freedom Struggle Online Project
The University of Rochester Libraries has created this fine online project to bring together organizational papers, images, oral histories, and ephemera related to Rochester's black freedom experience in the 1960s and 1970s. Visitors can click on the "Oral Histories" area to look over and listen to snippets from some of the interviews conducted in 2008, including talks with police officers, businessman, and local religious leaders. This section also contains several introductory essays that prov
Land of (Un)Equal Opportunity: Doucmenting the Civil Rights Struggle in Arkansaa
“Land of (Unequal) Opportunity: Documenting the Civil Rights Struggle in Arkansas” is an attempt to compile in one on-line resource a variety of records and photographs that document the history of civil rights in the state. A central focus of the project is to insure that both documents and illustrations were included, in the belief that photographs, cartoons, drawings, etc., are also important research tools.
Freedom On Film: Civil Rights In Georgia
This web site spotlights their activities out of nine cities and towns in Georgia, from the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, to the anti-poverty and anti-war campaigns of the early 1970s.
Crossroads Home
Crossroads to Freedom connects the world with Memphis history through an archive of documents, newspapers, images and oral histories. Our goal is to empower Memphians to tell the stories of our city and region as a vital aspect of participation in the future of our community.
Library of Congress' Civil Rights Resource Guide:
External Web Sites (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress). MORE websites!
Amistad Digital Resource: Civil Rights Era
From Columbia University.
Has image, video, audio and document archives, plus much more.
Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky
This online database/catalog provides access to audio and video excerpts, and over 10,000 pages of transcriptions, all of which are full-text searchable and can be sorted by county, by subject or by decade. At present 122 interviews are represented in this database.
Freedom House Collection -- Roxbury, Massachusetts
From Northeastern University Libraries. The Freedom House was a community organization that helped stabilize the racially mixed Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. This collection, featuring images from 1950-1975, highlight the group's efforts to integrate the neighborhood and desegregate the local schools. People appearing in the images include Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator Edward Kennedy, and Kitty Dukakis.
Wednesdays in Mississippi: Civil Rights as Women's Work
Northern women of different races and faiths traveled to Mississippi to develop relationships with their southern peers and to create bridges of understanding across regional, racial, and class lines. By opening communications across societal boundaries, Wednesday’s Women sought to end violence and to cushion the transition towards racial integration.
WGBH American Experience . Freedom Riders
Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project
The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project is based at the University of Washington.