LibGuides: Primary Sources (African American History): Print Resources

Catalog overview: Which one do I use?

The William C. Jason library provides more than one catalog that researchers can use to find books. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.

The Classic Catalog

Allows you to limit your search by library collection
Includes only items that are owned by the William C. Jason library
Tends to be more accurate than Worldcat Discovery about what the William C. Jason Library owns or does not own

Worldcat Discovery

Allows you to limit your search by publication date
Allows you to limit your search by a lot more factors than the Classic Catalog does
Includes some (but not all) available newspaper, magazine and journal articles
Allows you to view what other libraries own so that you can request the item through ILL or visit the library that owns the item

The Classic Catalog and Worldcat Discovery are the best tools when it comes to looking for primary sources in print. It's perfectly okay to use one of these, or to bounce between them when you're doing your searches.

What to search

Resources you can look for using our library catalogs include:

Older newspapers available in microfilm and through our online databases.
Diaries, personal journals, and autobiographies, distrubuted throughout all of the library's collections.
Government and legal documents.
Magazines, journals, and serials available through our electronic databases

A good strategy for building keyword searches is to type the type of source you're looking for, the word "AND" and then the topic.

Diaries AND Civil War
Personal narratives AND slavery
Papers AND Lynden B. Johnson

There are many types of primary sources. The following is a list that Yale University librarians identified as commonly appearing in Library of Congress subject subheadings. You may use any of them in your search:

Anecdotes, biography, case studies, cartoons, comic books, strips, correspondence, diaries, documentary films, interviews, laws, letters, manuscripts, maps, papers, personal narratives, photographs, portraits, public opinion, songs, music, sources, speechs, statutes

Alternately, you may search for items that were created by historical figures by conducting an author search in WorldCat Discovery or the Classic Catalog.

You may also search for publications on your topic that were published within a certain date range. You can do this on WorldCat Discovery.

Collections to look out for

Most publications about african american history are located in the library's African American Collection, located on the first floor of the building.

Resources about local and state history are located in the Delaware Collection. The Scholarly Publication Collection contains unpublished dissertations, theses, and published works that DSU faculty or students have contributed to. Both the Scholarly Publication Collection and the Delaware Collection are located in the 2nd floor Delaware Room. For access to the Delaware Room, ask at the first floor circulation desk.

The University Archive contains publications, manuscripts, and various other documents relevant to the history of Delaware State University.

When using the Classic Catalog's Power search, you can you can limit your search to those collections by:

Typing the topic that you are searching for in the "General Keyword" field at the top of the page, or filling in any of the other fields as appropriate.
Highlighting the collections you want to search in within the Collections box.

Primary source anthology examples

Jim Crow America by Catherine M. Lewis (Editor); J. Richard Lewis (Editor)
Call Number: African American Collection - E185.61 .J527 2009
ISBN: 9781557288943
Publication Date: 2009-04-01
This is an ideal resource on racism and segregation in American life. The term Jim Crow has had multiple meanings and a dark and complex past. It was first used in the early nineteenth century. After the Civil War it referred to the legal, customary, and often extralegal system that segregated and isolated African Americans from mainstream American life. In response to the increasing loss of their rights of citizenship and the rising tide of violence, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909. The federal government eventually took an active role in dismantling Jim Crow toward the end of the Depression. But it wasn't until the Lyndon Johnson years and all the work that led up to them that the end of Jim Crow finally came to pass. This unique book provides readers with a wealth of primary source materials from 1828 to 1980 that reveal how the Jim Crow era affects how historians practice their craft.
African Americans in Congress by Eric Freedman; Stephen A. Jones
Call Number: Reference Collection - JK1021 .A47 2008
ISBN: 9780872893856
Publication Date: 2007-10-01
From the first steps toward enfranchisement through modern lawmakers&BAD:rsquo; vision for America, a new book from CQ Press is the first single-volume reference to provide the complete story of African Americans making U.S. political history. In African Americans in Congress: A Documentary History, authors Eric Freedman&BAD:mdash;a Pulitzer Prize winner&BAD:mdash;and Stephen A. Jones, have assembled a vital collection of original narrative supported by more than 120 of the most important historical documents tracing the African American political experience and the history of African American legislators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. nbsp; Throughout this comprehensive work, the stories of notable African Americans who have served in Congress are told, including: Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi, the first African American senator; Shirley A. Chisholm of New York, the first black woman to serve in Congress; Charles B. Rangel of New York, the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Barack Obama of Illinois, the only African American senator in the 110th Congress.nbsp;nbsp;The first part of the book features chronological chapters on the history of African American involvement in U.S. politics and on Capitol Hill, while the second part features thematic chapters on the African American political experience. The issues and events covered include: The debate over slavery, the Civil War and ReconstructionThe civil rights movement and political empowermentThe maturation of the Congressional Black CaucusElections and investigationsWar, peace, patriotism and international affairsThe struggle for economic justiceIt also details some little-known stories, including future Rep. Robert Smalls&BAD:rsquo; heroism in commandeering a Confederate ship during the Civil War and piloting it into Union custody and the controversy when President Herbert Hoover&BAD:rsquo;s wife invited the wife of Rep. Oscar De Priest to a White House tea.The appendixes contain lists of African Americans in the 110th Congress and those since the 41st Congress, a chronology of significant events and an extensive bibliography.
African American Voices by Steven Mintz (Editor)
Call Number: African American Collection - E443 .A37 2009
ISBN: 9781405182683
Publication Date: 2009-03-09
A succinct, up-to-date overview of the history of slavery thatplaces American slavery in comparative perspective. Provides students with more than 70 primary documents on thehistory of slavery in America Includes extensive excerpts from slave narratives, interviewswith former slaves, and letters by African Americans that documentthe experience of bondage Comprehensive headnotes introduce each selection A Visual History chapter provides images to supplement thewritten documents Includes an extensive bibliography and bibliographic essay
Reflections of African-American Peace Leaders by Marvin J. Berlowitz (Editor)
Call Number: African American Collection - E185.61 .R33 2003
ISBN: 9780773469303
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
These documents, most of which are reprinted in full, outline the wide range of approaches, ideas, and philosophies various Black Americans used to generate an antiwar campaign, question the use of violence around the world, and call attention to the emergence of international racism and social intolerance during the late 19th through the 20th centuries.
Equal Protection and the African-American Constitutional Experience by Robert P. Green
Call Number: African American Collection - KF4756 .A3 2000
ISBN: 9780313303500
Publication Date: 2000-05-30
Trace the roots of the concept of equal protection from the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution through its application today using this collection of 177 primary documents from a variety of sources. Students can use this unique reference resource to examine the tension between the concept of equal protection and recognition of slavery in the constitutional order, to explore the devitalization and revitalization of the 14th and 15th Constitutional amendments from the era of Jim Crow through the Civil Rights movement, and to study current court rulings on equal protection of the law. Petitions, laws, court decisions, personal accounts, and a variety of other documents bring to life the experiences of African Americans in the American constitutional order. Five historical periods are explored with particular emphasis on the concept of equal protection of the law and its particular embodiment in the 14th Amendment. These include: the roots of the concept of equal protection in the Anglo-American experience, the lives of African Americans under a Constitution that incorporated equal protection yet recognized slavery, the 14th and 15th Amendments and the development of Jim Crow, 20th-century developments in the application of equal protection to race, and the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement and developments since that time. The introductory and explanatory text helps readers understand the nature of the conflicts, the issues being litigated, and the social and cultural pressures that shaped each debate. This welcome resource will provide students with the opportunity to understand the various arguments put forth in different debates, encouraging readers to consider all sides when drawing their own conclusions.
Black Congressmen During Reconstruction by Stephen Middleton; John David Smith (Foreword by)
Call Number: Reference Collection - E185.6 .B623 2002
ISBN: 9780313322815
Publication Date: 2002-12-30
Original Korean poems, written during the 16th and 17th centuries, and contemporary English translations.
The Civitas Anthology of African American Slave Narratives by William L. Andrews (Editor); Henry Louis Gates (Editor)
Call Number: African American Collection - E444 .C44 1999
ISBN: 9781582430195
Publication Date: 1999-01-05
Hailed in 1849 as “a new department in the literature of civilization,” the slave narrative forms the foundation of the African American literary tradition. From the late-eighteenth-century narratives by Africans who endured the harrowing Middle Passage, through the classic American fugitive slave narratives of the mid-nineteenth century, slave narratives have provided some of the most graphic and damning documentary evidence of the horrors of slavery. Riveting, passionate, and politically charged, the slave narrative blends personal memory and rhetorical attacks on slavery to create powerful literature and propaganda.The Civitas Anthology presents the seven classic antislavery narratives of the antebellum period in their entirety: The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave , the first slave narrative published by a woman in the Americas; The Confessions of Nat Turner , written when Turner was asked to record his motivation for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in U.S. history; The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , an international bestseller and the first narrative to fashion the male fugitive slave into an African American cultural hero; The Narrative of William W. Brown , an account that explored with unprecedented realism the slave’s survival ethic and the art of the slave trickster; The Narrative of the Life of Henry Bibb , the story of the struggles of the most memorable family man among the classic slave narrators; Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom , a gripping chronicle of one of the most daring and celebrated slave escapes ever recorded; and Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl , a dramatic text that exposed the sexual abuse of female slaves and pioneered the image of the fugitive slave woman as an articulate resister and survivor.Born out of lives of unparalleled suffering, the slave narrative captures all the bravery, drama, and hope that characterized the African American struggle against slavery. From these beginnings came some of the most influential novels in American literature, for the works of writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and Toni Morrison owe much of their power and social resonance to the slave narrative tradition. The Civitas Anthology gathers the most important narratives in this tradition into one volume for the first time, an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and general readers.