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There are 30 matching records, sorted by relevance. Displaying matches 1 through 30 .
Slavery and the Making of America
PBS.
This extensive companion to the PBS documentary of the same name provides interpretive and primary material on the history of African-Americans during slavery and Reconstruction, including essays, personal narratives, original documents, historical readings, and lesson plans. The “Time and Place” chronology of slavery and Reconstruction places the main events of U.S. history relating to African Americans between 1619 and 1881 in their historical context. “Slave Memories” allows visitors to hear the voices of African Americans recorded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on their experiences in slavery and Reconstruction. “Resources” includes 17 print resources, 23 books for children, and 30 websites related to slavery. “Slave Experience” allows users to explore slave life through the themes of legal rights and government; family; men, women, and gender; living conditions; education, arts, and culture; religion; responses to enslavement; and freedom and emancipation. Each features essays, historical overviews, original documents, and personal narratives. A K-12 learning section features historical readings of narratives, slave stories and letters, student plays, links to 19 sites with primary sources, and six lesson plans for middle and high school. This website is a valuable resource for teachers as well as an excellent introduction and overview for those with an interest in the history of slavery and slave life in America.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
PBS.
This extensive companion to the PBS documentary of the same name provides interpretive and primary material on the history of African-Americans during slavery and Reconstruction, including essays, personal narratives, original documents, historical readings, and lesson plans. The “Time and Place” chronology of slavery and Reconstruction places the main events of U.S. history relating to African Americans between 1619 and 1881 in their historical context. “Slave Memories” allows visitors to hear the voices of African Americans recorded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on their experiences in slavery and Reconstruction. “Resources” includes 17 print resources, 23 books for children, and 30 websites related to slavery. “Slave Experience” allows users to explore slave life through the themes of legal rights and government; family; men, women, and gender; living conditions; education, arts, and culture; religion; responses to enslavement; and freedom and emancipation. Each features essays, historical overviews, original documents, and personal narratives. A K-12 learning section features historical readings of narratives, slave stories and letters, student plays, links to 19 sites with primary sources, and six lesson plans for middle and high school. This website is a valuable resource for teachers as well as an excellent introduction and overview for those with an interest in the history of slavery and slave life in America.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920
William Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Offers 230 full-text documents on the lives of American slaves, including all known-to-be published slave narratives and many published biographies of slaves. Documents are available in HTML and SGML/TEI file formats. Users can also view images of the covers, spines, title pages, and versos of title pages. Accessible through alphabetical and chronological listings. The documents have been indexed by subject, but subject searching brings up additional materials included in other collections in the University of North Carolina’s “Documenting the American South” parent site. Provides a 2,200-word introductory essay by Professor Andrews. Of great value to those studying the history of American slavery, the South, African-American culture, and literary properties of slave narratives.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-19.
William Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Offers 230 full-text documents on the lives of American slaves, including all known-to-be published slave narratives and many published biographies of slaves. Documents are available in HTML and SGML/TEI file formats. Users can also view images of the covers, spines, title pages, and versos of title pages. Accessible through alphabetical and chronological listings. The documents have been indexed by subject, but subject searching brings up additional materials included in other collections in the University of North Carolina’s “Documenting the American South” parent site. Provides a 2,200-word introductory essay by Professor Andrews. Of great value to those studying the history of American slavery, the South, African-American culture, and literary properties of slave narratives.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-19.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938
American Memory, Library of Congress.
This new American Memory site is a gold mine of information on the history of slavery from those who lived as slaves. A collaborative effort of the Library of Congress Manuscripts and Prints and Photographs Divisions, this site has more than 2,300 first person accounts of slavery and 500 black and white photographs of former slaves, 200 of which have never before been available to the public. These narratives and photographs were collected as part of the 1930s Federal Writers' Project of the Works Project Administration, and they were assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the 17-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Each digitized transcript of a slave narrative is accompanied by notes including the name of the narrator, place and date of the interview, interviewer’s name, length of transcript, and cataloging information. Each photograph has similar notes regarding the name of the subject, place and date of photograph, name of photographer, and cataloging information. Visitors can browse photographs and narratives by keyword, subject, and narrator. The site also includes a 3000-word introductory essay on the significance of slave narratives by Norman Yetman, Professor of American Studies and Sociology at the University of Kansas. “Voices and Faces,” includes a selection of excerpts from 8 narratives along with photographs of the former slaves. This is a rich resource for students and teachers exploring the institution of slavery.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-08.
American Memory, Library of Congress.
This new American Memory site is a gold mine of information on the history of slavery from those who lived as slaves. A collaborative effort of the Library of Congress Manuscripts and Prints and Photographs Divisions, this site has more than 2,300 first person accounts of slavery and 500 black and white photographs of former slaves, 200 of which have never before been available to the public. These narratives and photographs were collected as part of the 1930s Federal Writers' Project of the Works Project Administration, and they were assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the 17-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Each digitized transcript of a slave narrative is accompanied by notes including the name of the narrator, place and date of the interview, interviewer’s name, length of transcript, and cataloging information. Each photograph has similar notes regarding the name of the subject, place and date of photograph, name of photographer, and cataloging information. Visitors can browse photographs and narratives by keyword, subject, and narrator. The site also includes a 3000-word introductory essay on the significance of slave narratives by Norman Yetman, Professor of American Studies and Sociology at the University of Kansas. “Voices and Faces,” includes a selection of excerpts from 8 narratives along with photographs of the former slaves. This is a rich resource for students and teachers exploring the institution of slavery.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-08.
Museum of the African Diaspora
Museum of the African Diaspora.
The Museum of the African Diaspora describes itself as “a collector of stories—a repository of information to be shared with all who wish to know about the African Diaspora.” Its website lives up to this mission, presenting ten slave narratives, more than 100 “first voice” narratives by and about people of African descent, and a photomosaic of more than 2,000 photographs of peoples in Africa and the diaspora. Excerpts from slave narratives, including the famous narrative of Olaudah Equiano, as well as more contemporary slave narratives, such as that of Francis Bok, a Dinka child slave in Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s, are narrated and accompanied by brief introductions. “First voice” narratives presents a wide range of African diasporic experiences—such as that of Askari Michael Fitzgerald Anderson’s childhood in Oakland in the 1970s, and Ghanian-American scholar and activist Nehanda Imara’s meditations on polygamy—including both audio recordings of oral histories and written narratives. The searchable photomosaic presents of a diverse group of photographs, including a wedding in Baltimore in 1965 and a Maasai ceremony in Tanzania. In addition, teachers will be interested in the six curriculum guides on African American art and artists.
Resources Available: IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2009-12-02.
Museum of the African Diaspora.
The Museum of the African Diaspora describes itself as “a collector of stories—a repository of information to be shared with all who wish to know about the African Diaspora.” Its website lives up to this mission, presenting ten slave narratives, more than 100 “first voice” narratives by and about people of African descent, and a photomosaic of more than 2,000 photographs of peoples in Africa and the diaspora. Excerpts from slave narratives, including the famous narrative of Olaudah Equiano, as well as more contemporary slave narratives, such as that of Francis Bok, a Dinka child slave in Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s, are narrated and accompanied by brief introductions. “First voice” narratives presents a wide range of African diasporic experiences—such as that of Askari Michael Fitzgerald Anderson’s childhood in Oakland in the 1970s, and Ghanian-American scholar and activist Nehanda Imara’s meditations on polygamy—including both audio recordings of oral histories and written narratives. The searchable photomosaic presents of a diverse group of photographs, including a wedding in Baltimore in 1965 and a Maasai ceremony in Tanzania. In addition, teachers will be interested in the six curriculum guides on African American art and artists.
Resources Available: IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2009-12-02.
First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860–1920
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and American Memory, Library of Congress.
Features 141 texts relating to the culture of the American south “from the viewpoint of Southerners,” during the latter half of the 19th and beginning decades of the 20th centuries, “ a period of enormous change.” Focusing on the voices of women, blacks, laborers, and Native Americans, the site offers a variety of documents—including ex-slave narratives, travel memoirs, personal accounts and diaries, and autobiographies, such as Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America (1843). Includes some materials published prior to 1860. Provides a 31-title bibliography, with some resources geared toward young readers, and links to 13 related sites. Part of the University of North Carolina’s digital library project, Documenting the American South, which is described further in its own History Matters entry.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and American Memory, Library of Congress.
Features 141 texts relating to the culture of the American south “from the viewpoint of Southerners,” during the latter half of the 19th and beginning decades of the 20th centuries, “ a period of enormous change.” Focusing on the voices of women, blacks, laborers, and Native Americans, the site offers a variety of documents—including ex-slave narratives, travel memoirs, personal accounts and diaries, and autobiographies, such as Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America (1843). Includes some materials published prior to 1860. Provides a 31-title bibliography, with some resources geared toward young readers, and links to 13 related sites. Part of the University of North Carolina’s digital library project, Documenting the American South, which is described further in its own History Matters entry.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
American Slave Narratives
Bruce Fort, Ph.D. candidate, University of Virginia.
This site contains selections from 13 interviews with former slaves conducted between 1936 and 1938 by journalists working for the New Deal Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. Each selection is accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of the interviewee, a photograph or drawing of the interviewee taken at the time of the interview, and in one instance, an audio component. Includes guidelines for reading slave narratives, a bibliography of 16 scholarly works on the history of slavery, and 21 links to related sites in general American history, southern history, and African-American history. A useful sample of first-hand testimony on American slave experience and culture.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
Bruce Fort, Ph.D. candidate, University of Virginia.
This site contains selections from 13 interviews with former slaves conducted between 1936 and 1938 by journalists working for the New Deal Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. Each selection is accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of the interviewee, a photograph or drawing of the interviewee taken at the time of the interview, and in one instance, an audio component. Includes guidelines for reading slave narratives, a bibliography of 16 scholarly works on the history of slavery, and 21 links to related sites in general American history, southern history, and African-American history. A useful sample of first-hand testimony on American slave experience and culture.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
Documenting the American South
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Libraries.
See JAH web review by Crandall Shifflett.
Reviewed 2002-03-01.
This database presents nearly 1,400 primary documents about the American South in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Culled from the premier collections at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC), the database features ten major projects. Presenting the beginnings of the University of North Carolina, “The First Century of the First State University,” offers “materials that document the creation and growth” of the University. “Oral Histories of th American South” has made 500 oral history interviews on the civil rights, environmental, industrial, and political history of the South. First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860–1920 offers approximately 140 diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives, and concentrates on women, blacks, workers, and American Indians. (See separate History Matters entry for more details.) “North American Slave Narratives” also furnishes about 250 texts. And the “Library of Southern Literature” makes available an additional 51 titles in Southern literature. “The Church in the Southern Black Community, Beginnings to 1920,” traces “how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.” "The Southern Homefront, 1861–1865“ documents ”non-military aspects of Southern life during the Civil War.“ “The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940” provides approximately 575 histories, descriptive accounts, institutional reports, works of fiction, images, oral histories, and songs. “North Carolinians and the Great War” offers approximately 170 documents on effects of World War I and its legacy. Finally, ”True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina" analyzes 121 documents written by students attending the University of North Carolina. The projects are accompanied by essays from the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and are searchable by author, keyword, and title. They reflect a larger effort, begun in 1995, to digitize the Southern collections at UNC.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2007-10-18.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Libraries.
See JAH web review by Crandall Shifflett.
Reviewed 2002-03-01.
This database presents nearly 1,400 primary documents about the American South in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. Culled from the premier collections at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC), the database features ten major projects. Presenting the beginnings of the University of North Carolina, “The First Century of the First State University,” offers “materials that document the creation and growth” of the University. “Oral Histories of th American South” has made 500 oral history interviews on the civil rights, environmental, industrial, and political history of the South. First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860–1920 offers approximately 140 diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives, and concentrates on women, blacks, workers, and American Indians. (See separate History Matters entry for more details.) “North American Slave Narratives” also furnishes about 250 texts. And the “Library of Southern Literature” makes available an additional 51 titles in Southern literature. “The Church in the Southern Black Community, Beginnings to 1920,” traces “how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.” "The Southern Homefront, 1861–1865“ documents ”non-military aspects of Southern life during the Civil War.“ “The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940” provides approximately 575 histories, descriptive accounts, institutional reports, works of fiction, images, oral histories, and songs. “North Carolinians and the Great War” offers approximately 170 documents on effects of World War I and its legacy. Finally, ”True and Candid Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students at the University of North Carolina" analyzes 121 documents written by students attending the University of North Carolina. The projects are accompanied by essays from the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and are searchable by author, keyword, and title. They reflect a larger effort, begun in 1995, to digitize the Southern collections at UNC.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2007-10-18.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801–1819
Readex, NewsBank, Inc..
[SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED] This database is the most essential collection of written materials for historical research in American history from 1801–1819. It provides full-text access to nearly 4.5 million pages of 36,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints published in the U.S. during this period. Gazetteers, almanacs, juvenile literature, chapbooks, hymnals, campaign literature, novels, slave narratives, spelling books, school readers, treaties, maps, atlases, advertisements, diaries, autobiographies, and much more are all included. Most of these materials were originally detailed in the bibliography compiled by Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker. This collection, long available on microfiche, is made available here as a digital, fully searchable online database. It complements Readex’s other Early American Imprints series of material from the period of 1639–1800.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2006-09-06.
Readex, NewsBank, Inc..
[SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED] This database is the most essential collection of written materials for historical research in American history from 1801–1819. It provides full-text access to nearly 4.5 million pages of 36,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints published in the U.S. during this period. Gazetteers, almanacs, juvenile literature, chapbooks, hymnals, campaign literature, novels, slave narratives, spelling books, school readers, treaties, maps, atlases, advertisements, diaries, autobiographies, and much more are all included. Most of these materials were originally detailed in the bibliography compiled by Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker. This collection, long available on microfiche, is made available here as a digital, fully searchable online database. It complements Readex’s other Early American Imprints series of material from the period of 1639–1800.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2006-09-06.
Excerpts from Slave Narratives
Steven Mintz, University of Houston.
Unadorned and easy to navigate, this comprehensive website contains forty-six first-person accounts of slavery and African life dating from 1682 to 1937. Each document is introduced with an illustrative sentence or short paragraph that describes the historical context. There are both recognizable and unknown actors in this website. Former slaves such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, as well as white abolitionists such as John Brown express forceful, if familiar, condemnations of slavery. In addition, there are unheralded historical voices that not only speak poignantly, but also reflect different (African-centered) perspectives. For example, a ship doctor’s searing report of the Middle Passage; a slave husband’s anguished letter to his wife after she was sold; and black social reformers’ protests against the cruel punishments of slave owners. When taken together, the assembled testimonies, including those by women, present slavery as a deeply entrenched institution that provoked a wide range of compelling commentary.
Resources Available: .
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
Steven Mintz, University of Houston.
Unadorned and easy to navigate, this comprehensive website contains forty-six first-person accounts of slavery and African life dating from 1682 to 1937. Each document is introduced with an illustrative sentence or short paragraph that describes the historical context. There are both recognizable and unknown actors in this website. Former slaves such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, as well as white abolitionists such as John Brown express forceful, if familiar, condemnations of slavery. In addition, there are unheralded historical voices that not only speak poignantly, but also reflect different (African-centered) perspectives. For example, a ship doctor’s searing report of the Middle Passage; a slave husband’s anguished letter to his wife after she was sold; and black social reformers’ protests against the cruel punishments of slave owners. When taken together, the assembled testimonies, including those by women, present slavery as a deeply entrenched institution that provoked a wide range of compelling commentary.
Resources Available: .
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
WPA Life Histories, Virginia Interviews
Library of Virginia.
Provides approximately 1,350 life histories and youth studies created by the Virginia Writers‘ Project (VWP)—part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project—between October 1938 and May 1941. In addition, the site offers more than 50 interviews with ex-slaves conducted by the VWP’s all-black Virginia Negro Studies unit in 1936 and 1937 and six VWP folklore studies produced between 1937 and 1942. The life histories—ranging between two and 16 pages in length—offer information on rural and urban occupational groups and experiences of individuals during the Depression, in addition to remembrances of late 19th-century and early 20th-century life. The youth studies investigate experiences of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who left school and include a survey of urban black youth. The ex-slave narratives, selected from more than 300 that were conducted for the project—of which only one-half have survived—provided research for the 1940 WPA publication The Negro in Virginia. Interviews and studies were edited—sometimes extensively—at the Richmond home office. Each study includes a bibliographic record with notes searchable by keyword; for many records, notes are structured to include searchable data on age, gender, race, nationality, industrial classification, and occupation. The site includes a 2,300-word overview of the project. Valuable for those studying social, economic, and cultural life in Virginia during the Depression, in addition to early periods, youth culture, and the history of slavery.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
Library of Virginia.
Provides approximately 1,350 life histories and youth studies created by the Virginia Writers‘ Project (VWP)—part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project—between October 1938 and May 1941. In addition, the site offers more than 50 interviews with ex-slaves conducted by the VWP’s all-black Virginia Negro Studies unit in 1936 and 1937 and six VWP folklore studies produced between 1937 and 1942. The life histories—ranging between two and 16 pages in length—offer information on rural and urban occupational groups and experiences of individuals during the Depression, in addition to remembrances of late 19th-century and early 20th-century life. The youth studies investigate experiences of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who left school and include a survey of urban black youth. The ex-slave narratives, selected from more than 300 that were conducted for the project—of which only one-half have survived—provided research for the 1940 WPA publication The Negro in Virginia. Interviews and studies were edited—sometimes extensively—at the Richmond home office. Each study includes a bibliographic record with notes searchable by keyword; for many records, notes are structured to include searchable data on age, gender, race, nationality, industrial classification, and occupation. The site includes a 2,300-word overview of the project. Valuable for those studying social, economic, and cultural life in Virginia during the Depression, in addition to early periods, youth culture, and the history of slavery.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
New Deal Network
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Institute for Learning Technologies, Teachers College, Columbia University.
See JAH web review by Charles Forcey.
Reviewed 2002-03-01.
A database of more than 20,000 items relating to the New Deal. A “Document Library” contains more than 900 newspaper and journal articles, speeches, letters, reports, advertisements, and other textual materials, treating a broad array of subjects relevant to the period’s social, cultural, political, and economic history, while placing special emphasis on New Deal relief agencies and issues relating to labor, education, agriculture, the Supreme Court, and African Americans. The “Photo Gallery” of more than 5,000 images is organized into five units—“Culture,” “Construction,” “Social Programs,” “Federal Agencies,” and miscellaneous, including photos from 11 exhibitions and five series of photoessays, and images of disaster relief and public figures. The site additionally offers featured exhibits, many with lesson plan suggestions. Presently, the features section includes “The Magpie Sings the Depression,” a collection of 193 poems, articles, and short stories, and 275 graphics from a Bronx high school journal published between 1929 and 1941 with juvenile works by novelist James Baldwin, photographer Richard Avedon, cultural critic Robert Warshow, and film critic Stanley Kauffmann; “Dear Mrs Roosevelt” with selected letters written by young people to the first lady; “Student Activism in the 1930s,” which contains 38 photographs, graphics, and editorial cartoons, 12 American Student Union memoirs, 40 autobiographical essays, and a 20,000-word essay by Robert Cohen on 1930s campus radicalism; 17 selected interviews from American slave narratives gathered by the Works Progress Administration; and an illustrated essay on the history and social effects of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Includes approximately 100 annotated links to related sites. Of great value for teachers, students, and researchers interested in the social history of the New Deal era.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-18.
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and Institute for Learning Technologies, Teachers College, Columbia University.
See JAH web review by Charles Forcey.
Reviewed 2002-03-01.
A database of more than 20,000 items relating to the New Deal. A “Document Library” contains more than 900 newspaper and journal articles, speeches, letters, reports, advertisements, and other textual materials, treating a broad array of subjects relevant to the period’s social, cultural, political, and economic history, while placing special emphasis on New Deal relief agencies and issues relating to labor, education, agriculture, the Supreme Court, and African Americans. The “Photo Gallery” of more than 5,000 images is organized into five units—“Culture,” “Construction,” “Social Programs,” “Federal Agencies,” and miscellaneous, including photos from 11 exhibitions and five series of photoessays, and images of disaster relief and public figures. The site additionally offers featured exhibits, many with lesson plan suggestions. Presently, the features section includes “The Magpie Sings the Depression,” a collection of 193 poems, articles, and short stories, and 275 graphics from a Bronx high school journal published between 1929 and 1941 with juvenile works by novelist James Baldwin, photographer Richard Avedon, cultural critic Robert Warshow, and film critic Stanley Kauffmann; “Dear Mrs Roosevelt” with selected letters written by young people to the first lady; “Student Activism in the 1930s,” which contains 38 photographs, graphics, and editorial cartoons, 12 American Student Union memoirs, 40 autobiographical essays, and a 20,000-word essay by Robert Cohen on 1930s campus radicalism; 17 selected interviews from American slave narratives gathered by the Works Progress Administration; and an illustrated essay on the history and social effects of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Includes approximately 100 annotated links to related sites. Of great value for teachers, students, and researchers interested in the social history of the New Deal era.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-18.
The African-American Mosaic
Library of Congress.
Comprised of 15 essays, ranging from 700 to 1,800 words, and about 120 images, this exhibit is drawn from the black history and culture collections of the Library of Congress. The materials cover four areas: colonization, abolition, migrations, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)—a New Deal program of the 1930s. Specific subjects include Liberia and the American Colonization Society; prominent abolitionists; Western migration, homesteading, and Chicago as the “promised land” for Southern blacks; and ex-slave narratives gathered by WPA writers. No primary texts are available here, but the essays are well-illustrated with historical photos and images.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2008-10-08.
Library of Congress.
Comprised of 15 essays, ranging from 700 to 1,800 words, and about 120 images, this exhibit is drawn from the black history and culture collections of the Library of Congress. The materials cover four areas: colonization, abolition, migrations, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)—a New Deal program of the 1930s. Specific subjects include Liberia and the American Colonization Society; prominent abolitionists; Western migration, homesteading, and Chicago as the “promised land” for Southern blacks; and ex-slave narratives gathered by WPA writers. No primary texts are available here, but the essays are well-illustrated with historical photos and images.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2008-10-08.
Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite Jr., University of Virginia.
See JAH web review by Christer Petley.
Reviewed 2013-03-01.
This collection of more than 1,230 images depicts the enslavement of Africans, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and slave life in the New World. Images are arranged in 18 categories, including capture of slaves, maps, slave ships, plantation scenes, physical punishment, music, free people of color, family life, religion, marketing, rebellion, and emancipation. The category “Pre-colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture” contains 242 images; however, most categories have approximately 20 to 80 images. Many of the illustrations and paintings are from 17th and 18th-century books and travel accounts, but some are taken from sketches within slave narratives and Harper’s Weekly and Monthly Magazine. In addition to reference information, brief 20- to 100-word comments, often an excerpt from the caption, accompany each image. While there is no attempt to interpret the images, those studying American slave societies, especially the Caribbean and Latin America, will find this a useful site.
Resources Available: IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-20.
Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite Jr., University of Virginia.
See JAH web review by Christer Petley.
Reviewed 2013-03-01.
This collection of more than 1,230 images depicts the enslavement of Africans, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and slave life in the New World. Images are arranged in 18 categories, including capture of slaves, maps, slave ships, plantation scenes, physical punishment, music, free people of color, family life, religion, marketing, rebellion, and emancipation. The category “Pre-colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture” contains 242 images; however, most categories have approximately 20 to 80 images. Many of the illustrations and paintings are from 17th and 18th-century books and travel accounts, but some are taken from sketches within slave narratives and Harper’s Weekly and Monthly Magazine. In addition to reference information, brief 20- to 100-word comments, often an excerpt from the caption, accompany each image. While there is no attempt to interpret the images, those studying American slave societies, especially the Caribbean and Latin America, will find this a useful site.
Resources Available: IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-20.
Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718–1820
ibiblio.org, Center for the Public Domain, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
See JAH web review by Aaron Sheehan-Dean.
Reviewed 2004-06-15.
Provides detailed data on more than 100,000 slaves and free blacks in Louisiana from 1718 to 1820 gathered from notarial documents by historian Dr. Gwendolyn Hall. Users can search by name of slave, master’s name, gender, epoch, racial designation, plantation location, and place of origin. Each record retrieved pertains to an individual slave. Information was compiled from documents created when slaves arrived by ship, were bought and sold, reported as runaways, testified in court cases, manumitted, and at the death of masters and in other circumstances. As French and Spanish records often were more detailed than those kept by the British, the amount of information provided is relatively extensive. Some records contain as many as 114 fields with information on name, birthplace, gender, age, language group, alleged involvement in conspiracies, skills, family relationships, and illnesses, among other categories. Dr. Hall’s analysis documents 96 different African ethnicities of slaves in Louisiana during this period. The site additionally offers tables and graphs presenting Dr. Hall’s calculations concerning the data collected and presents results from three useful searches: on African names, individual slaves involved in revolts or conspiracies, and runaways. Seven examples of original documents are displayed, and downloads of complete databases on Louisiana slaves and free blacks are available. An extremely valuable site for professional historians, anthropologists, geneticists, and linguists, in addition to people conducting genealogical searches.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
ibiblio.org, Center for the Public Domain, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
See JAH web review by Aaron Sheehan-Dean.
Reviewed 2004-06-15.
Provides detailed data on more than 100,000 slaves and free blacks in Louisiana from 1718 to 1820 gathered from notarial documents by historian Dr. Gwendolyn Hall. Users can search by name of slave, master’s name, gender, epoch, racial designation, plantation location, and place of origin. Each record retrieved pertains to an individual slave. Information was compiled from documents created when slaves arrived by ship, were bought and sold, reported as runaways, testified in court cases, manumitted, and at the death of masters and in other circumstances. As French and Spanish records often were more detailed than those kept by the British, the amount of information provided is relatively extensive. Some records contain as many as 114 fields with information on name, birthplace, gender, age, language group, alleged involvement in conspiracies, skills, family relationships, and illnesses, among other categories. Dr. Hall’s analysis documents 96 different African ethnicities of slaves in Louisiana during this period. The site additionally offers tables and graphs presenting Dr. Hall’s calculations concerning the data collected and presents results from three useful searches: on African names, individual slaves involved in revolts or conspiracies, and runaways. Seven examples of original documents are displayed, and downloads of complete databases on Louisiana slaves and free blacks are available. An extremely valuable site for professional historians, anthropologists, geneticists, and linguists, in addition to people conducting genealogical searches.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
The Church in the Southern Black Community, 1780–1925
American Memory, Library of Congress and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Provides approximately 135 texts—primarily published books, but also pamphlets, journal articles, and 36 slave narratives—that illuminate “how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.” Also focuses on how blacks coped with disenfranchisement, segregation, and bigotry. Includes a number of texts written by African-American scholars in the early 20th century. Includes a 15-title annotated bibliography and a 2,000-word introductory essay. Valuable for the study of African-American history, the history of American religion, history of the South, and 19th-century American cultural history.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
American Memory, Library of Congress and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Provides approximately 135 texts—primarily published books, but also pamphlets, journal articles, and 36 slave narratives—that illuminate “how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.” Also focuses on how blacks coped with disenfranchisement, segregation, and bigotry. Includes a number of texts written by African-American scholars in the early 20th century. Includes a 15-title annotated bibliography and a 2,000-word introductory essay. Valuable for the study of African-American history, the history of American religion, history of the South, and 19th-century American cultural history.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2008-10-09.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
See JAH web review by Chauncey Monte-Sano.
Reviewed 2009-03-01.
This large, attractive site provides high-quality material on American history for historians and teachers. The collection contains more than 60,000 “rare and important” American historical documents from 1493 to 1998 includes more than 34,000 transcripts. Authors include George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln. Users can also search the complete database of the Institute’s collection. Each week an annotated, transcribed document is featured, and an archive contains eighty past featured documents. “Treasures of the collection” offers 24 highlighted documents and images. Six online exhibits cover topics such as Alexander Hamilton, the Dred Scott decision, Abraham Lincoln, and topics such as freedom and battles. Teaching modules cover more than 20 topics corresponding to major periods in American history, each with a historical overview, lesson plans, quizzes, primary source material, visual aids, and activities. Additional resources include links to historical documents, published scholarship, and general history resources on the web. There are also descriptions of the Institute’s public programs and summer seminars, essay contests, national book prizes, and awards for teachers and students.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO, VIDEO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
See JAH web review by Chauncey Monte-Sano.
Reviewed 2009-03-01.
This large, attractive site provides high-quality material on American history for historians and teachers. The collection contains more than 60,000 “rare and important” American historical documents from 1493 to 1998 includes more than 34,000 transcripts. Authors include George Washington, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln. Users can also search the complete database of the Institute’s collection. Each week an annotated, transcribed document is featured, and an archive contains eighty past featured documents. “Treasures of the collection” offers 24 highlighted documents and images. Six online exhibits cover topics such as Alexander Hamilton, the Dred Scott decision, Abraham Lincoln, and topics such as freedom and battles. Teaching modules cover more than 20 topics corresponding to major periods in American history, each with a historical overview, lesson plans, quizzes, primary source material, visual aids, and activities. Additional resources include links to historical documents, published scholarship, and general history resources on the web. There are also descriptions of the Institute’s public programs and summer seminars, essay contests, national book prizes, and awards for teachers and students.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO, VIDEO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-06.
African-American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818–1907
American Memory, Library of Congress.
See JAH web review by Randall Burkett.
Reviewed 2005-12-01.
This site presents approximately 350 African-American pamphlets and documents, most of them produced between 1875 and 1900. These works provide “a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture” in a number of forms, including sermons, organization reports, college catalogs, graduation orations, slave narratives, Congressional speeches, poetry, and playscripts. Topics covered include segregation, voting rights, violence against African Americans, and the colonization movement. Authors include Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love. Information about publication and a short description (75 words) of content accompanies each pamphlet. The site also offers a timeline of African-American history from 1852 to 1925 and reproductions of original documents and illustrations. A special presentation “The Progress of a People,” recreates a meeting of the National Afro-American Council in December 1898. A rich resource for studying 19th- and early 20th-century African-American leaders and representatives of African-American religious, civic, and social organizations.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-02.
American Memory, Library of Congress.
See JAH web review by Randall Burkett.
Reviewed 2005-12-01.
This site presents approximately 350 African-American pamphlets and documents, most of them produced between 1875 and 1900. These works provide “a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture” in a number of forms, including sermons, organization reports, college catalogs, graduation orations, slave narratives, Congressional speeches, poetry, and playscripts. Topics covered include segregation, voting rights, violence against African Americans, and the colonization movement. Authors include Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love. Information about publication and a short description (75 words) of content accompanies each pamphlet. The site also offers a timeline of African-American history from 1852 to 1925 and reproductions of original documents and illustrations. A special presentation “The Progress of a People,” recreates a meeting of the National Afro-American Council in December 1898. A rich resource for studying 19th- and early 20th-century African-American leaders and representatives of African-American religious, civic, and social organizations.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-02.
Afro-American Almanac
Afro-American Almanac.
Presented by the Afro-American Almanac, this site provides materials that provide a historical perspective of Africans in America, from the beginning of the slave trade through the Civil Rights movement to the present. The site includes roughly 30 biographies of prominent African-American men and women, such as abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Charlotte Forten, educator/author Charles Chesnutt, and Dr. Ida Gray Nelson, the first black female dentist; 30 full-text books, speeches, and pamphlets by white and African-American authors and activists, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and Henry David Thoreau; over 30 primary documents related to African-American history, from the Virginia act of 1705 that declared slaves to be real estate, to Plessy v. Ferguson (1898), to the Black Panther Party Platform and Program; 20 brief (roughly 750-word) narratives of important historical events, such as the history of the Missouri Compromise of 1819 and the Tulsa, Oklahoma, race riots of 1921. The most unique portion of this site is a collection of 35 full-text traditional African and African-American folk tales. There is also a bibliography of 19 scholarly works and websites on African-American history. Though there is no search engine for this site, it is easy to navigate and is an ideal tool for examining African-American cultural history.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2000-12-26.
Afro-American Almanac.
Presented by the Afro-American Almanac, this site provides materials that provide a historical perspective of Africans in America, from the beginning of the slave trade through the Civil Rights movement to the present. The site includes roughly 30 biographies of prominent African-American men and women, such as abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Charlotte Forten, educator/author Charles Chesnutt, and Dr. Ida Gray Nelson, the first black female dentist; 30 full-text books, speeches, and pamphlets by white and African-American authors and activists, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and Henry David Thoreau; over 30 primary documents related to African-American history, from the Virginia act of 1705 that declared slaves to be real estate, to Plessy v. Ferguson (1898), to the Black Panther Party Platform and Program; 20 brief (roughly 750-word) narratives of important historical events, such as the history of the Missouri Compromise of 1819 and the Tulsa, Oklahoma, race riots of 1921. The most unique portion of this site is a collection of 35 full-text traditional African and African-American folk tales. There is also a bibliography of 19 scholarly works and websites on African-American history. Though there is no search engine for this site, it is easy to navigate and is an ideal tool for examining African-American cultural history.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2000-12-26.
Virtual Jamestown
Crandall Shifflett, Virginia Center for Digital History.
See JAH web review by David Jaffee.
Reviewed 2003-03-01.
A work in progress, Virtual Jamestown is a good place to begin exploring the history of Jamestown. This site includes 63 letters and first-hand accounts, available in original-spelling or modern-spelling versions, 100 public records, from census data to laws, 55 maps and images, and a sample of documents on labor contracts. The site will add court records, including deeds, wills, and court order books. There are a number of excellent K-12 teaching tools and classroom activities, including “Jobs in Jamestown” that teaches students to use census data to research occupations of colonial settlers, “Jamestown Newsletter,” that helps students research questions about life in the colony, and “Planning an Escape,” in which students study runaway slave advertisements and investigate the range of factors a slave had to consider before escaping. The reference section includes a timeline extending from 1502 to the present, narratives by prominent historians, including Bernard Bailyn, links to 25 related sites, and a bibliography of over 20 primary and secondary sources. The Complete Works of John Smith and John Smith’s Map of Virginia have recently been added to the site, while 3-D recreations of Jamestown’s Statehouse and Meetinghouse as well as an archive of Virginia’s first Africans will be added in the coming months.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-23.
Crandall Shifflett, Virginia Center for Digital History.
See JAH web review by David Jaffee.
Reviewed 2003-03-01.
A work in progress, Virtual Jamestown is a good place to begin exploring the history of Jamestown. This site includes 63 letters and first-hand accounts, available in original-spelling or modern-spelling versions, 100 public records, from census data to laws, 55 maps and images, and a sample of documents on labor contracts. The site will add court records, including deeds, wills, and court order books. There are a number of excellent K-12 teaching tools and classroom activities, including “Jobs in Jamestown” that teaches students to use census data to research occupations of colonial settlers, “Jamestown Newsletter,” that helps students research questions about life in the colony, and “Planning an Escape,” in which students study runaway slave advertisements and investigate the range of factors a slave had to consider before escaping. The reference section includes a timeline extending from 1502 to the present, narratives by prominent historians, including Bernard Bailyn, links to 25 related sites, and a bibliography of over 20 primary and secondary sources. The Complete Works of John Smith and John Smith’s Map of Virginia have recently been added to the site, while 3-D recreations of Jamestown’s Statehouse and Meetinghouse as well as an archive of Virginia’s first Africans will be added in the coming months.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-10-23.
African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society
American Memory, Library of Congress and Ohio Historical Society.
This Library of Congress American Memory site, a cooperative effort with the Ohio Historical Society, presents manuscripts, printed materials, and photographs drawn from the Ohio State Archives/Library in Columbus and the National African-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce. The collection includes more than 30,000 items relating to African-American life in Ohio between 1850 and 1920, including personal papers, association records, a plantation account book, ex-slave narratives, legal records, pamphlets and speeches. More than 300 photographs of local community leaders, buildings, ex-slaves, and African-American members of the military and police, as well as more than 15,000 articles from 11 Ohio newspapers and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, perhaps the oldest African-American periodical, are included. The materials represent themes such as slavery, abolition, the underground railroad, African-Americans in politics and government, and African-American religion. Items include an extensive collection of correspondence by George A. Myers, an African-American businessman and politician active in the Republican party around the turn of the 20th century, and prominent political speeches such as an 1863 speech by Congressman William Allen protesting a bill that would permit the use of Negro soldiers in the war. Each image is accompanied by notes on the source, subjects, medium, and repository. The site also includes a list of 2 related scholarly resources and 7 links to websites with related materials. The materials, searchable by keyword, are arranged by document type. Though no interpretation of the sources is included in this site beyond a brief (750-word) introduction by John Fleming, Director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, this site is ideal for those interested in African-American and Ohio history.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-07.
American Memory, Library of Congress and Ohio Historical Society.
This Library of Congress American Memory site, a cooperative effort with the Ohio Historical Society, presents manuscripts, printed materials, and photographs drawn from the Ohio State Archives/Library in Columbus and the National African-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce. The collection includes more than 30,000 items relating to African-American life in Ohio between 1850 and 1920, including personal papers, association records, a plantation account book, ex-slave narratives, legal records, pamphlets and speeches. More than 300 photographs of local community leaders, buildings, ex-slaves, and African-American members of the military and police, as well as more than 15,000 articles from 11 Ohio newspapers and the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, perhaps the oldest African-American periodical, are included. The materials represent themes such as slavery, abolition, the underground railroad, African-Americans in politics and government, and African-American religion. Items include an extensive collection of correspondence by George A. Myers, an African-American businessman and politician active in the Republican party around the turn of the 20th century, and prominent political speeches such as an 1863 speech by Congressman William Allen protesting a bill that would permit the use of Negro soldiers in the war. Each image is accompanied by notes on the source, subjects, medium, and repository. The site also includes a list of 2 related scholarly resources and 7 links to websites with related materials. The materials, searchable by keyword, are arranged by document type. Though no interpretation of the sources is included in this site beyond a brief (750-word) introduction by John Fleming, Director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, this site is ideal for those interested in African-American and Ohio history.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES.
Website last visited on 2007-11-07.
C-SPAN American Political Archive
C-SPAN.
This website, which draws from C-Span Radio, is a useful resource for researching or teaching 20th-th century American political history. It assembles audio recordings from such sources as the National Archives, presidential libraries, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress. It “presents interviews, debates, oral histories, news conferences, and speeches with past presidents, legislators, and other important figures in American politics.” Selecting “Past APA programs available online” provides the full list of 29 archived programs. Program subjects include persons such as W.E.B. DuBois, Indira Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, NASA astronauts; Presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower, and Gerald Ford; and Civil Rights leaders A. Philip Randolph, Malcolm X, and Thurgood Marshall. They also include thematic topics such as the Reagan presidency, women in journalism, ex-slave narratives, Iraq war stories, Congressional leaders, the voices of World War II, and American POWs. Many of the topics feature multiple programs. All programs are recordings of the original C-SPAN Radio program and must be listened to as originally broadcast. Playback of the programs requires media player software to be installed (free downloads can be accessed from the site).
Resources Available: AUDIO, VIDEO.
Website last visited on 2008-02-04.
C-SPAN.
This website, which draws from C-Span Radio, is a useful resource for researching or teaching 20th-th century American political history. It assembles audio recordings from such sources as the National Archives, presidential libraries, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress. It “presents interviews, debates, oral histories, news conferences, and speeches with past presidents, legislators, and other important figures in American politics.” Selecting “Past APA programs available online” provides the full list of 29 archived programs. Program subjects include persons such as W.E.B. DuBois, Indira Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, NASA astronauts; Presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Dwight Eisenhower, and Gerald Ford; and Civil Rights leaders A. Philip Randolph, Malcolm X, and Thurgood Marshall. They also include thematic topics such as the Reagan presidency, women in journalism, ex-slave narratives, Iraq war stories, Congressional leaders, the voices of World War II, and American POWs. Many of the topics feature multiple programs. All programs are recordings of the original C-SPAN Radio program and must be listened to as originally broadcast. Playback of the programs requires media player software to be installed (free downloads can be accessed from the site).
Resources Available: AUDIO, VIDEO.
Website last visited on 2008-02-04.
“I found him to be a very intelligent and feeling man”: Enslaved James Riley Encounters an Arab Trader, 1815
For centuries pirates, known as the Barbary pirates, operated out of the North African states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. European states paid tribute to them to ensure their people’s safe passage. Without British protection and with few financial or diplomatic resources, the new American nation’s ships and citizens were vulnerable on the high seas. Between 1785 and 1820, more than 700 Americans were taken hostage and often enslaved. The American public was fascinated by these captives' stories; their tales of desert cities, caravans, and harems bridged the previously popular Puritan captivity narratives and emerging slave narratives. The most influential of all these American Barbary narratives was James Riley’s Loss of the American Brig Commerce. A Connecticut sea captain, Riley ran aground in 1815 and was captured by wandering Arabs. He used his enslavement to call into question the enslavement of Africans and express a common humanity with the desert people he encountered.
Resources Available: TEXT.
For centuries pirates, known as the Barbary pirates, operated out of the North African states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. European states paid tribute to them to ensure their people’s safe passage. Without British protection and with few financial or diplomatic resources, the new American nation’s ships and citizens were vulnerable on the high seas. Between 1785 and 1820, more than 700 Americans were taken hostage and often enslaved. The American public was fascinated by these captives' stories; their tales of desert cities, caravans, and harems bridged the previously popular Puritan captivity narratives and emerging slave narratives. The most influential of all these American Barbary narratives was James Riley’s Loss of the American Brig Commerce. A Connecticut sea captain, Riley ran aground in 1815 and was captured by wandering Arabs. He used his enslavement to call into question the enslavement of Africans and express a common humanity with the desert people he encountered.
Resources Available: TEXT.
“Is It Not Enough that We Are Torn From Our Country and Friends?”: Olaudah Equiano Describes the Horrors of the Middle Passage, 1780s
In one of the largest forced migrations in human history, up to 12 million Africans were sold as slaves to Europeans and shipped to the Americas. Most slaves were seized inland and marched to coastal forts, where they were chained below deck in ships for the journey across the Atlantic or “Middle Passage,” under conditions designed to ship the largest number of people in the smallest space possible. Olaudah Equiano had been kidnapped from his family when he was 11 years old, carried off first to Barbados and then Virginia. After serving in the British navy, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from whom he purchased his freedom in 1766. His pioneering narrative of the journey from slavery to freedom, a bestseller first published in London in 1789, builds upon the traditions of spiritual narratives and travel literature to help create the slave narrative genre.
Resources Available: TEXT.
In one of the largest forced migrations in human history, up to 12 million Africans were sold as slaves to Europeans and shipped to the Americas. Most slaves were seized inland and marched to coastal forts, where they were chained below deck in ships for the journey across the Atlantic or “Middle Passage,” under conditions designed to ship the largest number of people in the smallest space possible. Olaudah Equiano had been kidnapped from his family when he was 11 years old, carried off first to Barbados and then Virginia. After serving in the British navy, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from whom he purchased his freedom in 1766. His pioneering narrative of the journey from slavery to freedom, a bestseller first published in London in 1789, builds upon the traditions of spiritual narratives and travel literature to help create the slave narrative genre.
Resources Available: TEXT.
“Time Did Not Reconcile Me To My Chains”: Charles Ball’s Journey to South Carolina, 1837
Charles Ball was born a slave around 1785 in Calvert County, Maryland. When he was four years old, his family was broken up by the sale of his mother. As a young man he was separated from his wife and children and sold to a slave trader. The journey described here occurred after that sale. Ball carefully observed his route and later used that knowledge to escape from a South Carolina cotton plantation and return to his family in Maryland. After his escape, Ball lived as a free man in Maryland and Washington, D.C. When his wife died, he remarried, established a new family, and farmed his own property near Baltimore. This period of happiness, however, did not last. Ball and his family were captured, separated, and dragged back into slavery. Although Ball managed to escape again, his family did not. He dictated this memoir while living in Philadelphia, free, but still fearful of recapture.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Charles Ball was born a slave around 1785 in Calvert County, Maryland. When he was four years old, his family was broken up by the sale of his mother. As a young man he was separated from his wife and children and sold to a slave trader. The journey described here occurred after that sale. Ball carefully observed his route and later used that knowledge to escape from a South Carolina cotton plantation and return to his family in Maryland. After his escape, Ball lived as a free man in Maryland and Washington, D.C. When his wife died, he remarried, established a new family, and farmed his own property near Baltimore. This period of happiness, however, did not last. Ball and his family were captured, separated, and dragged back into slavery. Although Ball managed to escape again, his family did not. He dictated this memoir while living in Philadelphia, free, but still fearful of recapture.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Freedom Bound: The Underground Railroad in Lycoming County, PA
Lynn Estomin.
See JAH web review by Lois E. Horton.
Reviewed 2004-12-01.
An interactive site on the Underground Railroad in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Users go to a map of the environs near Williamsport dotted with 13 relevant locations. Clicking on a location brings up images and streaming audio testimony from oral historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs, who details their significance using stories passed down from her great grandfather, Daniel Hughes, an agent and conductor on the railroad. A river raftsman, Hughes brought logs down the Susquehanna River to Maryland, and then returned leading slaves on foot through a mountain trail. Slaves hid in warehouses, caves, and Hughes’s own home. Helped by Hughes and his cohorts, the slaves headed for nearby Freedom Road, from where they would travel to Canada by foot or train. More than 50 photographs and prints document the places where the story took place. Diggs relates four additional stories from Hughes. This site succeeds in illuminating the workings of the Underground Railroad.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-08.
Lynn Estomin.
See JAH web review by Lois E. Horton.
Reviewed 2004-12-01.
An interactive site on the Underground Railroad in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. Users go to a map of the environs near Williamsport dotted with 13 relevant locations. Clicking on a location brings up images and streaming audio testimony from oral historian Mamie Sweeting Diggs, who details their significance using stories passed down from her great grandfather, Daniel Hughes, an agent and conductor on the railroad. A river raftsman, Hughes brought logs down the Susquehanna River to Maryland, and then returned leading slaves on foot through a mountain trail. Slaves hid in warehouses, caves, and Hughes’s own home. Helped by Hughes and his cohorts, the slaves headed for nearby Freedom Road, from where they would travel to Canada by foot or train. More than 50 photographs and prints document the places where the story took place. Diggs relates four additional stories from Hughes. This site succeeds in illuminating the workings of the Underground Railroad.
Resources Available: TEXT, IMAGES, AUDIO.
Website last visited on 2008-10-08.
Been Here So Long: Selections from the WPA American Slave Narratives
Dick Parsons.
These three lessons use the American Slave Narratives gathered between 1936 and 1938 by journalists and other writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). The site supplies 17 narratives for student use and also provides information on online and printed sources for additional narratives (approximately 2,300 were collected). The lessons ask students to explore the slave narratives to gain an understanding of the experiences of African Americans in nineteenth-century America and to consider the nature of oral history and personal narratives as historical evidence. One lesson requires students to use selected slave narratives to construct a “Document Based Question” for fellow students to answer. The lessons are accompanied by an essay on “The Ex-Slave Interviews in the Depression Cultural Context.” This activity comes from the New Deal Network Web site.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Dick Parsons.
These three lessons use the American Slave Narratives gathered between 1936 and 1938 by journalists and other writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, part of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA). The site supplies 17 narratives for student use and also provides information on online and printed sources for additional narratives (approximately 2,300 were collected). The lessons ask students to explore the slave narratives to gain an understanding of the experiences of African Americans in nineteenth-century America and to consider the nature of oral history and personal narratives as historical evidence. One lesson requires students to use selected slave narratives to construct a “Document Based Question” for fellow students to answer. The lessons are accompanied by an essay on “The Ex-Slave Interviews in the Depression Cultural Context.” This activity comes from the New Deal Network Web site.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Library of Southern Literature
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
This website—a small portion of the larger Documenting the American South project—presents the full text of more than 130 works of literature by more than 75 authors, published between the mid-1600s and 1920. Notable works include the first history of Virginia, written in 1673 by House of Burgesses member Robert Beverley, poems by Edgar Allen Poe, Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery, and several of Mark Twain’s and Kate Chopin’s works. Other works include collections of slave songs, sermons, and narratives published in the mid-1800s, including Frederick Douglass’s famous narrative, several works addressing Ku Klux Klan activities, and many lesser-known works of fiction. Though there is no built-in search feature, all works are presented as lengthy text files and can be searched using a computer’s “Find” function. Users new to Southern history may want to turn first to the “Introduction,” which provides brief essays on many aspects of Southern history, literature, and culture, including early colonial-era literature, the genres of biography and autobiography, black literature, the Civil War, travel writing, folklore, and humor.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2009-05-28.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
This website—a small portion of the larger Documenting the American South project—presents the full text of more than 130 works of literature by more than 75 authors, published between the mid-1600s and 1920. Notable works include the first history of Virginia, written in 1673 by House of Burgesses member Robert Beverley, poems by Edgar Allen Poe, Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery, and several of Mark Twain’s and Kate Chopin’s works. Other works include collections of slave songs, sermons, and narratives published in the mid-1800s, including Frederick Douglass’s famous narrative, several works addressing Ku Klux Klan activities, and many lesser-known works of fiction. Though there is no built-in search feature, all works are presented as lengthy text files and can be searched using a computer’s “Find” function. Users new to Southern history may want to turn first to the “Introduction,” which provides brief essays on many aspects of Southern history, literature, and culture, including early colonial-era literature, the genres of biography and autobiography, black literature, the Civil War, travel writing, folklore, and humor.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Website last visited on 2009-05-28.
Interview with Orville Vernon Burton
Orville Vernon Burton is Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications where he heads the initiative for Humanities and Social Science projects. His major areas of research are race relations, family, community, and religion. His work has appeared in more than a hundred articles in a variety of journals. He is the author or editor of six books (one of which is on CD-ROM), including In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (1985). He is the current President of the Agricultural History Society. Recognized with teaching awards at the departmental, school, college, and campus levels, he was designated one of the first three UIUC University “Distinguished Teacher/Scholars” in 1999. He was also selected nationwide as the 1999 U.S. Research and Doctoral University Professor of the Year (presented by the Carnegie Foundation and by CASE). In the 2000–2001 academic year, he was named a Carnegie Scholar as well as Mark Clark Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the Citadel.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Orville Vernon Burton is Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He is also a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications where he heads the initiative for Humanities and Social Science projects. His major areas of research are race relations, family, community, and religion. His work has appeared in more than a hundred articles in a variety of journals. He is the author or editor of six books (one of which is on CD-ROM), including In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (1985). He is the current President of the Agricultural History Society. Recognized with teaching awards at the departmental, school, college, and campus levels, he was designated one of the first three UIUC University “Distinguished Teacher/Scholars” in 1999. He was also selected nationwide as the 1999 U.S. Research and Doctoral University Professor of the Year (presented by the Carnegie Foundation and by CASE). In the 2000–2001 academic year, he was named a Carnegie Scholar as well as Mark Clark Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the Citadel.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Interview with Patricia Oldham
Pat Oldham has spent almost her entire teaching career at one school, Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, where she is a lecturer in the Behavioral-Social Science Department. She was a member of the original faculty at Hostos when the college opened in 1970 and over the years she helped to create much of the Social Sciences curriculum, including courses in United States history, African-American history, and interdisciplinary social science. She has worked extensively with the American Social History Project and has been twice appointed CUNY Faculty Fellow to work with it. In addition to her substantial teaching responsibilities, she continues to work part-time on a dissertation entitled David Ruggles: Afro-Yankee in an Antebellum World of Reform.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Pat Oldham has spent almost her entire teaching career at one school, Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, where she is a lecturer in the Behavioral-Social Science Department. She was a member of the original faculty at Hostos when the college opened in 1970 and over the years she helped to create much of the Social Sciences curriculum, including courses in United States history, African-American history, and interdisciplinary social science. She has worked extensively with the American Social History Project and has been twice appointed CUNY Faculty Fellow to work with it. In addition to her substantial teaching responsibilities, she continues to work part-time on a dissertation entitled David Ruggles: Afro-Yankee in an Antebellum World of Reform.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Interview with Nancy A. Hewitt
Nancy A. Hewitt, Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University, received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. She has written extensively on American women’s activism and woman’s rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her publications include Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872; Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s; and most recently, “Re-rooting American Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848.” Prof. Hewitt is also editor of Blackwell’s Companion to American Women’s History and of Women, Families and Communities, a two-volume collection geared to the United States history survey. She has also worked as a historian at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights National Historical Park; led numerous workshops on integrating race and gender into the curriculum; and participated with a group of women’s historians in a project housed at SUNY-Binghamton to provide web-based teaching materials on women and social movements in the United States.
Resources Available: TEXT.
Nancy A. Hewitt, Professor of History and Women’s Studies at Rutgers University, received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. She has written extensively on American women’s activism and woman’s rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her publications include Women’s Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872; Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s-1920s; and most recently, “Re-rooting American Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848.” Prof. Hewitt is also editor of Blackwell’s Companion to American Women’s History and of Women, Families and Communities, a two-volume collection geared to the United States history survey. She has also worked as a historian at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights National Historical Park; led numerous workshops on integrating race and gender into the curriculum; and participated with a group of women’s historians in a project housed at SUNY-Binghamton to provide web-based teaching materials on women and social movements in the United States.
Resources Available: TEXT.