Research Guides: English 154: African-American Literature: Finding Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Library of Congress Primary Sources
The LoC's digital collections include photographs, prints, A/V, newspapers, and more.
Library of Congress African-American History Collection
Includes photograph, manuscripts, printed materials, and more.

Oxford African American Studies Center (5 users)(Discontinued) This link opens in a new window
The Libraries' subscription to this resource ended on 7/1/2023. Please contact a librarian if you need assistance with your research.
North American Women's Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window
Includes approximately 150,000 pages of women's letters and diaries from Colonial times to 1950, including 7,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. The material is drawn from more than 1,000 sources, including journal articles, pamphlets, newsletters, monographs, and conference proceedings

Black Women Oral History Project, 1976-81
With initial funding secured from the Rockefeller Foundation, staff at the Schlesinger Library guided the Black Women Oral History Project, and from 1976 to 1981, 72 women from all over the United States were interviewed. The interviews discuss family background, marriages, childhood, education and training, significant influences affecting their choice of primary career or activity, professional and voluntary accomplishments, union activities, the ways in which being black and a woman had affected their options and the choices made.

LGBT Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
LGBT Life provides indexing and abstracts for hundreds of scholarly and popular lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender publications, plus historically important primary sources, including books, magazines and newspapers.