Slavery Research Guide
Reference Desk (413) 774-1509	Research Guides | Library Home

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Selected Reference Sources

Use reference sources to choose a topic, understand terminology, locate background information, and identify good search terms.

• Slavery in the United States: a social, political, and historical encyclopedia R 326.973 S631
• Chronology of world slavery, R 306.362 R696c
• A historical guide to world slavery, R 306.362 H673g
• The Historical encyclopedia of world slavery, R 306.362 H673
• Encyclopedia of emancipation and abolition in the transatlantic world R 326.973 E56
• Dictionary of Afro-American slavery, R 326.973 D554
• The African American encyclopedia, R 323.4 A258
• Reference Library of Black America, R 323.4 R332
• Africana: the encyclopedia of the African & African American experience, R 960 A258en
• Black Saga: the African American experience (a chronology), R 323.4 C555b
• Rebels and renegades, R 303.484 H219re (slave revolts)

Finding Books (and more) in the Online Catalog

• Books on slavery are located in several areas in the Dewey Decimal system in both the social sciences (300's) and in history (900's) (see the call numbers for reference sources above)
• Use the catalog to search the word slavery as a subject and browse the subheadings for relevant information, or
• Try a keyword search with the word slavery and another term using Boolean logic--example: slavery and United States
• Search for books ABOUT a person by using a subject search--because this is an alphabetical search, use last name, first name--example: tubman, harriet
• To locate primary sources, try using the word slavery or slaves with one of these additional terms in a keyword search: sources, biography, diaries, correspondence, personal narratives, or slaves' writings

Selected Books

• Abolitionism : a revolutionary movement, 326.973 A655ab
• Africans in America : America's journey through slavery, 326.973 J66af
• Black odyssey : the African-American ordeal in slavery, 326.973 H891b
• Born in bondage : growing up enslaved in the antebellum South, 326.975 S399b
• Complicity : how the North promoted, prolonged, and profited from slavery, 306.362 F246co
• From slavery to freedom : a history of African Americans, 326.973 F832fra 2000
• The other South : Southern dissenters in the nineteenth century, 320.975 D318ot
• The political economy of slavery : studies in the economy and society of the slave South, 326.973 G335po
• The slaveholding republic : an account of the United States government's relations to slavery, 326.973 F296sl
• Slavery and the making of America, 326.973 H323sl
• The sounds of slavery : discovering African American history through songs, sermons, and speech, 326.973 W588so
• This species of property : slave life and culture in the Old South, 326.975 O97th
• Strange new land : African Americans, 1526-1776, 973.0496 W878s

E-Books

• Search the catalog to locate electronic books about slavery
• The following e-book is accessible both in the catalog and from the list of databases below:
  American slavery: a composite autobiography
  It contains 4,000 interviews with former slaves (slave narratives) and is searchable by subject, location, and more

See Primary and Secondary Sources: What Are They?, How to Find Them, How to Use Them
on the U.S. History Research Guide
and
Primary Documents Analysis Worksheets

Finding Articles in Research Databases
(go to DA Orgs/Library for off-campus access)

• American Slavery (e-book also available through the catalog)
  Includes 4,000 narratives collected from American slaves from 1936-1938 under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration and is searchable by subject, location and more
  HINT: Use the Advanced Search to browse the subject headings used in this e-book and other options for limiting the search
• History Reference Center (includes slave narratives)
  Contains the full text of over 750 historical encyclopedias and other non-fiction books and at least 60 leading history periodicals--includes over 55,000 historical documents; over 40,000 biographies of historical figures; over 10,000 historical photos and maps; and over 80 hours of historical film and video
  HINT: Use the advanced search to search slavery or slaves as a subject term and add another keyword for more focused information relating to slavery--then look for the links for primary documents and images
  To find slave narratives:
  Use the following search: su slavery and su narratives--click on the link for Primary Source Documents--to narrow by state, add "and Georgia" to your search
• History Study Center
  This database offers Study Units on major topics in U.S. History and more--slave narratives are found under the Primary Sources category in each study unit
  Search the study units for slavery as a subject or a word in the title to locate the following study units:
  Slavery
  Slave Life in America
  The Slavery Issue in American Politics
  The Abolition of Slavery
  The Atlantic Slave Trade
  Origins of the American Civil War
  HINT: To search the database, use the Advanced Search where it is possible to limit by words in the title--limit to the type of material and exclude book reviews at the bottom of the screen
• American History Online
  Use this database to find background information on slavery and related topics (reference sources)--includes primary sources and images
  HINT: Use the searching menus provided by the database to find primary documents and images rather than simple keyword searches
• Women and Social Movements in the United States (1600-2000)
  Includes over 1,500 documents
  Under Social Movements find documents for American Anti-Slavery Society, Anti-Slavery Movement, National Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women
  HINTS:
  Search Authors for specific people like Sojourner Truth
  "Slave" is used as an occupation to limit a search by author
  Use the "Terms" button in various searches to identify good search terms
• Black Thought and Culture
  Includes monographs, speeches, essays, articles, and interviews by leaders within the black community from early times
  HINTS:
  Using the Advanced Search or the subject search, look for the following broad subject terms: slave auctions and sales, slave quarters, slave resettlement, slave revolts, slave trade, slaveholders, slavery, slaves, or
  Search "slave*" as a subject to pick up all of the above

News Databases

HINT: Do not start your research by looking for newspaper articles--use other sources to collect names, dates of events, names or organizations, etc. to help with limiting the search very specifically--use the limiting capabilities of the databases

• Accessible Archives (full text)
  Provides the full text of a group of several newspapers:
  The Pennsylvania Gazette (1738-1800)--"the New York Times of the 18th Century"
  The Liberator (1831-1865)--" the most influential newspaper in the antebellum, antislavery crusade"
  African American Newspapers (19th Century)The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective (Nov. 1860-April 1865)--2 southern papers + 1 northern paper
• America's Historical Newspapers (full text)(1690-1922)
  Historic newspapers from more than 20 states
• Historical Newspapers (and American Periodicals Series) (full text)
  Provides digitized images of several newspapers from the time of slavery--search all of the newspapers plus the American Periodicals Series database or search each database individually
  Hartford Courant (1764-1984)
  Chicago Tribune (1849-1986)
  The New York Times(1851-2005)
  The Altanta Constitution (1868-1939)
  The Boston Globe (1872-1925)
  The Washington Post (1877-1992)
  Los Angeles Times (1881-1986)
  The graphical version of the newspaper database is for students and includes Topics, Timelines, Famous Dead People, This Day in History, and a What Happened search for specific days--does not include American Periodicals Series

Other related databases

• African American Song
  Covers jazz, blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression--includes 50,000 tracks and documents the history of African American music in sound
• Try general databases such as Academic Search Premier and General OneFile to search for secondary sources on the subject of slavery
• Try biography databases for information about specific individuals (Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, etc.)

Selected Internet Resources
(Websites should be evaluated for authorship, accuracy, relevance and currency)

Recommended by Mr. Pitcher, Ms. Kyle, and Ms. McCombs

• From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1822-1909
  "396 pamphlets from the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, published from 1822 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, emancipation, reconstruction, and related topics"
• Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
  Documents and images relating to the worldwide struggle to end slavery
• Africans in America
  The companion site to the PBS documentary on slavery-- for each era, a historical Narrative, a Resource Bank of images, documents, stories, biographies, and commentaries, and a Teacher's Guide are provided
• Valley of the Shadow
  An online archive of two communities (Augusta County, VA and Franklin County, PA) on the eve of the Civil War and during and after the war
• Slave Life in the Americas: a Visual Record
  Over 1,000 digital images from the period of slavery
• Slavery in America (from Academic Info)
  A directory of quality websites on slavery
• Anacostia Community Museum
  The Smithsonian Institution's museum of African American history and culture

Additional Sites

• Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 (American Memory)
• Documenting the American South (includes slave narratives-see slaves' writings, American under subject)
• Voices from the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Stories (American Memory)
• Digital Library of Georgia (includes slave narratives)
• Antislavery Literature Project (Arizona State U. and Iowa State U.)
  Includes slave narratives and proslavery literature
• An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
  28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history--search "slavery" as a keyword
• Documents on Slavery (The Avalon Project at Yale Law School)
• Exploring Amistad at Mystic Seaport
  Includes over 500 primary documents, a detailed narrative, and resources for teachers
• Frederick Douglass Papers (Library of Congress)
• Samuel J. May Antislavery Collection (Cornell)
  Includes over 10,000 pamphlets and leaflets documenting the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels
• Slavery and the Making of America (PBS)
• Slaves and the Courts: 1740 to 1860
  Contains over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the legal experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States
• African American Voices (from Digital History)
• African American Perspectives: pamphlets from 1818-1907 (Library of Congress)
• Africana and Black History (from New York Public Library Digital Gallery) (photographs)
• In Motion: the African American Migration Experience (includes images & texts)

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