Primary Sources

Black Thought and Culture This link opens in a new window
Collection of non-fiction writings of leading African-Americans. Includes interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamplets, letters and other fugitive material.
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, and photographs. Simultaneously search: 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, Sunday Times (London), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), Making of the Modern World, Times Literary Supplement, and Times Digital Archive, Financial Times (London).

Freedom on the Move
Compiles historical news accounts of self-liberating Africans "runaway ads" in the United States.

Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice This link opens in a new window
Primary source documents on key aspects of the history of slavery. The African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. Case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba.
Slavery and Anti-Slavery This link opens in a new window
Books and pamphlets, US Supreme Court records, newspapers and periodicals, manuscripts, and reference materials for the scholarly study and understanding of slavery from a multinational perspective.
HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
Oral history interviews with both well-known and unsung African American artists, business leaders, scientists, athletes, and intellectuals.
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports, and in-depth oral histories reveal the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity. Focuses predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina.
African American Experience This link opens in a new window
Articles, audio clips, images, primary source documents, maps, monographs, and government documents covering all aspects of the African American experience from Greenwood Press, Negro University Press, etc.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new window
Complete text of works cited in Charles Evans' American Bibliography, as enhanced by Roger Bristol's Supplement to Evans' American Bibliography. Resource for information about life in 17th- and 18th-century America, from agriculture and auctions through foreign affairs, diplomacy, literature, music, religion, the Revolutionary War, temperance, and witchcraft.
Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new window
American books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the early part of the 19th century which are many of the rarest materials published in early America. Based on the noted "American Bibliography, 1801-1819" by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized collections of some of the nation’s great research libraries, established in this repository to archive and share their digital content.
Access Note: VU is a partner institution. Login is required for downloading. Tutorial: https://researchguides.library.vanderbilt.edu/HathiTrustAccess
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive legal research database. Extensive coverage of law reviews and historical access to resources such as the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, and US Supreme Court decisions. Legislative history and select foreign and international materials. Contains specialized libraries: intellectual property, taxation and economic reform, etc.