Library Research Guides: AFR 390: A History of Slavery and Racism in the North: Find Primary Sources

A Few Strategies for Finding Primary Sources

How To Start the Work of Uncovering and Documenting Early Black Lives in Your Community is a wonderful compilation of strategies for doing local Black history. Part of the Documenting Black Lives in the Early Connecticut River Valley project.
Think about the kinds of sources you would like to find (e.g., newspaper articles, letters, speeches, etc.).
Scan the descriptions of the databases, websites, and books on this page to identify some promising starting places for your search.
When brainstorming search terms, consider older terms that may have been used during the period you're researching.
Use citations in secondary sources to identify primary sources. If we don't have a source, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan.
When searching the web for primary sources on a person or topic, adding terms such as "primary sources," "digital collections," archives, or "historical society" to your search can sometimes help.
The Society of American Archivists has put together an extensive guide to Finding and Evaluating Archives, with strategies and resources for finding primary source materials.

Primary Source Collections

These are just a few of the primary source collections available to you through Wellesley and on the open web. For more ideas, see our Primary Sources guides for History and Literature, or contact me for help finding sources related to your topic!

HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
A growing collection of nearly 3,000 oral history video interviews with both well-known and unsung African Americans, highlighting the history, lives, careers, and accomplishments of African Americans across a wide variety of fields.

Umbra Search
Search hundreds of thousands of digitized primary sources related to African American history from more than 1,000 U.S. archives, libraries, and museums.

Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new window
Primary sources documenting slavery and abolition, including court records, slavery testimonies, pamphlets, books, maps, and more. Areas of focus include the African coast, the Middle Passage, slavery and the Islamic world, spiritualism and religion, resistance and the Underground Railroad, free Black settlements.
Dates: 1490-2007 CE

Black Abolitionists Archive
A digital collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum Blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.
Digital Library on American Slavery
Collections include petitions, runaway advertisements, deeds, and other materials that provide personal information and data about enslaved people, slaveholders, and free people of color.
Freedom on the Move: A Database of Fugitives from American Slavery
"Created to control the movement of enslaved people, the ads ultimately preserved the details of individual lives--their personality, appearance, and life story. Taken collectively, the ads constitute a detailed, concise, and rare source of information about the experiences of enslaved people."
Last Seen: Finding Family after Slavery
Thousands of advertisements placed in in hundreds of African-American newspapers by former enslaved people searching for family members and loved ones after emancipation.
North American Slave Narratives
Autobiographies of formerly enslaved people, from the Documenting the American South collection (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938
This digitized collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former enslaved people. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration.
Documenting Black Lives in the Early Connecticut River Valley
The project aims to document the lives of free, enslaved, and formerly enslaved Black residents of the Connecticut River Valley prior to 1900.
African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
Brings together historical manuscripts and rare published works that serve as a window upon the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late seventeenth century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s. From the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Georgetown Slavery Archive
Digitized materials relating to the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery.
Civil Rights Digital Library
Links to dozens of external archives on the Civil Rights Movement.

Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window
"Documenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall."
African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Focusing primarily on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and North Carolina, this resource documents multiple aspects of African American communities through pamphlets, news, letters, photos, maps, and oral histories. Themes include arts and culture, civil rights and Black power, education, policing, and faith and religion.
Dates: 1810-2011 CE
Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new window
Thousands of articles by scholars focused on the lives and events that have shaped African American and African history and culture, along with primary source documents, encyclopedias, and biographies.
American History, 1493-1945 This link opens in a new window
Primary sources from a library in New York spanning American history. Particular strength in the papers of elite white men, but materials include the papers of others as well.
Dates: 1493-1945 CE
America's Historical Imprints This link opens in a new window
Documents published in America up to 1819, including books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera, covering topics such as daily life, politics, religion, science, and more.
Dates: 1640-1819 CE

Digital Public Library of America
Search millions of images, texts, videos, and sounds from archives, libraries, and museums across the United States

HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

[Back to Top]

Historical Newspaper and Magazine Collections

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
Full-text of 282 Black American newspapers.
Dates: 1827-1998 CE
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 170 wide-ranging publications by and about African Americans, including academic journals, magazines, newsletters, reports, and other genres.
Dates: 1825-1997 CE
America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 1,000 historical U.S. newspapers. Contains Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922, and African American Newspapers, 1827-1998.
Dates: 1690-1998 CE
American Periodicals, 1740-1940 This link opens in a new window
Full text of over 1,000 American magazines and journals from colonial times to the early 20th century, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, and children's and women's magazines.
Dates: 1740-1940 CE
Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Full-text historical news articles in major American and British newspapers, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and more.
Dates: 1791-2003 CE

[Back to Top]

Selected Books with Primary Sources

Escaping Bondage: A Documentary History of Runaway Slaves in Eighteenth-Century New England, 1700–1789 (e-book)
Publication Date: 2012
From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester Slave Narratives
Publication Date: 2007
First published between 1842 and 1895, the autobiographical narratives gathered in this volume document the experiences of eight former enslaved people who eventually took up residence in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The Schlager Anthology of Black America by Dan Royles (Editor)
Publication Date: 2021
Primary documents from all periods of African American history, from the 1500s to the present. Most documents are abridged.
With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women by Shirley Wilson Logan (Editor)
Call Number: Clapp PS663.N4 W5 1995
Publication Date: 1995
speeches by nineteenth-century African-American women
African American Voices: A Documentary Reader from Emancipation to the Present by Leslie Brown
Call Number: Clapp Library E184.6 .A346 2014
Publication Date: 2014
Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An African American Anthology by Manning Marable (Editor); Leith Mullings (Editor)
Call Number: Clapp Library E184.6 .L48 2000
Publication Date: 1999

One way to find primary sources in books is to use the library catalog to search for your topic AND (documents OR sources)

EXAMPLES:

slave* AND (documents OR sources)

slave* AND massachusetts AND (documents OR sources)

Search the Library Catalog

Find Primary Sources in Wellesley's Special Collections

You have access to many rare books and manuscripts through Wellesley's Special Collections, including materials related to the history of slavery and resistance. Go to the Library Catalog Advanced Search and choose Location: Special Collections to search for relevant material. See the Special Collections page for how to make an appointment to access materials in print. Some materials have been digitized and are available in the Digital Repository.

[Back to Top]

Find Primary Sources in SuperSearch

You can find some primary sources through SuperSearch, but don't stop there, or you'll miss a lot of materials that are accessible to you through the library and beyond. SuperSearch does not include materials from several of our historical newspaper databases and other primary source collections.

Try a search in SuperSearch, then use the filters under Refine Results to narrow your search. The Publication Date filter allows you to focus on sources created during a particular time period. You can also filter by Source Type, such as newspaper articles. If you're searching for images, use the filter Non-Print Resources.

[Back to Top]