Research Guides: Africana Studies: Find Primary Sources

Notable primary source collections

Archives Unbound
Gain access to rare primary source documents with these topically focused digital collections. Supports academic research.
Gale Primary Sources
Search across all Gale primary source collections.
Includes:
• 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection
• 19th Century UK Periodicals
• American Fiction, 1774-1920
• Archives Unbound
• Archives of Sexuality & Gender
• Associated Press Collections Online
• Brazilian and Portuguese History and Culture
• British Library Newspapers
• China from Empire to Republic
• Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture 1790-1920
• Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896-2004
• Eighteenth Century Collections Online
• Indigenous Peoples: North America
• Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950
• Nineteenth Century Collections Online
• Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers
• Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957
• Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992
• Sabin Americana, 1500-1926
• Smithsonian Collections Online
• The Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2012
• The Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2010
• The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
• The Independent Digital Archive, 1986-2012
• The Listener Historical Archive 1929-1991
• The Making of Modern Law: Foreign Primary Sources
• The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926
• The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926
• The Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources
• The Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926
• The Making of the Modern World
• The Sunday Times Digital Archive, 1822-2006
• The Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2000
• The Times Digital Archive, 1822-2021
• Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, 1902-2019
• U.S. Declassified Documents Online
U.S. Declassified Documents Online
Access government documents covering major policy issues from before World War II into the twenty-first century.

Digital Schomburg
Growing collection of online exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, and streaming audio and video related to the history and culture of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora. From the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

Empire Online
A collection of digitized maps, manuscripts, books, pamphlets and paintings related to exploration, imperialism, and decolonization from archives around the world.
Note: This collection is owned in perpetuity by Davidson College.
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
Primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history.
Focused on six different phases of Black Freedom:
Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement (1790-1860)
The Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861-1877)
Jim Crow Era from 1878 to the Great Depression (1878-1932)
The New Deal and World War II (1933-1945)
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (1946-1975)
The Contemporary Era (1976-2000)

Historical magazines and journals

African American Periodicals, 1825-1995
Periodicals by and about African Americans; includes magazines, academic and political journals, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, and more.
Part of the Archive of Americana.

Historical Newspapers and News Sources

Accessible Archives
Search Nineteenth Century newspapers across the following collections:
African American Newspapers: The 19th Century, The Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective, The Liberator, and Godey's Lady's Book.
America's Historical Newspapers
Database of newspapers including African American Newspapers (1827-1998), Caribbean Newspapers (1718-1876), Early American Newspapers (1690-1922), Hispanic American Newspapers (1808-1980).
Part of the Archive of Americana.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports
Digital archive of the United States’ principal record of historical open source intelligence.
For FBIS reports from 1996 to the present, search World News Connection.
Gale NewsVault
Search or browse all Gale newspaper and periodical archives simultaneously.
Includes the following collections:
17th & 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers,
17th and 18th Century Nichols Newspapers Collection,
19th Century British Library Newspapers,
19th Century U.S. Newspapers,
Daily Mail,
Financial Times,
Illustrated London News, Sunday Times, and Times.
Also includes archives of the following periodicals:
19th Century U.K. Periodicals, The Economist, Liberty Magazine, Listener, and Times Literary Supplement.
Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports
English-language translations of foreign language newspaper articles, radio and television broadcasts, journal articles, reports, and monographs.
Nexis Uni
Coverage of news and current events, government, business, medical, and legal topics, as well as general reference information is included.
Use is restricted to current faculty and staff and currently-enrolled students of Davidson College only.
Historical Newspapers
Includes full-text coverage of US newspapers listed below, with the earliest starting in the late 19th century and many continuing through the 20th century.
Davidson has purchased perpetual access to:
The Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945)
Atlanta Daily World (1931-2010)
The Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988)
Chicago Defender (1909-2010)
Chinese Newspapers Collection (1832 - 1953)
Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991)
Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005)
New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993)
The New York Times with Index (1851-2020)
Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2010)
Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001)
Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002)
The Wall Street Journal (1889-2013)
The Washington Post (1877-2008)

Other Collections: History of Africa

World Heritage Sites: Africa
Explore African Heritage site objects including scholarly research, books, historical and recent documents, maps, site plans or diagrams, and photographs and slides.
Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1980
British Government documents from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion, and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices.
Note: This collection is owned in perpetuity by Davidson College.
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
Documenting missionary work from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, the periodicals include news, journals and reports on global missions and cultural encounters.
Note: This collection is owned in perpetuity by Davidson College.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
British Government documents, including diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, investigative reports, treaties, and more, useful for research on historical, political, social, and economic topics.
Note: This collection is owned in perpetuity by Davidson College.

Other Collections: African American History

Be sure to search Archives Unbound.

Library of Congress Digital Collections
A rich collection of primary sources related to U.S. history and culture; materials are drawn from the Library of Congress and other research libraries.
This collection is public domain and are not protected by copyright.
Archive of Americana
Historical collections that contain books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, government documents and ephemera printed in America over centuries.
Documenting the American South
A collection of primary sources on Southern history, culture, and literature from the colonial period through the early twentieth century. Includes diaries, first-person narratives, literary works, photographs, and other materials.
ProQuest Congressional
As the official record of the proceedings, debates, and activities of Congress, the Record is a substantially verbatim account of all discussion occurring on the floor of Congress.
Includes the full text of:
- The Congressional Record(1789 to present)
- Congressional Hearings (1824 to present), both published and unpublished
- Committee reports (1990 to present)
- Congressional Research Digital Collection (1830 to present), which contains over 26,000 committee prints and over 32,000 Congressional Research Service reports (1916 to present)
- House & Senate documents (1995 to present)
- Bills and resolutions, including profiles and tracking (1789 to present)
- Public laws (1988 to present)
- U.S. Code
- Code of Federal Regulations (1981 to present)
- Federal Register (1980 to present)
- Biographical information & voting records (1988 to present)
- Roll Call (1989 to present)
- Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations 1789-Present
Only available to Davidson College faculty, staff, and students.

Other Collections: African American Literature

20th Century African-American Poetry
Find poems written by African-American authors between 1900-1999. Includes works by Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde and Rita Dove.
African American Poetry (1750-1900)
Find poems written by African-American authors between 1750-1900.

Langston Hughes : material from the vertical files of the Schomburg Collection, 1926-1967 [microfilm]
WHERE TO FIND: Microfilm cabinet C-32
Collection description: "Biographical information about Hughes' life and activities. Hughes' writings form the largest series in the collection and consist of manuscripts, typescripts, and drafts of books, including "Not Without Laughter," "Famous American Negros,", and "First Book of Jazz;" plays; poems; short stories; songs; and reviews of some of his published works. Material relating to programs, activities, and events in which Hughes participated or was the subject including memorial tributes, personal appearances, radio broadcasts, recordings, speeches, and television broadcasts. Papers related to programs which incorporated a presentation of Hughes' works consisting of news clippings, printed programs, and leaflets announcing or describing the programs. Also, general criticism of Hughes as a writer, and some information on sources of Hughes' material in other institutions in the United States."