African American Studies Resource Guide: Print Indexes & Guides

A bibliography of more than 6500 newspapers and journals, from 1827 to the present, edited and published by African-Americans.

Annotated index of letters in the following periodicals: V. 1. Philanthropist, Emancipator, Genius of Universal Emancipation, Abolition Intelligencer, African Observer, and the Liberator, 1817-1845. V. 2. Liberator, Anti-Slavery Record, Human Rights Observer, 1835-1865. V. 3. Friend of Man, Pennsylvania Freemen, Advocate of Freedom, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1836-1854. V. 4. National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1840-1860. V. 6. National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1861-1871.

Guide to the microfilm of over 14,000 documents written by Black men and women abolitionists. Examples include editorials in Black newspapers and letters by Black abolitionists which appeared in White newspapers. A list of the newspapers and periodicals from which the material is derived is also included.

Black Abolitionist Papers, 1830-1865 [17 microfilm reels] is available for use in the Sawyer Library.

The Black Periodical Literature Project "documents the fiction, poetry and literary reviews which appeared in black owned and edited newspapers published in the United States between 1827 and 1940. A team of researchers at Harvard University, under the supervision of Henry Louis Gates Jr., have discovered over nine hundred such publications." Facsimilies of the black periodicals and newspapers have been produced on microfiche. The Sawyer Library owns microfiche 1-993. This collection is accompanied by an author/title index to unit 1 (microfiches 1-198), an index on CD-ROM, and a user's guide to units 1-3 on a separate set of 39 microfiches.

Compiled in 1996, this book describes the Mildred F. Sawyer Library's Collection of African American Literature, which was founded in 1971 by Dr. Edward Clark, professor emeritus of English at Suffolk University. A more detailed description of the collection and it's origins can be found off of the Sawyer Library homepage. A search for the subject Clark Collection of African American Literature will generate a list of the items in the catalog.

Descriptive listing of primary source material, dating from the 17th century to the present, held in over 800 collections at Harvard University's libraries, archives, and museums. The Guide describes such items as deeds, wills, diaries, ship's papers, and playbills, however books are not included.

Decennial Cumulation 1950-1959. Cumulated 1960-1970, 1971, 1972. Includes subject and name index of topics and persons covered in the literature, and a list of the periodicals indexed. Continued by Index to Periodical Articles by and about Blacks.

Annual volumes, 1973-1983. The index has grown to include entries from over 3000 articles in 23 periodicals. Author and subject terms are interfiled in a single alphabet. Creative works are listed under the appropriate category (drama, music, novels, etc.) and reviews are listed as book reviews, drama reviews, etc. Continued by Index to Black Periodicals.

Annual volumes, 1984 - 2004.

This work indexes 94 books and pamphlets of published poetry by individuals, and 33 anthologies, from 1760-1970. It includes a title and first line index, author index, and subject index.

This is a guide to the microfilm of the collection of Dubois's papers. The original collection, held at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, contains over 100,000 items.

The Papers of W. E. B. Du Bois : 1803 (1877-1963) 1965, on microfilm, (89 reels), are available for use in the Sawyer Library.