Primary Documents
- Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive Launched in 2006 by Anna Lillios, Mark L. Kamrath, and J.D. Applen, the Zora Neale Hurston Digital Archive has two goals. Its primary purpose is to provide an academic site that will provide a repository of biographical, historical, critical, and other contextual materials related to Hurston's life and work. The site also seeks to make available various teaching resources so that both teachers and students can more fully appreciate the cultural and literary richness of Hurston's numerous writings.
- W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, 1803-1999 (UMass Amherst) Includes over 100,000 items of correspondence, speeches, articles, newspaper columns, nonfiction books, research materials, book reviews, pamphlets and leaflets, petitions, novels, essays, forewords, student papers, manuscripts of pageants, plays, short stories and fables, poetry, photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, videotapes, audiotapes, and miscellaneous materials.
- National Museum of African American History & Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. The NMAAHC is a public institution open to all, where anyone is welcome to participate, collaborate, and learn more about African American history and culture.
- Black Women's Suffrage Digital Collection (DPLA) The Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection is a collaborative project to provide digital access to materials documenting the roles and experiences of Black Women in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and, more broadly, women’s rights, voting rights, and civic activism between the 1850s and 1960. The materials in this collection include photographs, correspondence, speeches, event programs, publications, oral histories, and other artifacts.
- UMBRA: African American History Umbra Search African American History makes African American history more broadly accessible through a freely available widget and search tool, umbrasearch.org. The site brings together hundreds of thousands digitized materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the country.
- African American Communities (AM Explorer) Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this resource presents multiple aspects of the African American community through pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records, reports and in-depth oral histories, revealing the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity.
- Race Relations in America (AM Explorer) Sourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.
- Digital Collections - Harlem Renaissance (Library of Congress) The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with the Harlem Renaissance, including manuscripts, photographs, plays, and sound recordings.
- Archives of Sexuality & Gender This link opens in a new window The Archives of Sexuality & Gender program provides a collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other topical areas.
- ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new window ArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, including information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. Over 1,000 different archival institutions are represented. ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
Selected Anthologies
The Sleeper Wakes: Harlem renaissance stories by women by
In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the art and culture of the Harlem Renaissance. Yet this significant collection is the first definitive edition of Harlem Renaissance stories by women. The writers include Gwendolyn Bennett, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimk#65533;, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Dorothy West. Published originally in periodicals such as The Crisis, Fire!!, and Opportunity, these twenty-seven stories have until now been virtually unavailable to readers. These stories are as compelling today as they were in the 1920s and 1930s. In them, we find the themes of black and white racial tension and misunderstanding, economic deprivation, passing, love across and within racial lines, and the attempt to maintain community and uplift the race. Marcy Knopf's introduction surveys the history of the Harlem Renaissance, the periodicals and books it generated, and describes the rise to prominence of these women writers and their later fall from fame. She also includes a brief biography of each of the writers. Nellie Y. McKay's foreword analyzes the themes and concerns of the stories.
Location: Mugar Stacks PS647.A35 S58 1993Publication Date: 1993
Shadowed Dreams: women's poetry of the Harlem Renaissance by
The first edition of Shadowed Dreams was a groundbreaking anthology that brought to light the contributions of women poets to the Harlem Renaissance. This revised and expanded version contains twice the number of poems found in the original, many of them never before reprinted, and adds eighteen new voices to the collection to once again strike new ground in African American literary history. Also new to this edition are nine period illustrations and updated biographical introductions for each poet. Shadowed Dreams features new poems by Gwendolyn Bennett, Anita Scott Coleman, Mae Cowdery, Blanche Taylor Dickinson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Jessie Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimké, Gladys Casely Hayford (a k a Aquah Laluah), Virginia Houston, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Helene Johnson, Effie Lee Newsome, Esther Popel, and Anne Spencer, as well as writings from newly discovered poets Carrie Williams Clifford, Edythe Mae Gordon, Alvira Hazzard, Gertrude Parthenia McBrown, Beatrice Murphy, Lucia Mae Pitts, Grace Vera Postles, Ida Rowland, and Lucy Mae Turner, among others. Covering the years 1918 through 1939 and ranging across the period's major and minor journals, as well as its anthologies and collections, Shadowed Dreams provides a treasure trove of poetry from which to mine deeply buried jewels of black female visions in the early twentieth century.
Location: Mugar Stacks PS591.N4 S54 1989 and OnlinePublication Date: 1989
Harlem's Glory: Black women writing, 1900-1950 by
In poems, stories, memoirs and essays about colour and culture, prejudice and love, and feminine trials, dozens of African-American women writers - some famous, many just discovered - give us a sense of a distinct inner voice and an engagement with their larger double culture. Harlem's Glory unfolds a tradition of writing by African-American women, hitherto mostly hidden, in the first half of the 20th century. In historical context, with special emphasis on matters of race and gender, are the words of luminaries like Zora Neale Hurston and Georgia Douglas Johnson as well as writings by figures like Angelina Weld Grimke, Elise Johnson McDougald and Regina Andrews, all culled from archives and arcane magazines.
Location: Mugar Stacks PS508.N3 H37 1996Publication Date: 1996
The Centers of the Self: stories by black American women from the nineteenth century to the present by
Twenty-seven stories by black American women. They write on being abandoned by men, on maintaining spiritual strength and on the search for an identity. With biographies of the writers.
Location: Mugar Stacks PS647.A35 C46 1994 and OnlinePublication Date: 1994
Film & Video
- Wall, Cheryl, et al. Zora Neale Hurston : Jump at the Sun. Kanopy Streaming, 2014. Zora Neale Hurston, path-breaking novelist, pioneering anthropologist and one of the first black women to enter the American literary canon (Their Eyes Were Watching God), established the African American vernacular as one of the most vital, inventive voices in American literature. This definitive film biography, eighteen years in the making, portrays Zora in all her complexity: gifted, flamboyant, and controversial but always fiercely original.
Find more videos:
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window Academic Video Online delivers more than 67,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. It includes documentaries, films, demonstrations, and other content types. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window Kanopy is a provider of documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases available as streaming video. Clips from the videos can be embedded in presentations or shown in class. Films in the Boston University Libraries catalog are licensed to Boston University for educational and research use only, for BU students, faculty, and staff.
- HistoryMakers: African American Video Oral History Collection This link opens in a new window HistoryMakers is a collection of video oral history interviews with historically significant African Americans. Transcripts are included with the interviews.
- Ethnographic Video Online, Volume I-II: Foundational Films This link opens in a new window Ethnographic Video Online, Vol. I-II: Foundational Films contains classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, providing teachers visual support to introduce and contextualize hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world.
- Music & Performing Arts (Audio & Video Collections) This link opens in a new window Music & Performing Arts' collections include American Music, Classical, Contemporary World, Jazz, Popular, Smithsonian's Global Sound, Ethnographic Sound Archives, American Film Scripts, Asian American Drama, Black Drama, North American Drama, and Theatre in Context. Search results include links to the full text of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online (1997-2001), with additional audio examples.
Exhibit Sources: Images
- Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window Associated Press Images Collection is a searchable collection of recent and historical photos from the Associated Press, plus AP graphics, articles, and brief sound clips.
- ARTstor This link opens in a new window ARTstor is a database of images from museums, artists, libraries, colleges and universities, scholars, private collections, and photo archives available for teaching, education, and scholarship, with all images cleared for educational use.
- National Museum of African American History & Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture. It was established by Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African Americans. The NMAAHC is a public institution open to all, where anyone is welcome to participate, collaborate, and learn more about African American history and culture.
- Smithsonian Institution Collections Includes millions of records, including images, of resources in the Smithsonian collections.
- Library of Congress -- Digital Collections This digital archive from the Library of Congress has over 100 thematic collections of historical documents, maps, moving images, sound recordings, and photographic images.
- NYPL Digital Collections Provides thousands of digital images from the NYPL collections including historical maps, illuminated manuscripts, and prints and photographs. It contains texts and images from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Exhibit Sources: Newspapers & Magazines
BU Newspaper Databases
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window Full-page images and article images (PDF) with searchable full text from the following newspapers: Boston Globe; New York Times; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Defender. See listing for each individual newspaper for date coverage and to search that publication separately.
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
- New York Times (1851- 2016) (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) This link opens in a new window Date coverage: 1851-2016. Full-page images and article images (PDF) with searchable full text of the New York Times back issues. Additions each year keep it within 3 years of the current year. NOTE: For 2016+ use Nexis Uni.
- PressReader This link opens in a new window Full-page images and article images with searchable full text of international newspapers and magazines from the last 90 days, in the original language. Includes computer-generated translations to English and other languages for some publications.
- Access World News This link opens in a new window Find full-text current and archived articles on issues, events, people, government and more. Includes local news, editorials, announcements and other sections from more than 10,000 sources.
- International Newsstream This link opens in a new window International, searchable, full text coverage of selected newspapers. (Text only; does not include images, charts.) Date coverage: 1977 - present.
- Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window Full text articles from newspapers and periodicals published by ethnic, minority and native presses in the U.S. Includes both historic publications, starting in 1959, as well as current ones.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window Nexis Uni is a source for newspapers and magazines, trade journals, wire services and transcripts, as well as legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790, and information on U.S. and international companies and executives.
- Readers' Guide / Reader's Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new window Readers' Guide indexes hundreds of general interest and specialized magazines dating from the late19th century to the present with full text of articles for more recent publications. Date coverage: Indexing - 1890 - present; full text - 1994 - present.
- American Periodicals This link opens in a new window This database contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.
