Research Guides: AAAS 131A: African Americans and Health: Digital Collections of Primary Sources

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Collections related to African American history and health

HistoryMakers Digital Archive This link opens in a new window
The largest African American video oral history archive. Includes interviews with individuals from the medical profession, as well as interviews about public health and medicine.
Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century This link opens in a new window
Includes records of major civil rights organizations and personal papers of leaders and observers of the 20th century Black freedom struggle. Introductory Material from the Microfilm Edition. Includes records of the Associated Negro Press relating to medicine.
NAACP Papers This link opens in a new window
Covers records from the NAACP from 1909-1970. The papers include special reports on a wide range of issues including the Ku Klux Klan, discrimination in public employment, economic equality, the church and civil rights, equal access to education, voting, employment, and housing.

Digital Public Library of America
Digitized materials from libraries, archives and museums around the country.
Slavery & Anti-slavery
Digitized primary sources for the study of the history of slavery. Sources include manuscripts, books, pamphlets, newspapers. You will need a Boston Public Library eCard to access this database.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
This collection brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery.
Documenting the American South
Texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Example source: Oral history interview about improving the poor conditions for African American patients at Palmetto State Hospital

Archives of Sexuality and Gender This link opens in a new window
Digitized primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. Find a wide range of materials, such as: oral histories from the African Women's Life History Project; declassified FBI files detailing surveillance of gays and lesbians in the U.S. from 1950 to 1982; and erotica from the "Private Case" of the British Museum Library.
Our access includes: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Parts I and II; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture; and Community and Identity in North America.

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South
Oral history interviews discussing African-American life in the South, from the 1890s to the 1950s
Digital Projects from the National Library of Medicine
Provides access to many of the National Library of Medicine's historical resources.
Voices from the Days of Slavery
Slave narratives from the Library of Congress. "The almost seven hours of recorded interviews presented here took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine Southern states. Twenty-three interviewees, born between 1823 and the early 1860s, discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings."
Digital Projects from the Wellcome Library
The Wellcome Library has digitized many resources related to the history of medicine, including sources related to African Americans.
Digital Collections from Harvard's Center for the History of Medicine
Includes digital exhibits, documents and images related to the history of health care and medicine.
New York Academy of Medicine's Digital Collections and Exhibitions
Digitized materials from the rare book and historical collections.

Public Health Archives: Public Health in Modern America, 1890-1970 This link opens in a new window
Documents the rise of the twentieth-century public health system in the United States through correspondence, reports, pamphlets, ephemera, and more.

Images

Digital Public Library of America
Digitized materials from libraries, archives and museums around the country.
Images from the History of Medicine
Provides access to images from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s historical collections.
Images of 19th Century African Americans
From the digital collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Africa and the African Diaspora
From the digital collections of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Artstor This link opens in a new window
Image database featuring images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists; the most comprehensive image resource available for educational and scholarly use, with many rare and important collections available nowhere else.