DIGITAL RESOURCES
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University
Directed by David W. Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University and winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Abraham Lincoln Prize, the Gilder Lehrman Center is dedicated to the investigation and dissemination of knowledge concerning all aspects of slavery, especially the chattel slave system and its destruction. The Center seeks to foster an improved understanding of the role of slavery, slave resistance, and abolition in the founding of the modern world by promoting interaction and exchange between scholars, teachers, and public historians through publications, educational outreach, and other programs and events. Part of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, the Center offers fellowships to established and junior scholars in any area related to the study of slavery and antislavery. The Center was founded in 1998 through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the generosity of Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/institute/slavery.html
Stewardship of the James Dexter Site: The Context for Decision Making on the Excavation of an Important Archeological Site
James Dexter, a free African American, lived in a small house that fronted on North Fifth Street approximately midway between Arch and Race Streets in the years from about 1790 until 1798. This site today lies within the boundaries of Independence National Historical Park on the third and most northerly block of Independence Mall where the National Constitution Center is located, a block that will be referred to in this document as Block 3. Block 3 is bounded on the north by Race Street, on the south by Arch Street, and is bounded on the east and west by North Fifth and North Sixth Streets, respectively.
The current effort to redevelop Independence Mall calls for the construction of the Independence Mall Transportation Center, a bus drop-off area, over the James Dexter site and adjacent historic lots.
http://www.nps.gov/inde/archeology/dexter2.htm
The Transformation of American Abolitionism
Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic, by Richard S. Newman
Description: Most accounts date the birth of American abolitionism to 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing his radical antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. In fact, however, the abolition movement had been born with the American Republic. In the decades following the Revolution, abolitionists worked steadily to eliminate slavery and racial injustice, and their tactics and strategies constantly evolved. Tracing the development of the abolitionist movement from the 1770s to the 1830s, Richard Newman focuses particularly on its transformation from a conservative lobbying effort into a fiery grassroots reform cause.
What began in late-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania as an elite movement espousing gradual legal reform began to change in the 1820s as black activists, female reformers, and nonelite whites pushed their way into the antislavery movement. Located primarily in Massachusetts, these new reformers demanded immediate emancipation, and they revolutionized abolitionist strategies and tactics--lecturing extensively, publishing gripping accounts of life in bondage, and organizing on a grassroots level. Their attitudes and actions made the abolition movement the radical cause we view it as today.
http://www.uncpress.unc.edu/default.htm Use Keywords "Richard Newman"
The Harvard Guide to African-American History
This landmark guide covers research into every aspect of African-American life and work, offering a compendium of information and interpretation about almost 400 years of African-Americans' experiences as an ethnic group and as Americans.
The first part of the Guide contains 12 essays on historical research aids, from traditional archival and reference materials to the Internet. The second and largest part presents comprehensive and chronological bibliographies, prepared by John Thornton, Peter H. Wood, Gary B. Nash, Stephanie Shaw, Richard J. M. Blackett, Eric Foner, Leon F. Litwack, Joe W. Trotter, Jeffrey Conrad Stewart, Nancy L. Grant, Darlene Clark Hine, Clayborne Carson, John H. Bracey, Adam Biggs, and Corey Walker. The third part contains listings of resources on the special subjects of women, prepared by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham; geographical areas; and autobiography and biography, prepared by Randall K. Burkett, Leon F. Litwack, and Richard Newman. A companion CD-ROM packaged with the book makes more than 15,000 bibliography entries available for computer searching.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/HIGHAR.html
Pamphlets of Protest
An Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790-1860
Philip Lapansky, Richard Newman, Patrick Rael
The editors have provided a distinct service in assembling [the Pamphlets] and suggesting ways to explore their meanings..This useful collection may inspire a new generation... Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 21 No. 3
Finding 'freedom in print' when it could be found in few places, African American pamphleteers chronicled America in a way largely forgotten. through the twenty-five pamphlets reprinted here and an excelent introduction by the editors, Pamphlets of Protestexposes a wold too rarely seen. Ideal for students, scholars, and all those seeking a broader vision of 'freedon' in America|oNorrece T. Jones, Jr., author of,i.Slavery and Antislavery: Race and Freedom Struggles in the Making of America
This is a first-rate anthology of the pivitoal yet neglected tradition of early balck pamphlets. It provides both an illuminating cross-section of the documents themselves and a highly readable as well as insightful history of the black pamphlet tradition. An absolutely superb and engaging volume |o Waldo Martin, Professor of History, University of California Berkeley
This brillantly edited collection will be of invaluable assistance to students of Amreican social and intellectual history at every level. The editors have performed a valuable service by making these documents available in this convenient volume, while the introduction is a model of creativity, imagination, and intellecutal rigot|oWilson J. Moses, Professor of History and Fellow in the Humanities, Pennsylvania State University
Spanning from the American Revolution through the Civil Wa, this volume brings together for the first time representative writings of the nation's most powerful and (too often)_most under-appreciated critics of slavery and white suppremacy. the editors supply such clear historical contexts for each of the documents, amd for the collection as a whole, that exerpts no less than beginners will find their encounters with this work to be truly illuminating. For students of African American history, and literature, PAMPHLETS OF PROTEST is simply is simply indispensable|oJames Brewer Stewart, James Wallace Professor of History, Macalester College
All in all, this collection is a valuable sourcebook for anyone interested in the leadership people of color provided in the struggle for their own freedom
The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race , by John Stauffer
2002 Frederick Douglass Prize for the Best Book on Slavery sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University
2003 Avery O. Craven Award sponsored by the Organization of American Historians
At a time when slavery was spreading and the country was steeped in racism, two white men and two black men overcame social barriers and mistrust to form a unique alliance that sought nothing less than the end of all evil. Drawing on the largest extant bi-racial correspondence in the Civil War era, John Stauffer braids together these men's struggles to reconcile ideals of justice with the reality of slavery and oppression. Who could imagine that Gerrit Smith, one of the richest men in the country, would give away his wealth to the poor and ally himself with Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave? And why would James McCune Smith, the most educated black man in the country, link arms with John Brown, a bankrupt entrepreneur, along with the others? Distinguished by their interracial bonds, they shared a millennialist vision of a new world where everyone was free and equal.
As the nation headed toward armed conflict, these men waged their own war by establishing model interracial communities, forming a new political party, and embracing violence. Their revolutionary ethos bridged the divide between the sacred and the profane, black and white, masculine and feminine, and civilization and savagery that had long girded western culture. In so doing, it embraced a malleable and "black-hearted" self that was capable of violent revolt against a slaveholding nation, in order to usher in a kingdom of God on earth. In tracing the rise and fall of their prophetic vision and alliance, Stauffer reveals how radical reform helped propel the nation toward war even as it strove to vanquish slavery and preserve the peace.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/STABLA.html
My Bondage My Freedom,
by Frederick Douglass, Introduction by John Stauffer
"My Bondage and My Freedom," writes John Stauffer in his Foreword, "[is] a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery, race, and freedom, and on the power of faith and literacy, as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War." As his narrative unfolds, Frederick Douglass--abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement--transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer, leaving behind a legacy of social, intellectual, and political thought. Set from the text of the 1855 first edition, this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes Douglass's original Appendix, composed of excerpts from the author's speeches as well as a letter he wrote to his former master.
http://www.frontlist.com/detail/0812970314
Library Company of Philadelphia Digital Resources Related to African American History
WOLFPAC Online Catalog
Local Subject Headings Related to African American History:
http://www.librarycompany.org/WolfPAC/onlinecatalog-AfroAm.htm
Digital Images Related to African American History (use keyword "Fels")
http://lcp-agent.auto-graphics.com/agent/login.asp?cid=lcp&lid=lcp&mode=g
Online Store - Afro-Americana Publications
BOOKS:
http://www.librarycompany.org/store/Books/AfroAm.htm
EXHIBITION CATALOGS: http://www.librarycompany.org/store/Catalogs/AfroAm.htm
Online Exhibitions:
The Liberation of Jane Johnson
http://www.librarycompany.org/JaneJohnson/
The Amy Cassey Album
http://www.librarycompany.org/Cassey/index.htm
The Genesis of Republicanism: The Birth and Growth of the Grand Old Party, 1854-1872
http://www.librarycompany.org/Republican/exhibition/ExhibitionIntro.htm
Other LCP Resources:
Electronic subscriptions and resources - Books & Periodicals
http://www.librarycompany.org/EResources.htm
Other useful research sites on a variety of subjects recommended by the LCP staff
http://www.librarycompany.org/EResources.htm