In 2018 the Georgetown University Library received a grant from the Resources Legacy Fund in honor of Artemis G. Kirk, University Librarian Emerita. This grant was specifically intended to facilitate the expansion of library collections in the field of African-American, African, and History of Slavery Studies. Four significant databases have been added to the library’s collections each of which will be of significant use to the student and faculty research and each adds unique material to the library collection. In particular, the vast collections of primary sources will provide direct insight into the life, families, and struggles of African Americans in North America from 1684 to 1965. The NAACP Papers were purchased in cooperation with the Georgetown University Law Center Library.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection
Composed of five chronological Series spanning from 1684 to 1912, the AAS Historical Periodicals Collection is one of the premier digital libraries documenting American life from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction and into the early 20th century. The scope of the collection is vast with over 6,500 full-text titles, featuring over 10 million pages of digitized content representing more than two dozen languages. Subject areas covered range from Religion and Philosophy; to Civil War and Slavery; to Art, Science, and Medicine; to Family and Society, ensuring that researchers from a wide range of disciplines are likely to find immense value in this collection. This collection contains many titles of specific interest to those studying the themes of Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation. These include, Radical Abolitionist, The Non-Slaveholder, Russell’s Magazine, The Liberty Tree: A Monthly Publication Devoted to the Anti-Slavery Cause, or The African Repository.
Complementing the ProQuest History Vault Slavery and the Law Collection, the newly acquired Southern Life and African American History, 1775-1915, Plantations Records, Part I and II document the far-reaching impact of plantations and slavery on both the American South and the nation. Curated from manuscript collections from across the nation, the digitized records in this remarkable collection describe nearly every aspect of plantation life: business operations and day-to-day labor routines, family affairs, roles of women, racial attitudes, relations between masters and slaves, social and cultural life, as well as the fundamental tensions and anxieties that were inseparable from a slave society.
Part 1 consists of manuscripts drawn from a number of collections across the nation. While Part 2 is comprised of manuscript materials sourced from holdings at Duke University and the University of Virginia.
This collection (spanning 1913-1965) documents the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's tireless and systematic assault on segregation and discrimination through the quest for Civil Rights and equal access across numerous fronts in American life: education, voting, employment, housing, and more. Comprised of internal memos, legal briefings, and direct action summaries from national, legal, and branch offices, the papers provide a first-hand view into the crucial issues facing African Americans in the 20th century.
The education files are particularly robust, detailing the Association's assault on segregated education that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, while the Armed Services portion provides an exceptionally rich documentary source on African American military service between 1918 and the early 1950s.