History

Digital collection of primary sources provided by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Scanned and searchable journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, provided by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface. Although the current focus of DLAS is sources associated with North Carolina, there is considerable data contained herein relating to all 15 slave states and Washington, D.C., including detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color.

This collection is an expanded and updated version of the original Dred Scott Case Collection. The collection, was expanded from eighty-five to one hundred and eleven documents, over 400 pages of text. In addition, the collection is now a full-text, searchable resource that represents the full case history of the Dred Scott Case. Please visit the About the Collection page for a complete project history.

This collection consists of 105 library books and manuscripts, totalling approximately 8,700 pages drawn principally from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with a few from the General Collections. The selection was guided in large part by the entries in Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases by Paul Finkelman (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985), which was based on research in the Library collections. The documents comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.

From the website: “The Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trade databases are the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world. The new Voyages website itself is the product of three years of development by a multi-disciplinary team of historians, librarians, curriculum specialists, cartographers, computer programmers, and web designers, in consultation with scholars of the slave trade from universities in Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.”

Anti-Slavery collection (approximately 40,000 pieces). In the late 1890's, the family of William Lloyd Garrison, along with others closely involved in the anti-slavery movement, presented the library with a major gathering of correspondence, documents, and other original material relating to the abolitionist cause from 1832 until after the Civil War.

These records illuminate the origins of the anti-slavery movement as well as the continued Quaker involvement, often behind the scenes, in the leadership and direction of the abolitionist movement from the 1770s to the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, and beyond.

Via Cornell University, this is an extensive collection of pamphlets (from the mid-19th century) devoted to the anti-slavery struggle.

This collection at the University of Chicago contains the business records, legal documents and tax receipts and other records of slaveowner Fielding Lewis that document the management of an antebellum plantation on the James River.

Also at the University of Chicago, this is a digitized collection of papers (largely letters between Fanny Murdock and her mother Sarah Bristol) from a Mississippi family in the period between 1836 and 1866.

Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.

Part of the National Digital Newspaper Program at the Library of Congress, this site has digitized 15 million pages of American newspapers from 1789 to 1963.

Friend of Man is one of the most significant and little studied newspapers documenting early anti-slavery and other reform movements. The periodical is of special significance because with the exception of religion, scholars know little about the resources of social movements in rural areas such as Central New York, where Friend of Man was published. Provided by Cornell University.

A collection of editorials by newspaper editors on the topic of Secession during the period prior to the American Civil War.

These sources at the University of Wisconsin focus mostly on 19th century accounts of Ireland, with a few random other exceptions.

Transcriptions of the records of the U.S. War Department for the period 1784-1800

Records of proceedings, provided by the Library of Congress.

Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.