Patrick Rael
Associate Professor | Department of History | Bowdoin College
9900 College Station | Brunswick, ME 04011-8499

email prael@bowdoin.edu | http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/
vox 207.725.3775 | fax 207.725.3929
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SOURCES FOR CONDUCTING HISTORICAL RESEARCH AT BOWDOIN:
AFRICAN AMERICANS, AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
 
Patrick Rael
Assistant Professor of History

Bowdoin College

This list represents a non-comprehensive guide to some important historical collections and resources at Bowdoin. It is intended as a starting point for researchers. When available, source reports completed by student researchers have been included. I have not taken pains to give complete citations, provide call numbers, or otherwise let you know exactly where things are. Finding sources is, after all, a key element in doing historical research. For further help, you may consult the excellent reference librarians at the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library.
 
Contents:
Reference Resources to Consult
Student-made research aids
Large Collections Available on Campus
Bowdoin's Special Collections
Small Published Collections
Periodicals
Internet
Selected Primary Sources by Subject
Important Selected Secondary Sources
Going Off-Campus

 
Reference Resources to Consult:
The Bowdoin on-line catalog
America: History and Life
Humanities Index
Expanded Academic Index
CARL Uncover
Arts and Humanities Search
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature
Antislavery Materials at Bowdoin College: a Finding Aid 
The Nineteenth Century: Index to a Microfiche Library of Historical Sources in English for the Study of the Period 1801-1900 (Main Library, CD-ROM area)
CIS Congressional Masterfile
CIS Index to U.S. Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1909
Bowdoin Library Course Guide for History 336:  Research in Nineteenth-Century U.S. History
Bowdoin Library Course Guide for History 236:  History of African Americans, to 1865
 

Student-made research aids:
Scott Logan, Newspapers Found in CBB Library On-line Catalogs (hard copy at library and web version)
Scott Logan, Illustrations of African Americans, the Civil War, and Reconstruction from Nineteenth-Century Magazines at Bowdoin (hard copy at library and web version)
Lindsay Tethal and LaVonne Simmons, Database of Images of African Americans from Harper's Weekly (hard copy at library)
Drew Sigfriedsen and Sarah Grossman, Graduates of Bowdoin Who Served in the Union and Confederacy (hard copy at library and web version)
Mirian Curtis, Andrew Dulac, Andrew Kenney, Tim Ryan, The 5th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment: Database from Compiled Military Service Records (check with Professor Rael for the codebook)


Large Collections Available on Campus:
Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 16 Vols (1976-)
Congressional Record
The Serial Set (Documents of Congress) [Government Documents - use Cis Masterfile Index]
American Archives (Washington, 1837-53)
The American Review of History and Politics, and General Repository of Literature and State Papers (Philadelphia, Printed for Farrand and Nicholas)
A Documentary History of American Industrial Society (source report)

Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America
The American Slave: a Composite Autobiography, George P. Rawick, Ed., 19 Vols. (1971-72). (source report).
Runaway Slave Advertisements, Lathan A. Windley, Comp., 4 Vols. (1983).
Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the Civil War
Freedom: a Documentary History of Emancipation, Ira Berlin, et Al., Eds.
Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro (1926-37)
Records of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry (microform)

The Liberator (1831-1865) [microform] (source report)
Garrison's Letters
Anti-slavery Tracts
Anti-black Thought, 1863-1925
Black Abolitionist Papers (Microfilm) [Names Index Available] (source report)
 
The Civil War: a Newspaper Perspective (Cd-rom)
The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (1880-1901)
Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy
 
The Klan Hearings. (42nd Congress, 2d Session, House Reports, Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States. 13 Vols. 1872.)
United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Selected Series of Records Issued by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. (source report)

Booker T. Washington Papers, Louis Harlan, Ed.
The Black Worker: a Documentary History from Colonial Times to the Present (source report)
 
 
Bowdoin's Special Collections:
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Resources
African American History Resources
John Brown Russwurm Collection
Civil War Resources
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Collection
Oliver Otis Howard Papers
Political History Resources
William Pitt Fessenden Collection
Medical School of Maine (source report)


Small Published Collections
: Most of these are available in the stacks of H-L library
Documents of American History
Speeches and Documents in American History
The Transformation of American Society, 1870-1890

The American Citizen's Sure Guide (Kennebunk, [District of Maine]: Printed for Charles Peirce of Portsmouth, N.H., by S. Sewall, 1804)
A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind: Congressional State Papers, 1774-1776 (Washington: Library of Congress, 1975)
Documents Relative to the Bank Controversy

A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States
Black and White in America: A Documentary History
Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830-1864
Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 3 vols.
Freedom's Journal, 1827-29
Blacks in the military: essential documents
Negro Orators and Their Orations (1969)
Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analyses
Afro-American Religious History: A Documentary Witness
Africans Abroad: A Documentary History of the Black Diaspora
Racial Thought in America
Slave Testimony
The Black Abolitionist Papers, 5 vols.
 
The Negro's Civil War
Lincoln on Black and White: A Documentary History
Years of Turmoil: Civil War and Reconstruction
Tragic Years, 1860-1865
The Reconstruction: A Documentary History of the South after the War
Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, etc.
 
Early American Women: A Documentary History
Women's Rights in the United States (1994)
Roots of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women
 
The Shaping of American Diplomacy: Readings and Documents in American Foreign Relations, 1750-1955
The Record of American Diplomacy: Documents and Readings in the History of American Foreign Relations
The Imperialism Reader: Documents and Readings on Modern Expansionism
 
The Jews of the United States, 1790-1840
A Documentary History of Religion in America
 

Periodicals
Freedom's Journal
The Anglo-African Magazine
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Monthly
Leslie's Illustrated
North American Review
New York Times
(Consult also Scott Logan's comprehensive list of newspapers available at CBB)
 
 
Internet
American Memory (Library of Congress)
National Archives Information Locator (NAIL)
Valley of the Shadow
Making of America
Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample (Census statistics)
Electronic Texts Center, at the University of Virginia
Documenting the American South, at the University of North Carolina
American Social History Project
Historical Demographic, Economic and Social Data of the US (Harvard)
My bookmarks
 
 
Selected primary sources by subject

Exploration, Settlement, and Colonial Slavery
Lathen Windley. Runaway Slave Advertisements. Westport, CN, 1983.
Billy G. Smith and Richard Wojtowicz, comps. Blacks Who Stole Themselves: Advertistements for Runaways in the Pennsylvania Gazette. Philadelphia, 1989.
John William Blake, ed. Europeans in West Africa. London, 1942.
Richard Hakluyt. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation. Reprint ed., Glasgow, 1903-1905.
Richard Hakluyt. The Tudor Venturers. John Hampden, ed. London, 1970.
Philip D. Curtin, ed. Africa Remembered. Madison, 1967.
 
Slavery from Slave Sources
Henry L. Swint, ed. Dear Ones at Home. Nashville, 1966.
William F. Allen, comp. Slave Songs of the United States. New York, 1867.
Herbert Aptheker, ed. Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion. New York, 1966.
Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Reprint ed., New York, 1968.
Robert S. Starobin, comp. Blacks in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves. New York, 1974.
James Mellon, ed. Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. New York, 1988.
Anthony Appiah, ed. Early African-American Classics. New York, 1990.
Harriet A. Jacobs. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Boston, 1861.
Norman R. Yetman, comp. Life Under the "Peculiar Institution": Selections from the Slave Narrative Collection. Huntington, NY, 1960.
Lunsford Lane. Narrative of Lunsford Lane. Boston, 1842. Gilbert Osofsky, ed. Puttin' on Ole Massa. New York, 1969. Six Women's Slave Narratives. New York, 1988.
John Blassingame, ed. Slave Testimony. New York, 1977.
Moncure D. Conway, ed. Testimonies Concerning Slavery. Reprint ed., New York, 1969.
Charles Harold Nichols, comp. Black Men in Chains: Narratives by Escaped Slaves. New York, 1972.
Arthur P. Davis, et al, eds. Selected African American Writing from 1760 to 1910. New York, 1995.
 
Slave Masters and the Plantation Regime
J.H. Easterby, ed. The South Carolina Rice Plantation. Chicago, 1945.
Mary Boykin Chesnut. A Diary From Dixie. New York, 1905. Michael Mullin, ed. American Negro Slavery: A Documentary History. New York, 1976.
Michael Johnson and James Roark, eds. No Chariot Let Down. New York, 1984.
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household
Children of Pride
Tombee
 
Black Activism and Antislavery
Philip S. Foner and George E. Walker, eds. Proceedings of the Black State Conventions, 1840-1865. Philadelphia, 1979-80.
C. Peter Ripley, at al, eds. The Black Abolitionist Papers. Chapel Hill, 1985-1992. (Books, not microform.)
Frederick Douglass. The Frederick Douglass Papers. John Blassingame, et al, eds. New Haven, 1979-1992.
George E. Carter and C. Peter Ripley, eds. Black Abolitionist Papers. Sanford, NC, 1981. Microform collection (not books). (source report)
Freedom's Journal (New York, NY), 1827-1829. Newspaper.
The Anglo-African Magazine (New York, NY), 1859-1860. Reprint ed., New York, 1968. 
 
The Argument over Slavery Before the Civil War
The Liberator (Boston, MA) 1831-1865. Newspaper. (source report)
George Fitzhugh. Cannibals All. C. Vann Woodward, ed. Reprint ed., Cambridge, 1960.
William Lloyd Garrison. Thoughts on African Colonization. Reprint ed., New York, 1969.
John L. Thomas, ed. Slavery Attacked. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1965.
Eric L. McKitrick, ed. Slavery Defended. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1963.
 
The Civil War and Reconstruction
Forten, Charlotte. Journal. Ray Allen Billington, ed. New York, 1953.
Susie King Taylor. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp. Reprint ed., New York, 1968.
Elizabeth Hyde Botume. First Days Amongst the Contrabands. Reprint ed., New York, 1968.
A.M. French. Slavery in South Carolina and the Ex-Slaves. New York, 1862.
Ira Berlin, et al, eds. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation. Cambridge, 1982-.
Ira Berlin, at al, eds. "Family and Freedom: Black Families in the American Civil War." History Today 37 (1987): 8-15.
James McPherson, ed. The Negro's Civil War. New York, 1965. 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment
On the Altar of Freedom
 
African-American Women
Dorothy Sterling. We Are Your Sisters. New York, 1984.
Phillis Wheathley. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Julian D. Mason, Jr. ed. Chapel Hill, 1989.
Wheatley, Phillis. Works. John Shields, ed. New York, 1988. William L. Andrews, ed. Sisters of the Spirit. Bloomington, IN, 1986.
Susan Houchins, ed. Spiritual Narratives. New York, 1988. 
 
 
Important Selected Secondary Sources
Dudley Cornish, The Sable Arm
Joseph Glathaar, Forged in Battle
Jim Horton and Lois Horton, In Hope of Liberty
Leon Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860
James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Era of the Civil War
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution
Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm so Long: The Aftermath of Slavery
Leon Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow
Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-America Folks Thought from Slaver to Freedom
"We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible": A Reader in Black Women's History
Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in US Women's History
Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South
Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present

Paul Finkelman, ed., Articles on American Slavery [an excellent multi-volume collection of reprinted journal articles]
Darlene Clark Hine, ed., Black Women in American History [a similar multi-volume collection of reprinted articles on African-American women]
 
 
Going Off-Campus: Mid-coast Maine is a treasure-trove of historical information. Here are some key starting places.

List of Historical Archives in Maine
Pejepscot Historical Society Home Page
The Center for Maine History
Maine Historical Society (Portland)
Bath Maritime Museum

Curtis Memorial Library Home Page