LibGuides: African American History: Books

eBooks

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews Copyright (c) VNU Business Media, Inc.
A reprint of an autobiography first published in 1861 under a pseudonym. It tells the story of a woman born a slave in 1813 and how she struggled all her life to free herself and those she loved--indeed, as an active abolitionist she fought for the freedom of all the slaves.

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This may be the most important story ever written by a slave woman, capturing as it does the gross indignities as well as the subtler social arrangements of the time. An introduction is invaluable in clarifying many incidents and personalities. Jacobs was fortunate in many respects. Her family was unusually stable, and she had a strong, determined grandmother who, as a freed slave, was to encourage, protect and sustain the author. Surviving everything from a jealous wife to betrayals of all sorts, she managed to do a great many things, any one of which could be considered remarkable given her oppressed status. She resisted the vicious sexual advances of a master, hid out for seven years in her grandmother's attic and eventually escaped to the North. She never ceased plotting the release of her children and though employed as a servant/nanny, managed to write, work for the abolitionist cause and be a source of strength to all. After the Civil War, she returned to the South to help those who were suffering. The author writes with passion and insight into the peculiar institution of slavery. Her writing, modern in several respects, prefigures many of the developments in the later literature of the South.
American Slave Narratives
"Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs Divisions of the Library of Congress and includes more than 200 photographs from the Prints and Photographs Division that are now made available to the public for the first time. Born in Slavery was made possible by a major gift from the Citigroup Foundation." Home Page
Experience of Thomas Jones
The experience of Thomas H. Jones, : who was a slave for forty-three years, (1862)

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How to Find Books about African American History

The library contains many monographs and surveys about African American history. To find them, search the library catalog using the suggested subject headings in the next section.

Another way to find circulating books about African American history is to check The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (REF 016.9 Am34 1995). This book lists the best works of history in every field, with brief annotations of each book. Check the subsections on race or ethnicity under "Colonial North America" (1239-1279), "United States, General" (1280-1324), "American Revolution and Early Republic,1754-1815" (1324-1360), "United States, 1815-1877" (1361-1411), "United States, 1877-1920" (1412-1452), and "United States History since 1920" (1453-1503).

If any of the books you need is not owned by the library, then use the links in the boxes below to request it through PASCAL Delivers or Inter-Library Loan. You can also search for books using the Google Books and Google Scholar links to the left.