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Librarian Contacts

Melissa Barton - melissa.barton@yale.edu

Curator of Drama and Prose, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library

Bill Landis - bill.landis@yale.edu

Head of Public Services, Manuscripts and Archives (located in Sterling Memorial Library)

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Primary Source Databases Relevant for this Class

These databases could easily be used to write an entire paper or they could be used in tandem with archival materials. Databases with an asterisk (*) by their name are licensed by the Yale University Library, so you have to use them from a Yale IP address or through a VPN client.

African American publications (licensed from different vendors and likely to overlap in content somewhat):

African American Newspapers: The 19th Century (*)

African American Newspapers (1827-1998) (*)

African American Periodicals (1825-1995) (*)

America’s Historical Newspapers (*)

Contains hundreds of newspapers titles ranging from the early 18th to the early 20th centuries.  One of the most highly used history databases at Yale.

America’s Historical Imprints (*)

Contains tens of thousands of pamphlets ranging from the 17th to the early 20th century

American Founding Era Rotunda (*)

This database contains electronic versions of correspondence and papers of major figures in the Founding era: Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, Jackson.  

Black Abolitionist Papers (*)

A unique set of primary sources from African Americans actively involved in the movement to end slavery in the United States between 1830 and 1865. Over 15,000 items are available for searching.

New-York Historical Society, Manuscript Collections Relating to Slavery

Provides access to diaries, account books, letter books, ships’ logs, indentures, bills of sale, personal papers and records of institutions. Some of the highlights of these collections include the records of the New York Manumission Society and the African Free School, the diaries and correspondence of English abolitionists Granville Sharp and John Clarkson, the papers of the Boston anti-slavery activist Lysander Spooner, the records of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the draft of Charles Sumner’s famous speech The Anti-Slavery Enterprise and an account book kept by the slave trading firm Bolton, Dickens & Co.

Slavery, Abolition, and Social Justice (*) [includes the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Records]

Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive (*)

Includes: part I: Debates over Slavery and Abolition, part II: Slave Trade in the Atlantic World, part III: The Institution of Slavery, and part IV: The Age of Emancipation. Slavery and Anti-Slavery. Materials include collections on the transatlantic slave trade, the global movement for the abolition of slavery, the legal, personal, and economic aspects of the slavery system, and the dynamics of emancipation in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions.

Slavery in America (*)

Over 600 documents in 75,000 pages drawn from the Sabin collection and other sources. Materials document key aspects of the history of slavery in America from its origins in Africa to its abolition, including resources on the slave trade, plantation life, emancipation, pro-slavery and anti-slavery arguments, and religious views on slavery, among other topics. Document types include personal narratives, pamphlets, addresses, political speeches, monographs, sermons, plays, songs, poetic and fictional works published between the 17th and late 19th centuries.

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Finding Secondary Sources

America: History and Life

The essential index for American and Canadian history material.

Historical Abstracts

The essential index for historical material from outside the US and Canada. May be especially relevant if you are looking at views on U.S. history by scholars from other parts of the world.

JSTOR

A great resource for finding secondary sources for your topic, but frequently does not have the most current 5 years of many scholarly journals.

Also a great resource for primary sources published in the 19th century. Use the Narrow By: Date Range feature in JSTOR’s Advanced Search to find materials published in the time period you’re studying. For example, here are results for a search on education AND negroes with a Narrowed By: Date Range of 1830-1860.

Articles+

Searches for articles across all database resources licensed by the Yale University Library. Use the filters on the left-hand side of the results screen to narrow your search results. You may also find materials that will serve as primary sources for your topic by using Articles+.

ProQuest Dissertations

Records for 3 million dissertations, over 1 million available in full text. Bibliographies on dissertations are fairly comprehensive for the topics they cover and a good source of pointers to the secondary literature on a topic.

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Other Useful Guides

Other guides maintained by librarians and archivists at the Yale University Library may be helpful as you conduct your research for this class:

Nineteenth Century America: Lists databases and other open-access websites containing relevant research resources.

British and American Digital Periodicals: A pretty exhaustive annotated listing of all of the licensed resources available to you that contain periodical publications (e.g., newspapers, magazines).

Primary Sources at Yale: A website that provides a comprehensive guide to thinking about what constitutes primary sources in research, and where primary sources are available in collections all over the Yale campus (not just the libraries).

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Using Orbis to Your Advantage

Orbis is the Yale University Library’s online catalog and it can be a powerful tool for finding both primary and secondary sources on your topic, especially using the Advanced Search tab.

Quicksearch is a tool that combines searching across Orbis, Morris (the Yale Law Library’s online catalog), and Articles+ (the library’s licensed article databases). It does not have an Advanced Search feature.

In Orbis:

Search for organizations or people as Author to find all the materials available at Yale that were produced by them. For example, here are the results of searching American Colonization Society as an Author.

Search for organizations or people as Subject Browse to find all materials available at Yale that are about them. For example, here are the results of searching Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery as Subject Browse.

Also, use the Subjects listed in the Orbis record (they’re clickable) for an on-topic item to search for related Orbis records.

On the Advanced Search tab, add a publication date range (using Year:) to your search in order to find materials published during the time period you are studying.For example, here are the results of an Advanced Search of the keywords “free” AND “of color” limited to materials published between the years 1820-1860.

Use truncation in searching: a question mark (?) is used in Orbis to truncate a word on which you are searching. So “slave?” retrieves slave, slaves, slavery, etc.

To find microfilm housed in the Microforms Reading Room in Sterling Memorial Library, use the Advanced Search tab and choose Microform in the Medium: pull-down menu in addition to the keywords you search.

Remember that there will be an astounding number of published materials that can serve as primary sources for your research just sitting in the stacks of Sterling Memorial Library (SML). You can limit your Advanced Search in Orbis to materials physically housed in the SML stacks or at the Library Shelving Facility (LSF) by choosing “Sterling Memorial Library (SML)” in the Location: drop-down menu. Here are several examples brought to the class session in Beinecke:

William Goodell. Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A History of the Great Struggle in Both Hemispheres; With a View of the Slavery Question in the United States. New York: William Goodell, 1853. Call number: Cb75 72b

An Inquiry Into the Conditions and Prospects of the African Race in the United States; and the Means of Bettering Its Fortunes … by An American. Philadelphia: Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839. Call number: Cb81 188.

W.W. Sleigh. Abolitionism Exposed!, Proving that the Principles of Abolitionism are Injurious to the Slaves Themselves, Destructive to this Nation, and Contrary to the Express Commands of God; with Strong Evidence ... Philadelphia: D. Schneck, 1838. Call number: Cb81 174g.

Elihu Embree. Emancipator (Jonesboro, Tennessee), 1820 April-October, reprinted Nashville: B.H. Murphy, 1932. Call number: Cb79 73eb.

In fact, if you want to have a fun experience that you won’t have in many other libraries in the United States, go into the book stacks at Sterling Memorial Library, go to level 7 (not 7M), find the shelves containing call numbers beginning with Cb79 through Cb81, and just enjoy browsing!

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Ulrich B. Phillips Papers (Manuscripts/Archives MS 397)

Online finding aid

Brief overview of collection:  Correspondence, lecture notes, research notes and transcripts of historical source materials of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, an author and history professor, and the papers of several southern families from 1712-1933 that Phillips collected over the course of his career. The collected papers include correspondence, account books, business records, farm and plantation records, diaries, photographs, and other papers which focus primarily on the years 1790-1865, and the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia and the Piedmont region of Georgia.

Collection material used in class session:

Series III, Box 8, folder 119: Diary of Richard M. Venable,  a Virginia schoolteacher who includes several anecdotes of black life and contemplates at length the forces that could divide or maintain the union, 1857-1858.

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Baldwin Family Papers (Manuscripts/Archives MS 55)

Online finding aid

Collection overview:  The papers detail the personal lives and professional careers of several generations and family lines of the Baldwin family. The legal, political, and business activities of family members in Connecticut, New York, and elsewhere are documented. Major topics include: family, women, law, education, Connecticut and New York politics and government, New Haven, Connecticut, and Yale University.  

Collection material used in class session:

Box 21, folder 242: Correspondence of Roger Sherman Baldwin, lawyer who represented the La Amistad captives in their various trials and later served as governor of and U.S. senator from Connecticut, November-December 1839.

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Carrington Family Papers (Manuscripts/Archives MS 130)

Online finding aid

Overview:  Correspondence, pamphlets, printed material, scrapbooks, sermons, and other papers relating to members of the Carrington family. Henry Beebee Carrington (1824-1912) and his grandfather, David Lewis Beebe (1763-1803), are two central figures in the papers. Material relating to David Lewis Beebe, including essays and sermons, documents his religious duties in Connecticut and family concerns in Ohio. Henry Beebee Carrington material includes correspondence, a diary, a letterbook, maps, pamphlets, scrapbooks, and other items documenting his experiences as a student at Yale University, as a lawyer practicing in Ohio, and as a commanding officer for Union forces during the Civil War. Carrington’s role in military campaigns and treaty negotiations with Indians of the American West is also documented. His design of Fort Philip Kearney, the site of a famous massacre, and treaty negotiations with the Flathead Indians of Montana are detailed in pamphlets, scrapbooks and other papers.

Collection materials used in class session:

Box 5, Folder 67: Diary kept by Henry Beebee Carrington while a student at Yale College, 1845-1847.

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Alexander Bryan Johnson Papers (Manuscripts/Archives MS 741)

Online finding aid

Collection overview:  Papers consist almost entirely of letters between Alexander Johnson and members of his family, with a small number relating to his business affairs and publications. Also included is a genealogical chart showing the ancestry of his first wife, Abigail Louisa Adams, granddaughter of President John Adams.  Johnson’s oldest son, Alexander Smith Johnson, attended Yale and became a lawyer. He later served on the New York Court of Appeals, including two years as chief justice, and was a commissioner for the settlement of claims of the Hudson’s Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Companies.

Collection material used in class session:

Box 1, Folder 1:  Bound letter book labeled “Domestic Relics” containing family correspondence among members of the Alexander Bryan Johnson family, 1823-1835. Flagged correspondence are letters written to his parents by Alexander Smith Johnson while a student at Yale College.

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Benjamin Lincoln Collection (Medical Historical Library MS Coll 33)

Online finding aid

Collection overview:  Benjamin Lincoln (1802-1835), physician, anatomist, and medical educator, taught anatomy and dissection at the University of Vermont. Papers include family correspondence, two journals of travel to New Orleans and to New Brunswick, circulars, publications in the Burlington Sentinel , ephemera, and photographs, letters, pamphlets, and ephmera by or related to members of the Lincoln family.

Collection material used in class session:

Box 1, folder 10: “Journal of a voyage from Boston to New Orleans,” 10 November 1825-26 March 1826. Described the voyage by ship to Louisiana and travel up the Mississippi to New Orleans. Lincoln describes plantations and slavery; the physical, economic, and social conditions; and medicine and public health in New Orleans.

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Woolsey Family Papers (Manuscripts/Archives MS 562)

Online finding aid

Collection overview:  Papers document three generations of the Woolsey family, including William Walton Woolsey (1766-1839), land owner and merchant in New York City; his son, Theodore Dwight Woolsey(1801-1889), Greek scholar, political theorist and president of Yale College; and grandson Theodore Salisbury Woolsey (1852-1929), professor of international law at Yale Law School. The papers of William Walton Woolsey and his brother and partner George Muirson Woolsey (1772-1851) contain extensive business correspondence, ledgers, legal papers, documents relating to land sales in New York and Ohio, as well as family and personal letters. Since he was engaged in the importation of sugar, cotton and hardware, some of his business correspondence is political with discussions of the Jay Treaty of 1794, the problems of piracy, American neutrality in the 1790s and the general politics of the period.

Collection material used in class session:

Series VIII, Box 69, folder 26: Mortgage for a loan from the Woolseys to New Orleans agent George Phillips for $23,000 on security of 41 slaves, 1807 May 11, in French. Other 1807 letters include ones from George Woolsey to Gilbert Totten, another New Orleans agent working for the Woolseys, documenting the unfolding saga of Woolsey’s–a New York merchant, abolitionist, and leader of the New York Manumission Society–fears that his agent in New Orleans, Phillips, has gotten in over his head in speculation and that the 41 slaves that Phillips used to secure a loan from Woolsey might be transferred to Woolsey as a form of debt settlement, a situation that ultimately comes to pass.

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Celinda Hines diary (Beinecke, WA MSS 424)

Hines, with her parents and extended family, emigrated to Oregon in 1853. She later taught at Mrs. Kingley's Academy in Portland, attended singing school, and married one of the teachers, H. R. Shipley. The diary describes the Hines family's 1853 trip from New York to Oregon.

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Rowland Willard-Elizabeth S. Willard Papers (Beinecke, WA MSS S-2512)

Dr. Rowland Willard was born at Fort Ann, New York, in 1794, and died in Haddonfield, New Jersey, in 1884. He traveled the Ohio River system during his youth, and studied as a carpenter, musician, Freemason and eventually, as a medical student, in St. Charles, Missouri from 1817 to 1825. Leaving St. Charles in 1825, he traveled to Taos along the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. From Taos, he travelled south, administering medical advice in various Indian pueblos and establishing a successful medical practice in Chihuahua. Three years later, he returned to the United States via Matamoras and New Orleans. Willard attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia from 1828 until 1829 when he moved to Cincinnati to speculate on land and establish a medical practice which grew to include a wholesale drugstore. In 1829 Timothy Flint published a brief account of Willard's travels in The Western Monthly Review. The account was later reprinted as an appendix to James Ohio Pattie's Personal Narrative in 1831. Willard traveled down the Mississippi and through Alabama in 1830. In 1832, Willard married wife Elizabeth (b. 1814) in Cincinnati. After a conversion to the Baptist faith a year later, the couple moved to Covington, Kentucky, where Dr. Willard helped establish the Western Theological Institute, and then to Oswego, Indiana, where Willard again speculated on land. Three sons survived childhood: Lyman W., Nelson L., and Rowland. The Willards retired to Haddonfield, New Jersey.

The collection consists of writings, correspondence, photographs, and other papers documenting the lives of Dr. Rowland Willard and his wife Elizabeth S. Willard. Dr. Willard's diaries and autobiography chronicle in particular his travels through New Mexico in 1825.

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John Brown Family Letters (Beinecke, WA MSS S-1671 B8131)

Five of abolitionist John Brown's sons moved to Kansas in 1855. The unmarried sons, Owen, Salmon, and Frederick went first and were followed by John Jr. and Jason and their families later that spring. The Browns staked claims near Pottawatomie and were joined by their father and other family members in October. John Jr. became active in Free-State politics, served as a delegate to the Topeka Legislature, and was elected captain of the newly formed Pottawatomie Rifle Company. In May 1865 John Jr. and Jason set off with the Pottawatomie Rifles to defend Lawrence but were turned back. In the wake of the Pottawatomie Massacre, Jason and John Brown, Jr. were arrested and imprisoned. Frederick Brown was shot and killed shortly before the burning of Osawatomie in August 1865. The Browns left Kansas that fall.

Four letters. In a letter of June 12, 1855 Wealthy writes from Brownsville to her sister-in-law Ruth Thompson. She tells of the trip from Ohio to Kansas and of the cholera outbreak onboard the steamer "New Lucy". She comments on the other passengers, who were mainly slaveholders and their wives. Wealthy goes on to describe their claims, extols the virtues of the Kansas climate and countryside, and urges Ruth and Henry Thompson to join them. In a letter from Osawatomie dated February 10, 1856, Frederick Brown writes of the events of January 15th that culminated in the murder of Mr. E. P. Brown [R. P. Brown?] by a group of proslavery men.

In the first of two letters to family and friends, Jason Brown writes from Osawatomie on June 28, 1856. He tells of answering the call to defend the city of Lawrence and of receiving word of the taking of Lawrence and of the murder of five proslavery men on Pottawatomie Creek. He describes at length his and John Jr.'s imprisonment and their forced march to Lecompton and then Tecumseh. He briefly describes the skirmish at Hickory Point in which Salmon Brown and Henry Thompson were wounded. In Jason's letter of August 13, 1856 he tells of his attempts to protect the claims from looting and burning and reports that Missourians are said to be gathering to attack Osawatomie.

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Adella Fowler Larkin Correspondence with Myra Fowler McFarland (Beinecke, GEN MSS 921, Box 2)

Adella Fowler Larkin, known to her family as Della, was born in Tolland Center, Massachusetts, on July 6, 1850, the daughter of Perez M. Fowler (1806-1904) and his first wife Lois Miller Fowler (1818-1855). She attended the Hudson River Institute in Claverack, New York, in the mid-1860s, and settled in Winsted, Connecticut, after marrying James Edwin Larkin (1844-1936) in 1871. She died in Winsted on June 22, 1917. Myra Fowler McFarland was born in New York on February 16, 1840, the daughter of Ann Twining Fowler (1810-1842) and Pliny S. Mills; her birth name was Almira, and after her mother's death she was adopted by her maternal uncle Perez M. Fowler. As Myra Fowler, she worked as a "Gideonite" with the American Missionary Association in the Port Royal Experiment from 1862 to 1865, when she taught freed former slaves who were managing the affairs of abandoned plantations on the South Carolina Sea Islands; she also taught in Augusta, Georgia, during 1866-1867. In 1878 she married the Reverend William D. McFarland (1851-1932) moving with him to Baltimore in 1884. Also through the American Missionary Association she taught at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, from the mid-1880s to the early 1890s, and later did social service work in Illinois. Myra McFarland died in Granby, Connecticut, on August 1, 1925.

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Frederic W. Howe Papers (Beinecke, WA MSS S-2873)

The collection comprises Howe's outgoing and incoming correspondence, third-party correspondence, and six manuscript writings pertaining to slavery and ethics. The letters include autograph letters, signed, as well as copies prepared by amanuenses, and are to and from family members, newspaper editors, and others. The letters address Howe's religious beliefs, opposition to the institution of slavery, support of the temperance movement, the annexation of Texas, and other political matters. One letter to a "Mr. Lewis" lists the monetary contributions Howe gathered from North Danvers residents for the American Missionary Association, and the letter includes Howe's thoughts on slavery, the work of the Association, and missions to the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians. The outgoing correspondence includes letters to the editors of the Danvers Courier, the Emancipator, the Congregationalist, the Essex County Freeman, and other unidentified publications. Frequent correspondents include Daniel P. King and Robert S. Daniels. The third-party correspondence contains letters to Catherine Howe regarding social matters, education, and religion. The writings comprise treatises on slavery and political matters and include a autograph manuscript draft of "A Report of the Committy of the General Association of Massachusetts in refference to Publishing Something on Slavery, July 1855," as well as a copy of remarks Howe made at a North Danvers public meeting in 1848.

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Charles Peter Gizzard diary (Beinecke, WA MSS S-1813)

Diary describing a trip taken by Charles Peter Gizzard, a New York City businessman, and his wife, Martha Gizzard, to visit Martha's brother, Major Feltus, on his plantations near Woodville, Mississippi. The Gizzards left New York City by train, travelling through New York and Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky, where they boarded the steamboat Robert J. Ward. After spending several weeks in Woodville, they went to New Orleans and Mobile; continued to Montgomery, Alabama, on the steamboat Jenny Beale; and returned to New York by train. Gizzard describes in detail his travel experiences, including steamboat travel on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Alabama Rivers, his views on plantation life and slavery, and other impressions of the South. Tipped in are a printed map with itinerary indicated in manuscript; two printed broadsides advertising the steamboats Robert J. Ward and Jenny Beale; and three printed menus, with manuscript annotations, used by the Gizzards on the Robert J. Ward and at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans.