Manuscripts

Manuscripts, Prints and Photographs, Oral History, and Music

With holdings totaling more than 18,000 linear feet, the Manuscript Division provides extensive documentation of African American life and history. Currently more than 250 collections are available for research. These collections include the correspondence, photographs, diaries, scrapbooks, writings and memorabilia of such notables as Alain Locke, E. Franklin Frazier, Frederick Douglass, Mary Church Terrell, Anna J. Cooper, Angelina Grimke, Lois Mailou Jones, Dr. Benjamin Mays and Amiri Baraka. 

 

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Manuscript Online Collection Highlights

Anna J. Cooper Collection

This project was completed with funding and support from Dr. Shirley Moody-Turner in conjunction with the Anna Julia Cooper Society; a Digital Humanities Grant from the Center for Humanities and Information at Penn State University; and Adrena Ifill and DoubleBack Productions.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary Collection

Anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher, lawyer and first black woman publisher in North America.

Omnium Gatherum Collection

A compendium of materials written by John Brown, Marcus Garvey, Francis Grimke, W. E. B. Du Bois, Rev. John Mifflin Brown, Rev. William Henry Scott, Langston Hughes and others.

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