Library open only to current Claremont Colleges students, faculty, and staff: Tuesday, December 6 - Thursday, December 15. Exceptions include those visiting Bookstore, Cafe, and Special Collections Appointments. More info on Blackout Dates for Community Access.
Special Collections is a treasure trove of primary sources covering a wide range of formats and time periods. Visit the Special Collections homepage to search and discover materials. Contact Special Collections for additional guidance.
University of California freely available digitized archive of California History. Includes all types of primary source materials including images. This is an example of a collection that is part of the Online Archive of California.
The Freedom Archives contains over 10,000 hours of audio and video tapes which date from the late-1960s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements.
"American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience."
The Online Archive of California (OAC) provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses.
Primary Sources Databases
Below is a selected list of our primary source databases. For more primary source databases the Claremont Colleges Library subscribes to, go to this list of databases.
Contains reference books, monographs and more than 5,000 primary documents, including manuscripts, speeches, court cases, quotations, advertisements, statistics, and other papers.
Also includes some audio and video contents, as well as full access to the WPA Slave Narrative Collection by the Federal Writer's Project, which documents narratives from formerly enslaved individuals of 17 states.
Why search here? Good for researching the communities of diverse people, histories, and cultures of the African diaspora, with a focus on Brazil, India, UK, France, and the Caribbean.
Includes approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings such as monographs, letters, speeches, interviews, etc. by major figures in Black America, covering 250 years of history.
Includes 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.
Why search here? Explore short stories and folktales from Africa and the African Diaspora, ranging thematically from oral traditions that date back many hundreds of years to contemporary tales of modern life.
Content type: Books, literary magazines, poems, and prose.
Includes complete runs of selected literary magazines such as Kyk-Over-Al and The Beacon.
Why search here? Discover the full-text of plays, playbills, photographs, and ephemera for Black playwrights from North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and African diaspora countries, spanning from the mid-1800s to the present.
Content type: Plays, primary sources, images
Coverage dates: 1860s-present
Most content dates from the mid-twentieth century.
Why search here? Access articles from prominent African American newspapers for a glimpse of Black life in the U.S. during the 19th and early-20th centuries.
Content type: Newspaper articles
Coverage dates: 1827-1919
Includes the following titles: Freedom's Journal, The Colored American, The North Star, The National Era, Provincial Freeman, Frederick Douglass Paper, The Christian Recorder, Freedmen's Record, and The Negro Business League Herald.
Why search here? Explore articles in African American newspapers from across the U.S. to learn more about African American history, culture and daily life in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Content type: Newspaper articles
Coverage dates: 1827-1998
Covers topics from life in the Antebellum South to the long Civil Rights Movement and beyond.
Why search here? Search the major Black newspapers of the United States from the twentieth century.
Content type: Newspaper articles, primary sources
Coverage dates: 1893-2005
Contains: Atlanta Daily World, (1931-2003); Baltimore Afro-American, (1893-1988); Chicago Defender, (1909-1975); Cleveland Call and Post, (1934-1991); Los Angeles Sentinel, (1934-2005); New York Amsterdam News, (1922-1993); Norfolk Journal and Guide, (1916-2003); Philadelphia Tribune, (1912-2001); and Pittsburgh Courier, (1911-2002).
Why search here? Search digitized historical newspapers from around the world.
Content type: Newspaper articles, primary sources
Coverage dates: 1791-2016
Contains: Atlanta Daily World, (1931-2003); Baltimore Afro-American, (1893-1988); Boston Globe (1872-1986); Chicago Defender, (1909-1975); Chinese Newspaper Collection (1832-1953); Cleveland Call and Post, (1934-1991); The Globe & Mail (1844-2014); The Guardian & The Observer (1791-2003); Korea Times (1956-2016); Leftist Newspapers and Periodicals (1845-2015); Los Angeles Sentinel, (1934-2005); Los Angeles Times, (1881-1993); New York Amsterdam News, (1922-1993); New York Times, (1851-2013); Norfolk Journal and Guide, (1916-2003); Philadelphia Tribune, (1912-2001); Pittsburgh Courier, (1911-2002); and the San Francisco Chronicle, (1865-1922). South China Morning Post (1903-1998); Times of India (1838-2008)
Language: English
Locating Other Primary Sources for Africana Studies
Michigan State University hosts this online archive that preserves and makes available the records of activism in the United States to support the struggles of African peoples against colonialism, apartheid, and social
injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s.
From the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive. Local newsfilm and privately produced footage relating mainly - but not exclusively - to the Black Panther Party's Oakland Chapter, from the 1960s and 1970s.
A travel guide series published from 1936 to 1964 by Victor H. Green. It was intended to provide African American motorists and tourists with the information necessary to board, dine, and sight-see comfortably and safely during the era of segregation.
