American Studies

In an 1883 decision known as the "The Civil Rights Cases" the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and declared the federal government could not prevent discrimination on the basis of race. This ruling paved the way for the codification of Jim Crow laws which would provide a legal framework to reverse the hard-earned gains African- Americans had made during Reconstruction. This collection covers categories such as the growing body of work by African- American writers; the portrayal of African-Americans in art and literature; religion; race; early histories of slavery; the Civil War; Reconstruction; and others .It offers critical for insight into African-American culture and life from the beginning of Jim Crow to World War I and beyond. Capturing voices of, by, for, and about African Americans, this digital resource covers such critically important subjects as the evolution of African-American identity; eyewitness accounts of African-American life throughout the United States; relationships between African Americans and peoples of other nations; race in literature; and official reports on the changing status of African Americans.

Access requires on-campus authentication.

Material from the Newberry Library’s Edward E. Ayer Collection contains early contacts between Europeans and American Indians and the subsequent political, social and cultural effects of those encounters on American Indian life. It covers the period from early western frontier right through to the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century.

The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.

John L. LeFlore (1903–1976) was the most significant figure in the struggle for black equality in Mobile, Alabama, throughout southern Alabama and Mississippi, and along the Florida Gulf Coast. Materials in the collection document LeFlore's prolific work in both public and private life. LeFlore was the first African American appointed to the Housing Board and, with J. Gary Cooper, was the first African American elected to the state legislature from Mobile since Reconstruction. The Non-Partisan Voters League was organized in Mobile, Alabama. The exact date of its origin is unknown but it is believed to be before 1956, the year the attorney general of the state of Alabama and the state court system forced the NAACP to cease all operations in the state. The bulk of the materials date between 1961 and 1975.

This collection of primary resources documents the history, culture, and politics of the 1960s and early 1970's. Included are diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary.

This resource brings together documents and collections from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world covering an extensive time period from 1490. Close attention has been given to the varieties of slavery, the legacy of slavery, the social justice perspective and the continued existence of slavery today.

Full-text of published histories and records of women’s reform organizations throughout the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It includes The History of Woman Suffrage; proceedings of the national conventions of female Anti-Slavery societies in the 1830s; proceedings of women’s rights conventions in the 1850s and 1860s; annual reports of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; and local and national histories of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.