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Colored Conventions Project

Letters and Papers

Researchers often find important information in the letters and papers of abolitionists. Black Boston activist William Cooper Nell's papers are particularly helpful, as are the Black Abolitionist Papers and the Letters of William Lloyd Garrison.

The Black Abolitionist Papers by C. Peter Ripley and Jeffrey S. Rossbach, eds.
E449 .B624 1985  (5 volumes) 

Miscellaneous American Letters and Papers selected from collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, relating to slavery, abolition, freedmen and free black settlements. 

The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison
E449 .G245 (6 volumes)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott
HQ1413.M68 S45 2002

William Cooper Nell: Nineteenth-Century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist; Selected Writings 1832-1874
E449 .N45 2002

Resources on Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress
The online collection, containing approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1865. 
 

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave

My Bondage and My Freedom
E449 .D738 (copies in Stauffer, Law Library and Special Collections)

Life and times of Frederick Douglass
E449 .D7382

Frederick Douglass : selected Speeches and Writings

African American Women

All Bound Up Together : the Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900
E185.86 .J663 2007

Black Women Abolitionists : a Study in Activism, 1828-1860
E449 .Y44 1992

Black Women in America : an Historical Encyclopedia
E185.86 .B542 1993 (Stauffer Reference)

Black Women in Nineteeth-Century American Life: their Words, their Thoughts, their Feelings
E185.96 .B54

Maria W. Stewart, America's first Black woman Political Writer : Essays and Speeches

Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities by Monroe Alphus Majors  

We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century
E185.86 .W43 1997 

The Work of the Afro-American Woman by Mrs. N. F. Mossell   
 (orig. pub. 1894)   

Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Profile in Black History Canada.

Selected Titles

A Survey of the Negro Convention Movement -1830-1861 by Howard Bell.
Access via the database, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Minutes of the proceedings of the National Negro Conventions, 1830-1864.
E185.5 .B44 1969

To Live an Antislavery Life : Personal Politics and the Antebellum Black Middle Class
E185.18 .B35 2012

Forgotten Readers : Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies

Unwelcome Guests : Canada West's Response to American Fugitive Slaves, 1800-1865
FC3100 .B56 S54 1985

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Find information about African Americans by searching the full text of millions of books in Google Books and the HathiTrust Digital Library. Note the name of the library that provided the book as well as the book's title, author(s), publisher name and location, date, and the page(s) where the information can be found.

If there are no options for printing or downloading, try to take a screenshot of the page that you need and/or check your library catalog to see if your library has a copy of the book.

In some cases, you will find your search terms highlighted in the text but won't be able to view the book. If there are copyright restrictions, the entire book will not be displayed.