Discovery Search Box
Terms to add to a library search
Search the Library Discovery System and WorldCat and Google for letters, diaries, speeches, and personal narratives. Include the keywords or phrases below in your search.
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Examples:
- Civil War and personal narratives
- Women pioneers and diaries
- Witchcraft and sources
African Americans in the American Revolution
Black Men in Higher Education, July 3 at 9:19 pm. Facebook Post.
Did you know that historians estimate that between 5, 000 and 8,000 African descended people participated in the Revolution on the Patriot side fighting with the Continental Army, and that upward of 20,000 fought for Great Britain? In the American Revolution or the War for Independence, gaining freedom was the strongest motive for enslaved Black people who joined the Patriot or British armies. More enslaved Africans fought for the British because they were promised freedom in return for military service. As a result of the American revolution , a surprising number of enslaved Blacks were manumitted, while thousands of others freed themselves by running away. In Georgia alone, 5,000 enslaved Africans, a third of the colony's prewar total, escaped.
Sample Searches
Example: Andrew Jackson and papers
Example: African Americans soldiers and diaries
Primary sources in books
Elizabeth I by Call Number: DA350 .A25 2000 (2nd Floor Circulation Collection)ISBN: 0226504654Publication Date: 2002This long-awaited and masterfully edited volume contains nearly all of the writings of Queen Elizabeth I: the clumsy letters of childhood, the early speeches of a fledgling queen, and the prayers and poetry of the monarch's later years. The first collection of its kind, Elizabeth I reveals brilliance on two counts: that of the Queen, a dazzling writer and a leading intellect of the English Renaissance, and that of the editors, whose copious annotations make the book not only essential to scholars but accessible to general readers as well.
The Vietnam War by Call Number: DS 557.7 .Y677 2002 (2nd floor Circulation Collection)ISBN: 0195166353Publication Date: 2003The book begins in the 19th century when Vietnam became a French colony, and traces the insidious route by which the United States became involved in a war on the other side of the world.
Milestone Documents of American Leaders, Revised Edition by Call Number: EbookISBN: 1682171655Publication Date: 2017
Milestone Documents in African American History by Call Number: EbooksISBN: 1682175790Publication Date: 2017
Representative American Speeches 1939 - present by Call Number: PS 668 .B3 (2nd floor Circulation Collection)ISBN: 0824210832Publication Date: 1939 - present
In Our Own Words by Call Number: PS 661 .I53 1999 (2nd floor Circulation Collection)ISBN: 1568362919Publication Date: 1999This collection of more than 150 speeches aims to capture the essence of American oration, presented in chronological order from 1900 across a range of themes and experience.
Life, Death, and Growing up on the Western Front by Call Number: D 546 .F54 2013 (Circulation 2nd floor)ISBN: 0300205384Publication Date: 2016A powerful account of life and loss in the Great War, as told by British soldiers in their letters home
The Booker T. Washington Papers by Call Number: E185.97 .W274 (Circulation 2nd floor)ISBN: 0252002423Publication Date: 1972-The memoirs and accounts of the Black educator are presented with letters, speeches, personal documents, and other writings reflecting his life and career.
Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790 by Call Number: E 207.L2 A4 1977 (Circulation 1st floor)ISBN: 0801410312Publication Date: 1977-An indefatigable letter writer, the Marquis de Lafayette carried on a correspondence with an extraordinary range of people involved with the fate of revolutionary America.
- War of the Rebellion Official Records of the Union and Confederate ArmiesCall Number: University ArchivesISBN: 0918678072The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion, commonly known as the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies or Official Records (OR or ORs), is the most extensive collection of American Civil War land warfare records available to the general public.
The Pacific War Papers by Call Number: EbookISBN: 1574886320Publication Date: 2005This is an annotated collection of rare Japanese documents translated into English, which provides an invaluable resource for historians and students of World War II. The documents include diary extracts and candid, short monographs written by high-ranking Japanese officers immediately after the war.
Alabama Slave Narratives by Call Number: E 444 .F27 2006 (Circulating Collection - Second Floor)ISBN: 1557090106Publication Date: 2006The view that slavery could best be described by those who had themselves experienced it personally has found expression in several thousand commentaries, autobiographies, narratives, and interviews with those who "endured." Although most of these accounts appeared before the Civil War, more than one-third are the result of the ambitious efforts of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to interview surviving ex-slaves during the 1930s. The result of these efforts was the Slave Narrative Collection, a group of autobiographical accounts of former slaves that today stands as one of the most enduring and noteworthy achievements of the WPA. Compiled in seventeen states during the years 1936-38, the collection consists of more than two thousand interviews with former slaves, most of them first-person accounts of slave life and the respondents' own reactions to bondage. The interviews afforded aged ex-slaves an unparalleled opportunity to give their personal accounts of life under the "peculiar institution," to describe in their own words what it felt like to be a slave in the United States.--Norman R. Yetman, American Memory, Library of CongressThis paperback edition of selected Alabama narratives is reprinted in facsimile from the typewritten pages of the interviewers, just as they were originally typed.
Helpful Primary Source sites
- U.S. History Primary Source Timeline. Library of Congress
- Founders Online. Correspondence and other writings of seven major shapers of the United States
- African American History Online. Library of Congress.
- African-American History. Primary Documents. Blacklist.
- Native American. Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History. Library of Congress.
- Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Revolution. Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection. Library of Congress.
