Special Collections - Black Experience

Primary Sources

A sampling of books found in Special Collections that can be used as primary sources

Secondary Sources in Special Collections

A sampling of books found in Special Collections that can be used as secondary sources

Researchers can also view this catalog in the Special Collections Reading Room. Please refer to this call number: Special Collections (Gettysburgiana) N50203.S34 2015-01 A78

Researchers can also view this catalog in the Special Collections Reading Room. Please refer to this call number: Special Collections (Gettysburgiana) E183.53.P4 S53 2014

Vertical File Manuscripts are single folder collections ranging from one page to 50 pages. 

Browse Civil War Vertical File Manuscripts

• Fisher, Albanus S. CWVFM-025
  • A letter which includes some comment on the government not paying or acknowledging the black regiments. Sullivan letter—sends the Fisher letters (or copies thereof) to Charles Sumner as representative of the noble “colored soldiery” and requesting current reports from the Patent Office and Agricultural reports. Also pleads, “Pray don’t allow your effort to secure the repeal of the “Fugitive Slave bill” & the extermination, and worldwide death of Slavery, & beyond all resurrection to be defeated.

• E.R.S. Letter. CWVFM-174
  • E.R.S. writes a very detailed letter to Dear Sylain, from 2 April to 16 April, about her efforts to collect clothing to send to Contrabands in Kansas; her work to help the local Black population; her work for an orphanage for Black children; the end of the Civil War and the reaction of her Black friend and local celebrations; followed by the news of and the town’s reaction to Lincoln’s death.

• The Pennsylvania Freeman newspaper. CWVFM-198
  • Newspaper: The Pennsylvania Freeman, New Series Vol. X, No. 11, March 17, 1853. This issue contains editor Oliver Johnson’s valediction upon his resignation in order to become the editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard; John Mott’s announcement of the new editor, Cyrus Burleigh; an article by publisher John P. Jewett on the delay of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin; the speech of Parker Pillsbury at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society; the announcement of speeches by Sojourner Truth in New York and Brooklyn; an account of a slave auction in Virginia; and other contemporary information. The name of the subscriber, E. Stockton, is written in ink on the first page.