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African American Digital Archives

The purpose of this guide is to recommend electronic digital collections for researching African American history.

Education: South

Auburn Avenue Research Library Historic African American Education Collections

AARL received funds from the National Historical Papers and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize and make Web-accessible eleven late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century manuscript collections that document the historical development of education for African Americans, primarily in the South, from the early 1860s to the early 1950s. These collections document a full spectrum of educational developments for African Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the founding and growth of historically black colleges and universities; secondary, training, and vocational schools; public libraries; and various local and national educational organizations.

The digitized collections include: the Selena Sloan Butler Papers, the Sanford H. Lee Papers, the records of the Atlanta University Center, the Adam Knight Spence and John Wesley Work Collections, the records of the Auburn Branch Library, the Annie L. McPheeters Papers, the Helen Adele Johnson Whiting Papers, the James Frank Harrison Family Collection, the Peyton Austin Allen Papers, the William B. Matthews Papers and the Samuel Howard Archer Papers. The digital collections include photographs, correspondence, programs, brochures, announcements, invitations, and other printed material.