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HIS 179/365/373/375/460: Antebellum African American History: Find Books

research African American history through Reconstruction + the history of American Slavery

Related Topics: Books and E-books

Use the search box on the library's homepage to find books about abolition and antislavery; the South and the Confederacy; and the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction. The following subject searchers reveal mostly books and e-books held by our library. Select the "Books, Articles & More" radio button and then re-execute your search to add online journal articles and primary source e-books from HathiTrust Digital Library.

Abolition and slavery:
African Americans (all time periods):
The Antebellum South and the Confederacy:
Civil War and Reconstruction:
Early United States:

 

ILL (for Books) and WorldCat

Use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to request books and book chapters not held by our library. Chapters typically arrive within hours. Physical books take days.

WorldCat is a "union catalog" of millions of records for books held by thousands of libraries. Search WorldCat to find more books about your topic. Identify e-books available to read or borrow immediately by conducting an Advanced search. Look for the Library Code box toward the bottom of the page. Enter one of the following library codes:

  • INARC (e-books from Internet Archive)
  • HATHI (e-books from HathiTrust)
  • NJT (books/e-books from our Gitenstein Library)
  • OAPEN (open access e-books)

Abolitionists (works by and about)

The following author and subject searches reveal mostly books and e-books held by our library. Select the "Books, Articles & More" radio button and then re-execute your search to add online journal articles and primary source e-books from HathiTrust Digital Library.

John Brown (radical white abolitionist and leader of the 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia)

Mary Ann (Cary) Shadd (AA abolitionist, editor, and major African-Canadian figure who founded the Provincial Freeman)

Levi Coffin (white Quaker abolitionist who became a stationmaster and so-called "President of the Underground Railroad")

Martin Robison Delany (AA abolitionist, author, newspaper publisher, physician, and U.S. army major in the Civil War)

William Lloyd Garrison (radical white abolitionist and 1831 publisher of the Boston anti-slavery journal Liberator)

Frances Ellen (Watkins) Harper (AA abolitionist, author/poet, suffragist, great orator, and member of the Underground Railroad)

David Ruggles (AA radical abolitionist and leader of the vigilance movement in New York City in the 1830s and 1840s)

William Still (AA abolitionist and author of the seminal book titled Underground Rail Road, published in Philadelphia in 1872)