About

This site is designed to help researchers and students find primary sources related to slavery, abolition, and resistance within Yale University’s many libraries and galleries.

Across the top of the website, you will find the chance to view relevant collections in each Yale institution. You can view items across the different institutions by entering a keyword or phrase in the search bar. You can also sort items according to a particular period, place, or topic by selecting a category from the tag cloud located on the search page. Under links, you will find a collection of electronic databases that provide access to digital resources with significant relevant content.

Every archive or research guide has a bias, and this website is no exception. We have chosen only a small sample of collections from a variety of repositories across the Yale campus. We hope that these collections will provide a sense of the breadth and depth of the primary source material available to researchers and students. Some of the collections we have chosen to highlight are available in full online. Others have been digitized in part. Many collections are available only in hard copy or on microfilm. Collections that do not have a direct or meaningful relationship with slavery and abolition are not represented here.

Information about how we compiled the material on this site can be found on the methodology page.