Collection Highlights

Books

The Sojourner Truth Room contains over 16,000 books on all aspects of African American history and culture, including literature, art, music, sociology, religion and biography. Highlights include:

• 42 volume collection of slave narratives, collected by the Federal Writers' Project of the WPA
• 30 volume Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers
• reprinted volumes of the papers of Marcus Garvey and Booker T. Washington
• first editions and other rare books by African American authors, including slave narratives and works by Harlem Renaissance writers

Periodicals

The Sojourner Truth Room subscribes to a wide range of popular and scholarly magazines and journals, and maintains complete backfiles of many periodicals, including Ebony, Jet, Crisis, and the Journal of Negro History.

Vertical Files

Arranged by subject, the files contain articles from newspapers and magazines, pamphlets, calendars and other ephemera.

A separate photograph file features prominent individuals from the 1970's to the present.

Biography & Literature Index

An extensive card index provides name access to the biographical information found in the book and vertical file collection. A separate index provides access to the short stories and plays in the collection.

Databases

• African American Experience (Greenwood)
  Research resource for African American history and culture (based primarily on Greenwood Press reference works). Includes primary sources, timeline, audio clips, photographs, maps, and other images. (Remote access available.)
• Ancestry Library Edition (ProQuest)
  Genealogical and local history information. Includes the digitized images of the U.S. Federal Census from 1790 to 1930, the American Genealogical Biographical Index, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, and slave narratives. (available only to users on PC's in our Branches.)
• Biography Resource Center
  Biographical articles from reference books and periodicals. For grade 4 and up. (Remote access available.)
• Essays in LitFinder (Gale)
  Full-text essays that focus on the humanities and social sciences. (Remote access available.)
• Heritage Quest (ProQuest)
  Resources in this genealogy database include the US Federal Census 1790-1930; the Periodical Source Index, covering genealogy and local history periodicals written in English and French (Canada) since 1800; and the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files. (Remote access available.)
• History Reference Center
  A comprehensive full text history reference database containing information from books, encyclopedias, and periodicals as well as historical documents, maps, photos and video. Focus is on US History and World History from prehistoric times to the recent past. (Remote access available.)
• Literature Resource Center (Gale)
  Biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. For high school and up.(Remote access available.)
• Oxford African American Studies Center (Oxford)
  More than 7,500 articles (primarily from Oxford University Press reference works) focusing on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Includes primary sources, timelines, images, maps, and charts. (Remote access available.)
• Plays in LitFinder. (Gale)
  Over 1,000 complete plays in English or English translations. (Remote access available.)
• Poems in LitFinder (Gale)
  Thousands of full-text poems plus explanations, biographies and pictures. (Remote access available.)
• Short Stories in LitFinder (Gale)
  Thousands of full-text short stories plus explanations, biographies and pictures. (Remote access available.)
• Speeches in LitFinder (Gale)
  Speeches from antiquity to modern times. (Remote access available.)

Databases on CD-ROM (available only in the Sojourner Truth Room)

• African Americans in Cinema
• The Freedman's Bank Records
• The Harvard Guide to African American History
• Heritage Book Archives: An Index to the Signature of Deposit for the Freedman's Savings and Loan Bank, 1865-1869 for the State of Mississippi
• Indiana African Heritage
• People of Color: Black Genealogical Records and Abstracts from Missouri Sources