Manuscripts, 1831-1957

The materials in this project illustrate the themes of history and collecting over time in Library of Congress Manuscript Division digitized reports, speeches, letters, and more. These items date from 1831 to 1957 and include firsthand accounts of the Amistad Mutiny, National Negro Business League correspondence from the Booker T. Washington Papers, reports on Black economic opportunity, organizing materials produced by the NAACP, and the Civil War diary of African American Union soldier Christian Fleetwood. Many were first digitized by the Library for the digital exhibitions The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship and Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929.