The Collections
Processed Manuscript Collections (link to alpha listing which links to MARC Record).  Foremost among the Division’s holdings are the 215 fully processed manuscript collections, documenting the lives and careers of prominent and not so prominent people, organizations and institutions. These collections consist of personal papers, which include correspondence, writings, photographs, diaries, and ephemera; as well as the administrative records of various national and local organizations. They combine to provide comprehensive insight into the growth and development of Black families, organizations, institutions, social and religious consciousness, and the continuing struggle for civil and human rights.

Researchers interested in using any of the collections listed should contact the Curator of the Manuscript Division prior to making an appointment to do research.  Some of these collections have had certain restrictions placed on them by the donor and/or MSRC; some are stored in facilities other than the Center, including commercial storage.  Some have inventories which can be transmitted electronically; others have inventories which can be photocopied and mailed via regular mail.  A smaller number have no listing. Also be aware that for those collections stored in the commercial storage facility, the cost of retrieving them must be passed on to the researcher.  For information on the fees, please contact the Curator.
The Prints and Photographs Collection provides graphic images needed for research, reference, exhibition and book, film and other media publications.  In addition to photographs, this collection includes postcards, maps, prints, slides, broadsides and engravings, all of which aid in documenting the history and culture of the Black experience.  The earlier works date from the 1800s, with the bulk of the collection dating from the 1930s to the 1960s.  There are several special collections, including the Mary O’H. Williamson Collection of Colored Celebrities Here and There, 1947-1959; the Rose McClendon Memorial Collection of Photographs of Celebrated Negroes by Carl Van Vechten, 1932-1965; the Thelma Green Theater Collection; the Griffith Davis Collection of Photographs of Liberia, 1948-1952; and the Harry Bowman Vaudeville Collection.
The sheet music collection includes several thousand compositions of popular songs dating from the 1850s to the early 1940s, including songs from musicals and Vaudeville acts; compositions created by Black musicians taught in the Classical tradition, as well as ragtime, spirituals and jazz.  The more than 400 composers include Nathaniel R. Dett, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Scott Joplin, Will Marion Cook, Florence Cole, Clarence Cameron White, Eubie Blake, and Duke Ellington, to name a few.
Essential to the study and documentation of the civil rights era is the Ralph J. Bunche Oral History Collection, which comprises over 700 transcripts of interviews with national, state and local civil rights activists, who helped shape that pivotal period in U.S. history.  Supplementing the Ralph J. Bunch Oral History Collection is a collection of transcripts of television documentaries focusing on the civil rights movement, aired between 1963 and 1974.  Other collections focus on women, Howard University, the Black Press, and Blacks in the Military during World War II. There are also tape recordings of conferences, seminars, meetings and other important civil rights gatherings which occurred during the same period.  In addition to the oral history collections are a number of non-transcribed tapes of lectures, seminars, poetry readings, speeches, panel discussions, conferences and commercially produced tapes (Pacifica Radio) on a variety of topics.

                    

 

 

 

 

           
      MSRC HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES