Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection

Carter G. Woodson Regional Library
9525 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60628
(312) 747-6909

Hours: Mon. - Thurs. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday -Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• Materials relate ONLY to the African-American experience
• Second largest African-American collection of any US public library
• Over 70,000 volumes covering the whole spectrum of research topics
• Collection includes histories of families, communities, institutions, churches, military, labor and more

Services:

• Closed Stack - materials brought to the patron
• Copy machines available
• No research done by the staff; but, the library will provide a list of people to hire to do research
• Annual workshop for genealogists in February presented by the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and by the Chicago Chapter patricia Liddell Researchers

Periodical Collection Includes:

• Complete run of the Chicago Defender newspaper
• All major African-American newspapers throughout the US
• Major African-American journals and magazines in the US dating back to mid-1800s
• Collection begins with an 1827 issue of Freedom's Journal, the first African-American newspaper in America

Microform Collection Includes:

• Slave Schedules of the 1850 and 1860 Census
• Registers and Letters received by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and abandoned lands 1865-1874
• Records of the Education Division of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and abandoned lands 1865-1871
• Ante-Bellum Southern Plantation Records, part I and II, series A to F
• Sources include:
• journals
• account books
• letters
• overseers' reports
• slave lists
• Freedman's Savings and Trust Company microfilm records
• Microform editions of:
• Atlanta University, Black Culture Collection
• Schomburg Clipping File
• Hampton University Clipping File
• Tuskegee University Clipping File

Manuscript Collection Includes:

• The Illinois Writers Project, "The Negro in Illinois" papers; Although the information was collected in 1936-1942, the information itself pre-dates that time period.