Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

     Howard University
     Manuscript Division
     Founders Library
     500 Howard Place, NW
     Washington, DC 20059
     202-806-7479
     FAX: 202-806-6405
     EMAIL: AMSZZ04@HUMAIN.BITNET
     Open: M-F 9-1pm, 2-4:30pm, by appointment only; closed weekends
     and holidays
     Copying Facilities: YES
     Senior Manuscript Librarian: Joellen P. ElBashir
     

     	The resources of the Manuscript Division provide important 
     insight into the growth and development of black families, 
     organizations, institutions, social and religious consciousness,
     and the continuing struggle for civil rights and human justice.
     The Manuscript Division was organized in 1974 into four departments
     --Manuscripts, Prints and Photographs, Music and Oral History--whose
     collections of primary source materials complement the resources
     of the Library Division and broaden the scope of areas for research
     on the black experience.  The Manuscript Department has holdings
     totalling nearly 7000 feet, including 175 collections available
     for research.  These collections include correspondence, photographs,
     diaries, scrapbooks, writings and memorabilia of Alain Locke,
     E. Franklin Frazier, Frederick Douglass, Mary Church Terrell, 
     Anna J. Cooper and many other notables.  The collections of the 
     Music Department are rich in sheet music, recordings, songbook 
     albums and instructional concert material and document over 400
     composers dating from the 18th century to the present.  The Ralph
     J. Bunche Oral History Collection is the core collection of the Oral
     History Department.  It consists of approximately 750 transcripts
     that provide insight into the actions and thoughts of those who
     participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and early
     1970s.  Other collections focus on women, Howard University, 
     African American military history and memoirs of some of the donors 
     whose papers are deposited in the Manuscript Department.  The Prints
     and Photographs Department makes available for research and exhibition
     over 50,000 graphic images, including photographs, slides, postcards,
     broadsides, prints, and maps.  These works date from the 1800s to the
     present and feature daguerreotypes, tintypes, stereograph cards and
     glass plate negatives.

     See: Church, Jean Currie and Karen L. Jefferson, ed.  The
     Black Renaissance: A Bibliography of Selected Sources at
     Howard University.  Washington, DC: Howard University
     Libraries, 1992.

          Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney, ed., et al.  Black
     Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History. 
     Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1990.

          Wilson, Greta S., ed.  Guide to Processed Collections in
     the Manuscript Division of the Moorland-Spingarn Research
     Center.  Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1983.