LibGuides: Harlem Renaissance: Home

Recommended Databases

The following sources can be found using the IndyPL databases. Databases are listed alphabetically or use green tags to shorten the list. Suggested tags are "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" and "Biography," but use whatever database best meets your research need.

African American Experience
For the study of African American history and its relation to U.S. history through published articles, essays, artifacts, images, documents, and other historical and culturally valuable sources.

African American History
African American History features articles, sharable slideshows, videos, primary sources, pro/con controversies, and more on African American history. Subjects covered include the Abolitionist Movement, Underground Railroad, Emancipation Proclamation, Great Black Migrations, Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Act of 1964, and much more.

Black Culture and Thought
Find works of leading African Americans in this collection of articles, interviews, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters, and a complete run of The Black Panther newspaper.

Black Studies in Video
Watch documentaries, interviews, and archival footage exploring the history of African Americans through politics, art and culture, sociology, and history in this video encyclopedia.

Biography (Gale In Context)
Search for biographical information on contemporary and historical people worldwide across all subject areas.

Gale eBooks
Reference resources include the categories: Arts, Business, History, Law, Literature, and Medicine.
Use the search term Harlem Renaissance or whatever topic you are researching, but also pay attention to the Related Subjects box for leads on additional topics.

Gale Literature
Provides literature-related information on writers from around the world and throughout time. Includes criticism, literary and cultural analysis, biographies, summaries of literary works, primary sources, photographs, and full-text poems, short stories, novels, plays, and speeches.

JStor
JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it also includes books and primary sources. In addition, it provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals.
To access this database from home, you will first need to log into it at school. If you do not already have an account, register for one using your AMDG email and password. If you need assistance setting this up, please stop by the library.

Movers and Shakers

Click on the image to see a categorized list of some of the best-known movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance. Categories include Artists, Performing Artists, Writers, and Activists. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of all of the important people from this era. A quick internet search with terms like "artists and Harlem Renaissance" will lead you to additional names.

Websites

Harlem Renaissance Poets Resource for poems, poets' biographies, and essays about poetry.
Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series Collection of artwork from the Museum of Modern Art.
LOC American Memory Contains a collection of materials from the Booker T. Washington and WWI and Post War Society eras.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints The Photographs and Prints Division contains both documentary and fine art photographs, which document the history and culture of people of African descent worldwide as well as the work of photographers of African descent. The collection of over 300,000 images ranges from mid-eighteenth century graphics to contemporary documentary and art photography; all of the major photographic processes are represented.
Voices of the Harlem Renaissance within the Schomburg Center This guide will navigate researchers through materials documenting the Harlem Renaissance at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Harlem History Harlem History presents a wealth of archival treasures and scholarship from Columbia about the history of one of the world's most famous and influential neighborhoods.

Primary Sources

Google Arts and Culture
A collaboration between Google and over 1500 museums and cultural institutions around the world. It contains millions of cultural artifacts that anyone can access. Suggested search terms include "Harlem Renaissance" and/or the name of an individual.

Digital Public Library of America
Collections of primary source material exploring topics in history, literature, and culture. Collections include: African American Soldiers in World War I, The Great Migration, Visual Arts through the Harlem Renaissance, the Negro Baseball League, among others.

Library of Congress - Harlem Renaissance Research Guide
African-American expressions of writing, music, and art during the 1920s and 1930s are well represented in the vast collections of the Library of Congress.

Africana Age: African and African Diaspora Transformations in the 20th Century.

This is an archived website from an exhibition one held at the New York Public Library. It is a bit clunky but has numerous images and primary documents.

Harlem Renaissance: Home

Recommended Databases

The following sources can be found using the IndyPL databases. Databases are listed alphabetically or use green tags to shorten the list. Suggested tags are "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" and "Biography," but use whatever database best meets your research need.

African American Experience For the study of African American history and its relation to U.S. history through published articles, essays, artifacts, images, documents, and other historical and culturally valuable sources.

Black Culture and Thought Find works of leading African Americans in this collection of articles, interviews, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters, and a complete run of The Black Panther newspaper.

Black Studies in Video Watch documentaries, interviews, and archival footage exploring the history of African Americans through politics, art and culture, sociology, and history in this video encyclopedia.

Biography (Gale In Context) Search for biographical information on contemporary and historical people worldwide across all subject areas.

Gale eBooks Reference resources include the categories: Arts, Business, History, Law, Literature, and Medicine. Use the search term Harlem Renaissance or whatever topic you are researching, but also pay attention to the Related Subjects box for leads on additional topics.

Gale Literature Provides literature-related information on writers from around the world and throughout time. Includes criticism, literary and cultural analysis, biographies, summaries of literary works, primary sources, photographs, and full-text poems, short stories, novels, plays, and speeches.