Primary Sources: The American South: General

"The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE) was founded by Alan Lomax to explore and sustain the world's expressive traditions with humanistic commitment and scientific engagement. ACE was registered as a charitable organization in the State of New York in 1983, and is housed at New York City's Hunter College."

"The Southern history collections at the Briscoe Center are recognized nationally as one of the major resources for research on the history of the American South, including the eleven states that seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861. The holdings provide an in-depth understanding of the historical development of the South, with a special emphasis on chattel slavery, the cotton economy, and the Civil War. Also included are comprehensive collections of newspapers from across the South covering the colonial era through Reconstruction and into the Jim Crow era." https://briscoecenter.org/collections/american-south/

"Chronicling America (ISSN 2475-2703) is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). "

A website from the University Library at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This digital project "provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture." Indexes are provided by author, title, subjects, or geographic area. Users may also browse or search collections. Collections include : "First-Person Narratives of the American South" , "Library of Southern Literature" , "North American Slave Narratives" , "The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865" , "The Church in the Southern Black Community" , "The North Carolina Experience, Beginnings to 1940" , and "North Carolinians and the Great War" . The site provides information on citing the documents and lesson plans and activities for classroom use.

"This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940. Typically 2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents vary in form from narratives to dialogues to reports to case histories. They chronicle vivid life stories of Americans who lived at the turn of the century and include tales of meeting Billy the Kid, surviving the 1871 Chicago fire, pioneer journeys out West, grueling factory work, and the immigrant experience. Writers hired by this Depression-era work project included Ralph Ellison, Nelson Algren, May Swenson, and many others. The documents often describe the informant’s physical appearance, family, education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores. Pseudonyms are often substituted for individuals and places named in the narrative texts. The life histories comprise a small part of the larger Manuscript Division collection titled United States Work Projects Administration Records."

"This recording trip is an ethnographic field collection that includes nearly 700 sound recordings, as well as fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States. Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939, John Avery Lomax, Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the American Folklife Center archive), and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music from more than 300 performers. These recordings represent a broad spectrum of traditional musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs. "

"The Alan Lomax Collection includes ethnographic field documentation, materials from Lomax’s various projects, and cross-cultural research created and collected by Alan Lomax and others on traditional song, music, dance, and body movement from around the world. Lomax conducted fieldwork in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, England, France, Georgia (Republic), Haiti, Ireland, Italy, Morocco, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Spain, the United States, and Wales from the 1930s-1990s. The collection contains approximately 650 linear feet of manuscripts, 6400 sound recordings, 5500 graphic images, and 6000 moving images."

"...is an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. The SouthDocs team of contributing staff and students produces works of documentary storytelling with collaborating partners like the Southern Foodways Alliance, “Mississippi Stories“, and radio programs “Highway 61″ and “Sounds of the South.”"

"The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) encourages the study and appreciation of the history and culture of the American South by collecting, preserving and promoting the use of unique documentary materials of enduring historical value. The SHC does this to enable users to derive meanings from the southern past and to support the University’s mission of teaching, research and service."