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Primary Sources: Africa

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.

Africa

-Government and Geographic Data Services: 16th-20th Century Maps of Africa

The collection includes maps of Africa spanning from the 16th century through the twentieth century.

-Harold E. Scheub Collection

Dr. Harold Scheub is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Humanities in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. The collection consists of images, sounds, and oral histories that Dr. Scheub collected while conducting his research.

-The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs (1860-1960)

The Winterton Collection includes approximately 7,610 photographs. The photos are organized in 76 separate albums, scrapbooks or loose collections. As a whole, the collection documents the everyday life of East Africans between 1860 and 1960.

-Images of Commemorative Fabrics from Africa

Commemorative Fabrics from Africa is a collection of machine-made commemorative textiles from various African countries.

-The National Archives, United Kingdom: Africa Through a Lens

Offers photographs spanning over 100 years of African history, from the 1860s onwards, taken from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office photographic collection.

-Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory

The Centre strives to “locate, document, digitise, and provide access to all archival materials related to Nelson Mandela.”

-Nelson Mandela Foundation

The Foundation’s mission is to “contribute to the making of a just society by promoting the legacy of Nelson Mandela, providing an integrated public information resource on his life and times, and convening dialogue around critical social issues.”

-Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Digital Schomburg includes exhibitions, books, articles, photographs, prints, audio and video streams, and external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa as well as the black experience. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

-University of Cape Town Special Collections

The University of Cape Town Special Collections consists of 1,300 archival collections, with a particular emphasis on the Western Cape. Collections cover topics related to art, music, education, literature and language, botany, and politics and architecture. Small selections of the collections have been digitized and are available online.

-World Digital Library: Africa

Collection of print and visual resources related to Africa.