African American Pamphlets & WWI Postcards

Today I want to point out two nice digital collections at Emory University.

When most of us think of pamphlets the first things that come to mind are the broadsides and revolutionary tracts of the early modern era followed by the religious and social works of the 19th century.  The Emory University Portal for African American Pamphlets, however, sheds light on what I would consider to be an often overlooked but significant aspect of American printing history.  You can look through notable examples beginning on the home page, many of which have striking covers, or browse based on author, illustrator or publisher.  It would be nice if Emory made available more background information and full scans of these tracts (at least for the notable examples,) but I did enjoy just looking through the cover images.  The site also provides, at the bottom of the ‘About‘ section, a list of important pamphlet collections at other institutions.

The second site is The Great War, which features a nice collection of WWI era postcards and poetry.  I’m not much into poetry so I haven’t delved into that section, but the postcards are wonderful and can be browsed via a range of subjects like nationality, image type and content (there are even some WWII era cards in the mix.)  I was particularly taken with the embroidered cards—do give them a look.  A bit disappointed, though, that the ANZACs have been mostly left out.

Filed under US history, WWI, african american history, civil rights movement, europe, great britain, pamphlets, postcards, printing history | Comment (0)