(In)Visible Architects of Freedom Digital Archive - Bibliography

Digital Archive Image: “W.E.B. Du Bois with Fisk University Class of 1888,” Courtesy of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/8e0981a2-4aec-a10a-e040-e00a18063089.

Primary Sources

Archival Institutions

  • Historical Society of Pennsylvania
  • Library Company of Philadelphia
  • Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Digital Collection
  • Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library Digital Collection
  • Temple University, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection and Digital Collection

Archival Documents

“Address of the Representative of the African Church,” in Extract of a Letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, to Granville Sharp (London, 1792), pp. 6-7.

Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, Christ Church, 1709-1718, p. 43; 45; WPA Book 1709-1768, p. 44, 46, & 49.

"Les citozens de coleur de Philadelphie a L'Assemblee Nationale," September 24, 1793, in Journal de Revolutions de la partie Francaise de Saint-Dominigue.

“Letter from Benjamin Franklin Transmitting a Letter from James Pemberton and a Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery to Vice President John Adams,” 1790. National Archives Catalog, NAID 306388, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/306388.

John Parrish, Remarks on the Slavery of the Black People (Philadelphia, 1806).

“Presentation of Colors to the 24th Regt. U.S.C.T.” The Christian Recorder. April 22, 1865. Accessed September 11, 2024, https://archive.org/details/christianrecorder_1865_v5_no13_to_25/page/n13/mode/1up.

Billy G. Smith and Paul Sivitz. “Mapping Historic Philadelphia 1791 Directory & 1790 US Census.” Dataset email to Kelli Barnes.

“To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Banneker, 19 August 1791,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22, 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791, ed. Charles T. Cullen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 49–54. Accessed through Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-22-02-0049.

Zoar United Methodist Church records, [microform], 1841-1984. New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts, archives.nypl.org -- Zoar United Methodist Church records, [microform].


Secondary Sources

Black Writers of the Founding Era. James G. Bask, ed with Nicole Seary. New York: Library of America, 2023.

The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké. Brenda Stevenson, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Catherine Adams and Elizabeth H. Pleck. Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Jennifer L. Anderson. Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Allener M. Baker-Rogers and Fasaha M. Traylor. They Carried Us: The Social Impact of Philadelphia's Black Women Leaders. Bryn Mawr: Arch Street Press, 2020.

John Davies. “Saint-Dominguan Refugees of African Descent and the Forging of Ethnic Identity in Early National Philadelphia.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 134, no. 2 (2010): 109–26.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar. Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge. New York: 37th Ink/Atria Books, 2017.

-------------- A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press, 2014.

P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al. “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help” community-sourced document, accessed October 16, 2024, 8:45am, Writing about "Slavery"? This Might Help (google.com).

Alice J. Gayley. “24th Regiment United States Colored Troop.” PA Roots. Accessed September 11, 2024, https://www.pa-roots.com/pacw/usct/24thusct/24thusctorg.html.

Gerald Horne. The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. New York: NYU Press, 2014.

LaGarrett J. King. “Black History is Not American History: Toward a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness.” Social Education 84, no. 6 (2020): 335-341.

Adam Levinson, Esq. ““Quarters At Liberty Hall” (Miss Dally, Part VIII),” Statutes and Stories: Collections and Reflections on American Legal History. Blog post, dated April 23, 2023. Accessed October 21, 2024, https://www.statutesandstories.com/blog_html/quarters-at-liberty-hall-miss-dally-part-viii/.

Deborah Miller. ""Great earthly riches are no real advantage to our posterity...": Space, Archaeology and the Philadelphia Home." Chapter 9 in At Home in the Eighteenth Century: Interrogating Domestic Space, eds. Stephen G. Hague and Karen Lipsedge, New York: Routledge, 2022, pp. 174-198.

Deborah Miller and Alex Keim. "Colonoware in Center City." PowerPoint Presentation and script. Presented at the 2014 Annual Conference of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, Long Branch, New Jersey. Emailed to Kelli Barnes on November 3, 2023.

Charlene Mires. "Slavery, Nativism, and the Forgotten History of Independence Hall," Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 67, No. 4 (Autumn 2000), 481-501.

-------------- Independence Hall in American Memory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated, 2002.

Robert M. Morris. Robert Morris: Inside the Revolution. Walterville: Trine Day LLC, 2022.

Gholdy Muhammad. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. New York: Scholastic Inc, 2020.

-------------- Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2023.

Gary B. Nash. Race and Revolution. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1990.

-------------- “Reverberations of Haiti in the American North: Black Saint Dominguans in Philadelphia.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 65 (1998): 44–73.

-------------- First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory. Philadelphia: University of Penn Press, 2002, 2006.

-------------- The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Richard S. Newman. “‘We Participate in Common’: Richard Allen’s Eulogy of Washington and the Challenge of Interracial Appeals.” The William and Mary Quarterly 64, no. 1 (2007): 117–28.

Michiko Quinones. “Seeing the Forest Through the Trees: An Appeal to Re-Analyze and Restore the Narrative of Antebellum Free Black People in Philadelphia.” Medium.com August 20, 2022.

Charles Rappleye. Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2010.

Harry C. Silcox. “Nineteenth Century Philadelphia Black Militant: Octavius V. Catto (1839-1871).” Pennsylvania History 44, no. 1, January 1977, 53-76.

Ryan K. Smith. Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of An American Founder. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

Anna Coxe Toogood. Historic Resource Study for Independence Mall, 18th Century Development, Block Two, Market to Arch, Fifth to Sixth Street. November 2000.

-------------- Historic Resource Study for Independence Mall, 18th Century Development, Block One, Chestnut to Market, Fifth to Sixth Street. August 2001.

James Walvin. “Chapter 4 - Mahogany: Fashion and Slavery.” Slavery in Small Things: Slavery and Modern Cultural Habits. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2017.

Joe William Trotter Jr. and Eric Ledell Smith, eds. African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University, 1997.

Clarence L. Ver Steeg. Robert Morris: Revolutionary Financier with an Analysis of His Earlier Career. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954.

Frederick Wagner. Robert Morris: Audacious Patriot. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1976.

Julie Winch. A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

-------------- The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson’s Sketches of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia. University Park: Penn State Press, 2000.

-------------- "The Making and Meaning of James Forten's Letters from a Man of Colour," The William and Mary Quarterly 64, No. 1 (Jan. 2007), 129-138. Accessed December 4, 2024, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4491602.

-------------- ““You Know I am a Man of Business”: James Forten and the Factor of Race in Philadelphia’s Antebellum Business Community,” Business and Economic History 26, no. 1, Fall 1997, 213-228. Accessed October 9, 2024, https://thebhc.org/sites/default/files/beh/BEHprint/v026n1/p0213-p0228.pdf.



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Black Founders: The Free Black Community in the Early Republic (librarycompany.org)

Colored Conventions Project Digital Records

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