Carter G. Woodson and the Collection of Source Materials for Afro-American History

Until recently, white libraries and archives generally showed no interest in collecting primary source materials that dealt specifically with black culture. J. Franklin Jameson, chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress during the late 1920s, recognized the need to acquire these sources and assisted Afro-American historian Carter G. Woodson in his endeavor to collect them. With only a small amount of grant funds and a great deal of enthusiastic support from the black community, Woodson collected over five thousand documents which now comprise the "Carter G. Woodson Collection of Negro Materials" in the Manuscript Division.