16th- Early 20th Century Maps of Africa
Digital copies of 113 antique maps of Africa and accompanying text.
Digital Collections
Explore the digitized collections below. Please Note: Some may require signing in with a NetID to view.
Africa Embracing Obama
Collection documenting the extraordinary cultural outpouring of celebratory materials from across the continent of Africa. They represent Africa's pride in, ownership of, and hopefulness for the candidacy and presidency of Barack Obama.
Arabic Manuscripts from West Africa
Rare collection of handwritten Arabic and Ajami manuscripts dating back to the 19th and 20th centuries, from mainly northern Nigeria (Kano in particular). Also includes items from Ghana, Senegal and Mali.
Depictions of Africa in French Humour Magazines
Early European caricatures and depictions of Africa and Africans in French periodicals.
E.H Duckworth Photograph Collection
Chiefly photographic prints and slides documenting early 20th-century Nigeria. Edward Harland Duckworth (1894 -1972) was a British expatriate officer who was the founding editor of Nigeria magazine.
Herskovits Library of African Studies Audiovisual Collection
A broad collection including interviews with writers, short stories, and more. (NetID only).
Ifeoma Onyefulu: Photographs
Images from Onyefulu’s publication A is for Africa—primarily portraits of women taken in the 1990s.
Justine Cordwell Collection
Images of textiles, architecture, pottery, metalwork and other art, as well as people going about their daily business, largely from a 1949 research trip by Cordwell. (NetID only)
Photographs of Zanzibar
Twenty-one late 19th-century photographs of Zanzibar by C.S. de Joux photographs of Zanzibar.
Posters from the Herskovits Library
A sampling the over 5000 posters collected by the Herskovits Library. Approximately 600 digitized posters cover subjects including politics, health policy, religion, liberation, art exhibitions and social issues.
The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960
Photographs that depict the breadth of African experience, document African life and European life in Africa, and show the African landscape, in particular as it changed over time. The collection provides an unsurpassed resource for the study of the history of photography in East Africa.
Vernon McKay Photographs
Depictions of African daily life in the mid-20th century from the following countries and territories: Basutoland, Belgian Congo, Dahomey, French Equatorial Africa, French Guinea, French Togoland, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mauritania, Niger (French), Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia, Ruanda-Urundi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Southwest Africa, Tanganyika, and Tunisia.