Selected Special Collections

Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection

Pamphlets on African American history, 1850-1920

One of the official duties of Daniel Murray (1852-1925), a Library of Congress employee from 1871 to 1923, was to "secure" a copy of every book and pamphlet in existence, by a Negro author" for the Exhibit of Negro Authorship at the 1900 Paris Exposition. These volumes were returned to the Library and formed the nucleus of the "Library of Congress Collection of Books by Colored Authors." In 1926, through Murray's bequest, the Library received 1,448 books and pamphlets Murray had privately assembled for his projected "Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of the Colored Race"; these were added to the Colored Author Collection. While the Colored Author Collection has been integrated with the Library's general collections (duplicates were transferred to Howard University in Washington, D.C.), 184 pamphlets from Murray's library have been retained as a unit in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. These bound pamphlets were issued between 1850 and 1920 and pertain chiefly to slavery and the abolitionist movement.

Digitized Material From the Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection

African American Perspectives; Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907