Philip David Sang Digital Collection

About

The Philip David Sang Collection contains unpublished and published works and ephemera united by its focus on the struggle of Africans and African Americans through the Middle Passage to the civil rights movement.

During the 20th century, Chicago native and former president of the Illinois State Historical Society Philip David Sang collected a wide variety of documents and manuscripts exploring American history. The majority of the collection, and the selections made available here, document the African American experience in slavery and in the resistance that culminated in its abolition. Collection series include Abolitionism, Runaways, Inventory and Birth Records.

The Philip David Sang Collection is housed in the Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at Woodson Regional Library.

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Acknowledgment of Harmful Materials

Chicago Public Library collects images, documents and other archival materials from different communities and time periods to preserve and make available the cultural and historical record. As historical objects, some of these materials contain harmful or disturbing content. CPL presents these artifacts as an unfiltered social record and does not endorse the views expressed therein.

Related CPL Collections

• Philip David Sang Collection
• Richard Durham Papers: Includes scripts for radio plays devoted to the Black experience in America.
• Madeline Stratton Morris Papers: Includes manuscripts and clippings relating to slavery.
• Illinois Writers Project: “Negro in Illinois” Papers: Notes and documents collected by the WPA on slavery, abolition and the Underground Railroad.
• American Civil War Documents, Manuscripts, Letters and Diaries and Grand Army of the Republic Collections: Series 8 contains documents related to the sale and trade of slaves as well as published speeches.

Related External Resources

• Philip D. Sang Collection of Presidential Signatures, 1787-1956: Correspondence and documents written by prominent names in American history dating from the American Revolutionary War to the early 1950s.
• Philip D. Sang collections at Brandeis University: Materials related to the signers of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.
• Umbra Search: African American History: Digitized materials from over a thousand U.S. libraries, archives and museums.