Images & Maps

Prints, photographs and cartographic materials are rich sources of information when researching the topic of African Americans in business and entrepreneurship. The selected resources linked below provide a mix of digitized primary source from both the Library of Congress and external libraries and organizations.

W. E. B. Du Bois, contributor. The Georgia Negro. Migration of Negroes. 1890. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

W. E. B. Du Bois, contributor. The states of the United States according to their Negro population. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

W. E. B. Du Bois, contributor. Distribution of Negroes in the United States. ca.1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Images

The Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) includes descriptions of about 95% of the materials in the Division's collections and is the primary means of finding descriptions of images from the collections of the Prints & Photographs Reading Room. When searching the catalog, you will need to experiment with using the terms "Black," "Negro," "Colored" "African American" or "African American businesses." Item descriptions often include direct transcriptions of original captions. The Library presents the historic captions because they can be important for understanding the context in which the images were created. The terms used to describe images related to the lives of African Americans in the 20th century were assigned by individuals sometimes from outside and sometimes from within African American communities. Please note that terminology in historical materials and in Library descriptions does not always match the language preferred by African Americans individually or as a community, and may include negative stereotypes. When you find an item related to your search, you may want to click on the subject heading to locate related images.

African American Communities in America's Cities: Photographs by Camilo J. Vergara
Camilo J. Vergara has photographed America’s cities since the 1970s. This guide will introduce you to his photos of racially-segregated African American communities—images that bear witness to discrimination, hardship, perseverance, ingenuity and pride.
African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Rare Book Collection
The African American Portraits Gallery includes portraits found in books from the African American Perspectives Collection. While many of the images are of well-known individuals, a surprising number are relatively or completely unknown. It is our hope that the gallery will encourage further research into the lives of these intriguing historical figures.
African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition
The Paris Exposition of 1900 (Exposition universelle internationale de 1900) devoted a building to matters of "social economy." The United States section of the building featured an exhibit that, according to W. E. B. Du Bois, attempted to show "(a) The history of the American Negro. (b) His present condition. (c) His education. (d) His literature." Du Bois, W.E. Burghardt,as reported by "The American Negro at Paris" American Monthly Review of Reviews 22:5 (November 1900): 576.
African Americans at the Turn of the 20th Century: A Graphic Visualization April 16, 2020
This blog explores the Du Bois digitized charts available through the Library of Congress.
Chicago, Illinois. 1941-1942. Negro business and shopping centers
Photographs show Negro business and shopping centers. Store windows and advertising. Public library display in shoe store. Plants and employees of the Chicago Defender newspaper and the Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, Negro owned and operated. Customers in dress, haberdashery, shoe and barber shops, ten cent store, real estate office. Funeral home. Junk yard. Men and women collecting trash and paper to sell. Negroes shopping in street market on the West Side.
Exploring Black-Owned Businesses from the Turn of the 20th Century, August 11, 2021
This blog explores images in the Library's collection related to African American small businesses.
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives
The photographs of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. Included in this collection are images of African American soldiers, shipyard workers, tenant farmers, steelworkers, health care workers, professionals, as well as images from of Negro business and shopping centers. The collection includes photographs of signs enforcing racial discrimination.
Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs
The William A. Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered, with scattered examples through 1945.
Great Migration: Finding Pictures
From about 1915-1970, millions of African Americans moved from southern, primarily rural areas of the U.S. to urban areas in the north and west. This guide provides strategies for finding related visual resources.
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections are among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes. This collection includes buildings of historic importance to the study of African American business and entrepreneurship.
Locating Digitized Historic Images, December 18, 2020, Inside Adams
This blog provides tips on searching for African Americans in business through the prints and photographs catalog, and searching for advertisements in Chronicling America. Includes information on copyright restrictions.
Sources for Images on African American History
The Prints and Photographs Division's substantial holdings of photographs, prints, posters, and drawings include many works relating to the history of blacks in America from the slavery period through the civil rights era. There is no single, comprehensive list of the holdings relating to African American history.
U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
The U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph collection depicts topics that were of interest for the magazine's coverage of U.S. business and political news topics, with particular emphasis on Washington, D.C., and the United States, featuring images depicting political and governmental activities, civil rights, business and economic developments, industry, education, domestic life, transportation, communication, health care, and housing.
Using Local and Family History Photographs to Tell the Stories of Your Ancestors
This guide offers research strategies to search the Library of Congress' print and digital collections for photographs that focus the lens on your family and strengthen your genealogical research, and can be applied to searching lesser known African American individuals associated with business and entrepreneurship.
Van Vechten Collection
Comprised of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964, the bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance.
Visual materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People records.
In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (originally known as the National Negro Committee) began to work toward the elimination of racial and social injustices against African Americans. Images in the collection reflect the civil rights campaigns and administrative activities of the Association. Many of the photographs are from wire services and independent commercial photographers. Some photos appear to have been taken by Association staff members, in particular, Roy Wilkins, Charles Houston, and possibly others, while investigating civil rights injustices. Numerous photos bear stamps and other editorial markings, indicating they were acquired and used primarily for publication in the NAACP's official magazine (the "Crisis") and in its newsletter (the "Bulletin").
Working in Paterson Project Collection (AFC 1995/028)
Comprised of 470 interview excerpts and 3882 photographs, this collection documents occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey in 1994. Work in the African American community is depicted.

Maps

Maps provide a visual representation, which can be useful in a variety of ways when studying geography, statistics or data.

Digitized Maps (Geography and Map Research Center, Library of Congress)
The Library of Congress had digitized many of the maps in its collections and are freely available. You can search but also refine by time period and place.
Fire Insurance Maps at the Library of Congress: A Resource Guide (Geography and Map Research Center, Library of Congress)
The Geography and Map Division holds extensive fire insurance map collections useful in genealogy research, environmental studies, urban planning, and more. This guide assists researchers in both discovering and navigating these primary source materials.
Geography & Map Division (Library of Congress)
The Geography and Map Division established in 1897, has custody of the bulk of the Library's cartographic materials and would be the staff at the Library that could answer questions about the digitized and undigitized map collections.
Mapping Black Media (CUNY - Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism) External
As part of the Center for Community Media’s (CCM) Black Media Initiative, we’re offering a map and directory of nearly 300 media outlets across the U.S. that primarily serve Black communities across the diaspora. With a national map that includes publications of multiple formats and topics, we are filling a long-existing void.
Mapping Inequity: Redlining in New Deal America (University of Richmond) External
This University of Richmond big data project based on information from the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). This federal agency was established in the US in response to the mortgage crisis of the Great Depression. In addition to granting loans and introducing standard lending practices, the HOLC also made assessments of major cities and urban areas around the country to determine safe and risky investment areas. HOLC created neighborhood-by-neighborhood maps and accompanying area descriptions describing threats to the “security” of a particular area. The maps categorized specific areas in cities according to categories based on racial, ethnic, and economic characteristics of residents and potential home buyers
Mapping the Freedman’s Bureau External
This map marks the sites of Freedmen’s Bureau Field Offices and Contraband Camps. You can scroll in to see the sites nearest your area of research interest. When you click on a marker, you will see the microfilm rolls for that location. If the microfilms are online, you can click the link to go directly to the microfilm.
NAACP History and Geography 1909-1980, Mapping Social Movements Project, University of Washington External
Charts and maps showing the growth in membership and the spread of NAACP branches. Maps and databases provide fuller information about branch activities, officers, and membership from 1912-1964. Includes a database of 1,800 entries from "Along the Color Line," from the NAACP’s monthly magazine published in 1916 and 1917.
Navigating the Green Book (NYPL) External
The Green Book was a travel guide published between 1936 and 1966 that listed hotels, restaurants, bars, gas stations, etc. where black travelers would be welcome. NYPL Labs is in the process of extracting the data from the Green Books themselves and welcomes you to explore its contents in new ways.
Not Even Past: Social Vulnerability and the Legacy of Redlining (University of Richmond) External
The University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab's " Legacy of Redlining" project shows lower-income and minority neighborhoods that experienced redlining — racially motivated lending discrimination — decades ago have a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, which are risk factors for COVID-19 by comparing maps from a 1930s federal agency, the Home Owners Loan Corporation with the Center for Disease Control's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) scores for census tracts today.
Opportunity Atlas (Chetty, Raj, Nathaniel Hendren, John Friedman, and the Opportunity Insights Team) External
This comprehensive Census tract-level dataset of children’s outcomes in adulthood uses data covering nearly the entire U.S. population. For each tract, children’s outcomes in adulthood such as earnings distributions and incarceration rates by parental income, race, and gender are estimated. These estimates allow us to trace the roots of outcomes such as poverty and incarceration to the neighborhoods in which children grew up.
Relational Reconstruction Toolkit Now Available, October 12, 2023 (Library of Congress)
For the past year, Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren worked with LC staff, collections and community members to develop an open source “relational reconstruction” toolkit to share his methodology and inspire the public to reconstruct other lost enclaves from Library collections and other sources. We are thrilled to announce that the toolkit is now available on Github and the video series featured on loc.gov and YouTube!!!
Renewing Inequity (University of Richmond) External
This University of Richmond mapping project examines American cities impacted by urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 60s.Urban renewal refers to programs of land redevelopment in cities and can include the relocation of businesses, the demolition of structures and the relocation of people. The process played an important role in the history and demographics of many cities.
Sanborn Maps (Geography and Map Research Center, Library of Congress)
The Library of Congress' Sanborn map collection consists of a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve thousand cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.