Personal Writings
This page describes how to find personal writings (diaries, letters, autobiographies) and oral history
North American Indian Thought and Culture contains an enormous collection of Indian autobiographies and other personal writings.
American Indian oral history : the Duke Collection. 55 v -- Oklahoma.
Indian pioneer papers, 1860-1935: Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma. 116 volumes. Oklahoma -- Interviews.
Books - Autobiographies and Oral Histories offers a list of books by and about Native American women. Call numbers refer to the Arizona State University library, so look the titles up in HOLLIS.
Trail of Tears though Arkansas Eyewitness Accounts
Native Peoples of the Americas Oral History Collections (Florida)
Native Voices: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness
World turned upside down: Indian voices from early America, a brief history with documents, ed by Colin G. Calloway. 2nd edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2016, 220 pages
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text Copy 1 Copy 2
American Indian women, telling their lives, by Gretchen M. Bataille and Kathleen Mullen Sands. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c1984, 209 p.
HOLLIS Record
Online version
In the HOLLIS Catalog several Subject terms refer to personal writings:
“--Personal narratives” is attached to accounts of wars and diseases
Oral History and Interviews
Oral histories and interviews can often be found in Google Advanced search You can search:
all these words: Ojibwe
AND
any of these words: “Oral history” “Oral histories” Interview
Oral History Online indexes oral history collections, with links to interview-level bibliographic records and to full-text materials, audio files and visual files where these are available.
In HOLLIS:
Keyword anywhere contains Cherokee*
AND
Keyword anywhere exact phrase: oral histor*
Printed Diaries and Autobiographies
World turned upside down: Indian voices from early America, a brief history with documents, ed. by Colin G. Calloway, Dartmouth College. Second edition. Boston, MA : Bedford/St Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2016, 220 pages
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text -- Another copy
An annotated bibliography of American Indian and Eskimo autobiographies, by H. D. Brumble. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text
--Includes indexes of editors, anthropologists, ghosts, and amanuenses; tribes; and subjects. Updated by list on p. 211–58 (Chapter titled: The Autobiographies) of Brumble's American Indian Autobiography.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text
Native heritage: personal accounts by American Indians, 1790 to the present, ed. by Arlene Hirschfelder. New York: Macmillan, 1995, 298 p.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text -- Another copy
I have spoken: American history through the voices of the Indians, by Virginia Irving Armstrong, Chicago: Sage Books, 1971, 206 p.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text -- Another copy -- Another copy
--Speeches and often brief statements. Terminal notes give sources.
Autobiographies by Americans of color 1980-1994: an annotated bibliography, by Rebecca Stuhr-Rommereim. Troy, NY: Whitston, 1997.
HOLLIS Record
Internet Archive full text
--Lists 499 autobiographies of persons of African, Asian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Native American heritage with brief summaries. Reprints of pre1980 works are included but usually not annotated. Index includes countries of origin, topics, occupations and names, but not titles.
--Continued by Autobiographies by Americans of color, 1995-2000: an annotated bibliography, by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi & Rebecca Stuhr. Albany, NY: Whitston Pub. Co., 2003.
HOLLIS Record
--Lists 674 autobiographies including items missed in the earlier volume. Includes some persons of Middle Eastern heritage.
A guide to finding additional diaries and autobiographies is available in Finding Biographical Information.
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