Talk:Bibliography of slavery in the United States

Added bibliography

A couple months ago, while we were working on the Bibliography of the U.S. Constitution, Jengod suggested adding a similar bibliography on slavery. With that, I started compiling a list of books and articles on the subject. I've just posted the first "draft", which includes about 1,100 works that focus specifically on the U.S. (leaving World Slavery for another day). Still to do are Primary Sources, See Also, Notes, and other standard sections.

Initially, I've sectionalized the page by century of publication, but believe a more useful format would be to list works in categories, such as General Histories Abolition, Emancipation, Underground Railroad, Rebellions, and so forth, which among other advantages, will allow for links to either the individual articles or other standalone bibliographies. Since this would require an assessment of each work and then considerably more time, I thought I'd forge ahead with the simpler format.

That said, I'm asking for feedback from the following editors who have shown an interest in the subject through their recent contributions: in no particular order, Dabberoni15, Maurice Magnus, Rjensen, Alanscottwalker, Gwillhickers, Dimadick, Pburka, Roger 8 Roger, Ecangola, Andrevan, and SereneNecrosis. With apologies to the countless editors I've missed in my quick sweep of relevant edit histories. Allreet (talk) 20:44, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Nice job! I strongly recommend a topical division. That's how it will be used -- anyone looking for items published in a year like 1968 can do an easy search. But to find a specific topic you now have to go through 1000 titles one by one. Rjensen (talk) 21:11, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Bravo you! I will work on merging any non duplicates from Bibliography of the slave trade in the United States and turn that into a redirect. In the meantime I put a template thingy at the top that says {{For|a bibliography of the general topic of American chattel slavery|Bibliography of slavery in the United States}} jengod (talk) 22:51, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to Rjensen and Jengod for the replies and encouragement. In regards to the first, size has raised a technical issue, so I'll need to go for division asap. As for the second, yes, Jengod, extract what you need for either bibliography. When I set up categories, I'll provide the necessary links within the categories. It'll take about a week to do most of the above, so I'm going to temporarily remove the "younger reader" section to keep the size within bounds. Allreet (talk) 00:42, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Good job on locating and identifying relative works, but division by specific topics would make more sense than a strictly chronological division. The books published in 2000 should not be part of the 21st century section, since the century started in 2001. In Anno Domini there is no year 0, so centuries always start at year x01: 2001, 1901, 1801, etc. Dimadick (talk) 07:37, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Agreed on division. I’ll be reorganizing offline and will post the preliminary results within a week or so. And thanks for the pointer on Anno Domini. Allreet (talk) 23:21, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

AfD resolved favorably

In case you haven't seen the results, the Article for Deletion process for the Bibliography of slavery in the United States has been resolved favorably. I was fairly confident it would be, especially as several of you stepped up and "voted" for Keep. Before learning the outcome, I started the division project in a sandbox. It's a bit tedious and some decisions are difficult because not everything slots into nice neat categories, but I'll get there. When I do, I'll replace the chronological listing and let everyone know for feedback on further refinements. And many thanks to Dimadick, Jengod, Randy Kryn, Rjensen, and Siroxo for the supportive comments in the AfD. Allreet (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

in my experience with bibliography, it often happens that a particular entry is included two or more times in different categories. That's normal and it helps the users. Rjensen (talk) 01:50, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I also recommend a section marked "primary sources." In university history courses and some advanced secondary school courses, teachers require students to use a few primary sources. Re slavery there are numerous anthologies and reprints of primary sources and it's a big help to make them easy to find with a separate section or an annotation that the book "includes primary sources." Rjensen (talk) 01:58, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

On listing sources more than once, I've seen that too. I'll try to minimize duplication within the "standalone" bibliography that remains after the categorization (not sure what that'll be), but I have no problem listing a source as many times as is reasonable in the multiple bibliographies that are referenced. Regarding primary sources, I realized I hadn't covered them so I'll be working on that as well in the manner you recommended, that is, separate from the specific categories. Thanks. Allreet (talk) 11:49, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

One thorny issue is books of essays that cover multiple topics. An example would be Herbert Aptheker's To Be Free: Studies in American Negro History (1968), though here Aptheker wrote all the essays. I've seen this handled in bibliographies as follows under a specific category: Author Name, "Title of Relevant Essay" in Title of Book, Editor Name, publisher, etc. Essays from books also sometimes turn up in searches in JSTOR, so that raises another issue: these usually did not appear in journals, so they don't belong under Journal listings, as sometimes occurs in Wikipedia since JSTOR was the source.

I wouldn't go overboard, but if done on a limited basis, I think this is desirable. Since it would take extra time, I'd set the multiple-topic essay books aside and enter their essays under the relevant categories later, mixed in with the books. Your thoughts? Allreet (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

To clarify: I'm not suggesting listing every essay separately, just those that pertain to a category and contribute something of substance. Allreet (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Categories posted

I've re-vamped the listing into categories. For now, I'm only including books and need to consider whether to add Journal Articles and if so, how. Other immediate tasks:

• Transfer some sections to their main articles/bibliographies.
• Add links to related articles/bibliographies.
• Add short intros to the categories.
• Expand the lede slightly.
• Add links to the Slavery Bibliography to other articles.
• Editing and other fine tuning.

There's more, but that's a start. I'll ping interested editors later today to inform everyone and ask for feedback. Allreet (talk) 19:11, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Dimadick, Jengod, Randy Kryn, Rjensen: Here's a start on categorizing and paring the listing. I'm in the process of categorizing the Histories section, which runs long. I'll also be further "vetting" selections in other categories, transferring works to existing bibliographies, and adding more books that I've come across. Suggestions would be appreciated, particularly regarding whether to include papers. And of course, all are welcome to help out. Allreet (talk) 13:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for all your work. I think it's **much** more usable in this format. My sense is that it's already dizzyingly long so papers should probably go on spin-off pages, which we should encourage if people want to create them. Like, there's someone around here who's added a lot of good content on female enslavement specifically (I should figure out who it was!) and I bet they would have enough to make a bibliography just on that topic.

Also, we now have history of slavery in XX articles for all 15 slave states. I suspect there are a lot of papers (and books) that could start out in the further reading there, and maybe eventually become bibliography of slavery in South Carolina pages, etc jengod (talk) 15:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I just finished categorizing the overly-long Histories section, and it seems pretty good. Spinning off works to either main articles or their standalone bibliographies is probably next. I also agree papers belong with their topics; for one, like books they number in the thousands. A bibliography of women and slavery (as well as other similar possibilities) is a good idea, so I'm adding that to my mid-range list of things to do. Slightly more long term, I'll also take a look at the idea of individual state bibliographies. Allreet (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2023 (UTC)