The Carver Museum and Cultural Center is dedicated to the collection, preservation, research, and exhibition of African American historical and cultural materials reflecting all dimensions of experiences of persons of African descent living in Austin, Travis County, Texas, and in the United States. The Texas African American Pathfinder serves as an extension of the museum by providing resources for students, teachers, and others to conduct research using high-quality, web-based information.

This exhibit includes five divisions:

Reconstruction and Jim Crow, 1865-1955

General History and Online Archives Collections

African American Odyssey
This online exhibit draws on the Library of Congress's extensive African American holdings and complements the gallery exhibit, which was the largest black history exhibit ever held at the LOC. It contains an extensive list of items-books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. The exhibit traces black America from the early national period through the twentieth century. The exhibit sections include: Slavery, the Peculiar Institution; Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period; Abolition; the Civil War; Reconstruction; the Booker T. Washington Era; World War I and Postwar Society; the Depression, the New Deal, and World War II; and Civil Rights.

African American World
Developed by PBS and National Public Radio, this Web site offers a broad spectrum of information regarding the lives of African Americans in the United States. The site can be accessed by topic: History, Arts and Culture, Race and Society, and Profiles. It can also be accessed by source type: the Best of NPR, the Best of PBS, Articles from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Books and Films. Further resources included are lesson plans, interactive activities for kids, and a detailed timeline of African American history.

American Experience - Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
In association with PBS and American Experience, this Web site explores the post-Civil War era and issues related to it. It offers insights into topics like African American suffrage, race relations, post-war nation building, and definitions of freedom and citizenship. Each section of the site contains its own mini-documentary, primary sources, program clips, and additional readings. Users can watch the entire TV series, access transcripts, and go behind the scenes. Also included is a section of resources for teachers.

American Memory - African American Perspectives
Within this Library of Congress Learning Page Web site are options to explore pamphlets authored by African Americans during the years 1818 to 1907. The pamphlets may be explored through the lens of U.S. history, critical thinking, or arts and humanities. The collection recreates the public dialogue among African Americans a century ago and highlights political, cultural, and social issues still debated today. It includes an excellent selection of well-known African American authors including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love, as well as lesser-known African American writers.

American Memory - African-American Sheet Music
This Library of Congress American Memory Web site offers a collection of African American sheet music from the extensive holdings at Brown University. The digital collection contains 1,305 pieces of sheet music from 1850 to 1920. The spectrum of titles includes songs from blackface minstrelsy to music of the abolitionist movement. The music and visuals in this collection offer unique insights into the events and racial attitudes of their time.

American Memory - The Frederick Douglass Papers
This Library of Congress American Memory Web site showcases the papers of Frederick Douglass, primarily those from 1862 to 1895. The collection includes correspondence, speeches, a draft of his autobiography, financial and legal papers, and scrapbooks. Also included on the site are a Douglass family tree, a timeline of his life, and links to his autobiographies. Users can search by keyword or series, browse the index of names in correspondence, and use a finding aid.

American RadioWorks - Say it Plain
Created by American RadioWorks and NPR, this Web site offers a number of important African American speeches from Booker T. Washington to Barack Obama. Some other prominent African Americans featured include Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Barbara Jordan, and Jesse Jackson. Presenting both the transcript and audio files, the site also includes a biography and photo along with each speech. Users can also listen to the hour-long documentary related to this site.

Cathay Williams, Female Buffalo Soldier
This Web site focuses on the life and times of Cathay Williams (a.k.a. William Cathay), the only documented female Buffalo Soldier. It includes excerpts from articles concerning the Civil War, the role of the Buffalo Soldier, and details surrounding her enlistment. Primary documents, such as her disability discharge, her enlistment document, and her claim for disability, are included. There is also a list of links to related resources.

Freedmen's Bureau Online
This site contains information and records maintained by the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War. Users can search by state to find records of murders and crimes, labor records, and marriage records. There is also a list of related Web sites.

HarpWeek Explore History
Developed by Harper's Weekly, this site provides the magazine's text and imagery published from 1857 through 1912. Users can browse a political cartoon archive by theme or date. Furthermore, there are many educational sections devoted to the themes of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. These sections include timelines, commentaries, biographies, primary source documents, activities, and lessons. Of particular interest are "The Creation of the 13th Amendment," "The Creation of the 14th Amendment," "The Creation of the 15th Amendment," and "A Sampler of Civil War Literature."

Making of America - Cornell University
This site provides access to materials that were contributed by Cornell University to the Making of America project, a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. Hundreds of books and thousands of journal articles pertaining to the Civil War and Reconstruction have been digitized and made available on the site. The subjects are easily searchable, and there are many different sources to choose from.

Making of America - University of Michigan
Another contribution to the Making of America project, this University of Michigan Web site offers a large variety of digitized resources pertaining to the Civil War and Reconstruction. Its digitized holdings include over 10,000 books and 50,000 journal articles. Users can either browse or do a variety of searches (including keyword).

Our Documents
A cooperative endeavor of the National Archives and Records Administration, National History Day, and the USA Freedom Corps, this Web site provides high quality, interactive scans of the most important historical documents created in the United States. Of particular interest are documents related to the Emancipation Proclamation, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and Plessy vs. Ferguson.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
Produced by PBS, this site is a companion to the series of the same name and covers the time after emancipation through the 1960s. Included on this site are several interactive maps showing and describing Jim Crow laws, colleges and universities, population and migration, and lynching and riots. An interactive timeline charts a century of segregation. And audio, video, photos, and documents are used to tell the stories of African Americans, events, and organizations that were important to the story of Jim Crow.

Slavery in America
A companion to the PBS series Slavery and the Making of America, this Web site offers an array of historical information, including essays, maps, biographies, and narratives. There are six areas in the history of enslaved people covered. And the site is broken up into sections on "History," "Geography," "American Literature," "Narrative Biographies," "Teacher Resources," and "Television." The site has a great breadth of essays, from "African-American Names," to "The Great Awakening Lesson Plan: African American Churches and Abolition." The maps describe slave ports, slave states, and slave populations. And a new interactive tool allows users to explore a Southern estate from the perspective of an enslaved person.

Slavery and the Making of America
Created by Thirteen/WNET New York as a companion to the PBS series of the same name, this web site offers detailed, accessible information about slavery from colonial times to Reconstruction. One can explore a timeline of slavery, listen to WPA Slave Narratives, and examine many topics including living conditions, gender issues, and religion, to name a few. A list of further resources by media type is also included.

African American Bibliography - Austin History Center
Created by an Austin History Center neighborhood liaison, this PDF file is a complete finding aid to the Austin History Center's African American collections. It offers a detailed, descriptive listing of the materials. The items listed include audio, film, and photograph collections. To learn more about the Austin History Center and its holdings, please see the Austin History Center site.

Austin History Center - African American Sources
This Web site provided by the Austin History Center is a basic finding aid and allows users to see what type of information is housed within the center's African American collections. The center houses a variety of materials related to African American history, including census information, church histories, periodicals, photographs, and recordings. This site also offers an annotated timeline of events related to desegregation in Austin, as well as a series of video vignettes about local African American history.

The African American Texans
In association with the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, this Web site provides a brief look at the lives of African Americans in Texas beginning in the mid-19th century. This site also offers an audio version of the text.

Buffalo Soldiers
This Web site introduces the most famous Buffalo Soldiers and discusses segregation in the military after the Civil War. Focusing on the 10th Calvary Regiment between the years 1867 and 1880, it offers images and detailed information on the movement and activities of the regiment during this time period. It's broken into five parts and tells the story of the soldiers through important dates and events.

Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
Located in Houston, Texas, the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum is dedicated to the numerous African Americans who have fought and supported the Unites States through military service. The Web site offers a brief history of the Buffalo Soldier, a military history timeline, and a short video about the soldiers. It also details the stories of the 9th, 10th, 24th, and 25th regiments with text and images.

The Center for American History - African American Newspapers
Located in Austin, Texas, the Center for American History's collection of newspapers is categorized by a variety of attributes, such as ethnic, religious, and political orientation. Of particular interest in this collection are the African American newspapers that range from Austin to Waco, 1868 - 1992. The Web site offers listings of more than 600 Texas newspapers.

The Center for American History - A Guide to the Black Texas Women Archive, 1860-1865, 1897-1994
This Web page describes the Center for American History's collection of materials about the history of African American women. The Black Texas Women Archive offers a vast amount of materials on a variety of individuals and subjects. The online guide supplies a list of names and groups of materials found in the collection. Names and groups of particular interest include "Andrew McCormick, 1897," "Legislators, Black," "Reconstruction, 1873-1989," and "Sister Marie Sharke, 1885."

Forever Free -19th Century African American Legislators and Constitutional Convention Delegates of Texas
Created jointly by the State Preservation Board and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, this Web site provides information on the fifty-two men who served as state legislative members or Constitutional Convention delegates during the 19th century. The Web exhibit is separated into four time periods: 1860s-Freedom at Last, 1870s-Representation, 1880s-Repression, and 1890s-End of an Era. Each of these sections provides testimonies, images, and detailed historical information. The site includes a short biography of each of the representatives and an archival photo when available. And a conclusion offers further insights into the men, their role in politics, and their legacy.

The Handbook of Texas Online
TSHA Online and the Handbook of Texas are maintained by the Texas State Historical Association. The Handbook of Texas is an encyclopedia of the history, geography, and culture of Texas. It includes more than 23,000 entries, with contributions from more than 3,000 authors. Recommended search keywords include "Reconstruction," "Freedmen's Bureau," and "African Americans." The site also provides a small section devoted to teaching tools.

Texas Tides - African Americans 1800-1899
The Texas TIDES Digital Learning Consortium is associated with Stephen F. Austin State University. The TIDES program promotes access to primary source documents from East Texas libraries, archives, and museums. This Web site offers a detailed timeline of documents associated with African American life in the 19th century. The digitized documents are linked to the timeline with a description; the actual document can be viewed, as well as a transcript of it. Further resources and lesson plans are also included.

The History of Jim Crow
A variety of lesson plans for middle and high school are offered on this site. Each lesson plan provides an overview of the lesson, curriculum standards, time requirements, necessary materials, instructions, and a rubric. Many of the lesson plans involve PBS programs like The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, and they all deal with some aspect of Jim Crow or its legacy. The plans typically use primary source materials like oral histories, political cartoons, and archival images.

New Perspectives on the West - African Americans in the American West
This lesson plan is designed to teach students about the contributions African American pioneers made to western expansion, an often overlooked topic in U.S. history. To be taught in conjunction with PBS's The West, the lesson is divided into four parts and has students creating posters, newspapers, and letters that detail the experiences minority groups faced in the American West.

PBS Teacher Source
PBS has created a large, searchable database of lesson plans. Many of the lesson plans focusing on the period after the Civil War highlight Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Freedmen's Bureau, and Lincoln. The site can be searched by subject, grade, topic, and keyword. Some suggested keyword searches are "slavery," "Reconstruction," and "Jim Crow." There are lesson plans for a variety of grades and ages.

Slave Narratives: Constructing U.S. History Through Analyzing Primary Sources
From the EDSITEment Web site, this lesson plan encourages students to use and interpret primary sources like slave narratives and oral histories. Students research narratives from the Federal Writers' Project to find out about and describe the lives of former slaves. The goal is to gain insight into the range of experiences before and after slavery. This lesson plan is intended for elementary students.

Teaching with Documents - Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)
Part of the National Archives, this Web site offers four different lesson plans that deal either with the Civil War or Reconstruction. Specifically, topics include fugitive slaves, Civil War photography, African American soldiers, and important Civil War documents. The goal of these lesson plans is to teach students how to work and interact with documents and primary sources. Documents used as teaching tools are digitized and can be found with the lesson plans. In addition to the Civil War and Reconstruction, the site contains lesson plans that focus on eras from the American Revolution to the present.

U.S. History - Civil Rights Lesson Plans
The EDSITEment Web site offers a variety of lesson plans for all grades and subjects. This Web page gives a list of lesson plans related to the topic of civil rights. Within this list are lesson plans that cover the period after the Civil War. They focus on topics like emancipation and the lives of African American military men in World War I.