Africa
American and Zanzibari Trade Contract, 1841
This contract, one of few bilingual agreements that survive, illustrates the practical commercial system that Indian, Arab, and American traders developed on Zanzibar. The document outlines the quantity, quality, and price of the cloves being sold as well as their expected delivery date.
Advertisement for the Auction of the Ann’s Cargo, 1827
This flyer advertises the Ann’s 1827 arrival in Salem, Massachusetts, after making one of the first American trips to Zanzibar.
Rockefeller Foundation Report Concerning the Yellow Fever Vaccine
The creation of the yellow fever vaccine turned out to be quite controversial. Many of these controversies are revealed in documents such as this summary of correspondence between Georges Stefanopoulo, a Pastorian microbiologist, and his colleagues at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York.
"Yellow fever in Dakar – There is no epidemic"
This is an excerpt from an interview with Blaise Diagne, the Senegalese deputy to the National Assembly, published in Le Matin, one of the major national dailies in metropolitan France.
Disinfection of Dakar houses with a Clayton Apparatus
This is a photograph from the collections of the Rockefeller Archive Center depicting a Clayton apparatus disinfecting African houses during the yellow fever outbreak of 1927. The image illustrates a number of transnational linkages that shaped the epidemic.
Analyzing Personal Accounts
Personal accounts, including memoirs, journals, diaries, autobiographies, and life histories, are important historical sources that help us understand the human condition. These are the stories we tell about our lives that usually portray a larger picture of a life in historical context.
Nisa, The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Marjorie Shostak
Made up of a series of analyses and personal interviews conducted by Marjorie Shostak, Nisa, The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is an anthropological work about women of the !Kung tribe of the Kalahari desert in southern Africa told through the perspective of one individual, Nisa.
Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
Written by Moroccan feminist and sociologist Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood is a semi-fictional tale about a young girl growing up in a traditional Moroccan harem in the 1940s and 1950s.
Patience and Power by Susan Davis
Patience and Power, Women's Lives in a Moroccan Village is an anthology of anecdotes, interviews, and observations by American anthropologist Dr. Susan Schaefer Davis.
South African Native Affairs Commission report on education
In 1903, Alfred Milner, the British High Commissioner for South Africa, appointed the South African Native Affairs Commission to examine “the status and condition of the Natives” and to provide recommendations “on questions concerning Native policy” (1-2).