Huck Finn Links 2020
Topics
Note on setting: Huck Finn takes place a couple decades before slavery ends (1830s-1840s), but it was published in 1884, after slavery was over (the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863, but only in those states controlled by the Union, because the war was still happening. All slaves were freed at the end of the war in 1865). This means at the time of publication, Twain was writing about big events in the history of his country that were about 20 years old--during the lifetime of adult readers. The links below cover the entire time period of slavery as well as the Civil War and Reconstruction (post-slavery period).
Content warning: Several of these sites contain information or images about racism, slavery, and violence against African-Americans that are deeply disturbing.
1. History of Slavery in the U.S. and the impact of the cotton gin
PBS: Africans in America Part 1, early history of slavery
Click on the links at the bottom of the page, like "The African Slave Trade and the Middle Passage."
PBS: Africans in America Part 3, pre-Civil War
This section is called "Brotherly Love" because it deals with how free Blacks were building communities in the North while slavery was still continuing in the South. Click on "Philadelphia" (this city is nicknamed the "city of brotherly love") to see an example of this.
PBS: Africans in America Part 4, Civil War
This section deals with how Americans began to debate slavery more and more as the country expanded West. Would the new states be slave states or free states? It also deals with the war itself.
OSU: Eli Whitney and the cotton gin
A short but clear description of how the cotton gin sustained the practice of slavery, from Ohio State Univ.
Cotton Gin: A game-changing invention (from National Constitution Center, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, PA dedicated to the Constitution and American History)
Cotton Gin: Economic impact, impact on slavery
This detailed article from the Economic History Association discusses the impact the invention of the cotton gin had on slavery
Slavery in the U.S.: A Brief History
This is a page about slavery from a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Civil War battlefield sites
Slavery in America (History Channel)
Slavery and the Making of America (PBS)
Click on "Times and Places" for timelines of events related to slavery in different decades. Click on "Slave Memories" for testimonies from actual people who lived through slavery.
This is a website made by a graduate student at the University of Virginia. It contains many of the original interviews of former slaves done by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
African-American Soldiers in the Civil War
This photo tour from Time Magazine focuses on African-American soldiers in the Civil War using primary source photographs. Click "Enter" to begin. Read all the captions!
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
This Library of Congress site covers many different topics within African American History
IHS Library page on African-American history
Documenting the American South
A huge collection of writings, both primary and secondary sources, from and about the American South from the beginning up to 1920. Created by the University of South Carolina.
2. Women in Huck Finn
Note: This is a really tough topic to find reliable sources written at high school level. Avoid "SparkNotes-type" sources and Prezis done by other high school students, and check reliability of all sources.
"The Other Dominant Gender in Huckleberry Finn"
Widow Douglas and how she may have been inspired by women in Twain's life (part of a project on Twain's life by an English professor at University of Virginia)
Same source for Miss Watson
3. Abolition and the Underground Railroad
Britannica-Abolition
History Channel-Abolition
Library of Congress-Abolition
Harvard University--Abolition and Women's Rights
National Geographic - Underground Railroad
PBS - Underground Railroad
National Parks Service - Underground Railroad
IHS Library page on African-American history
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
4. Civil War and Emancipation (1861-1865)
The Civil War --a good overview from a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Civil War battlefield sites
The Civil War (Britannica)
The Civil War (from a site for history teachers maintained by the University of Houston)
The Civil War (from a publisher of history magazines)
National Archives--photographs from the Civil War
IHS Library page on African-American history
Documenting the American South
A huge collection of writings, both primary and secondary sources, from and about the American South from the beginning up to 1920. Created by the University of South Carolina.
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
5. Life for African-Americans in the Reconstruction-Era South (1865-1877)
Reconstruction Era (after the Civil War)
Reconstruction (from a site for history teachers maintained by the University of Houston)
Documenting the American South
A huge collection of writings, both primary and secondary sources, from and about the American South from the beginning up to 1920. Created by the University of South Carolina.
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
6. Jim Crow Laws
Slavery was over, but states responded by passing "Jim Crow" laws, laws which segregated African-Americans and kept them from gaining education and political power.
Jim Crow Laws--Smithsonian, Washington D.C.
PBS--American Experience, Jim Crow Laws page
PBS--Narratives from real people during the Jim Crow era
Redlining: The Jim Crow Laws of the North (PBS video)
The above video explains how, even though the North didn't have the same Jim Crow laws the South did, racist housing policies in the North discriminated against African-Americans and accomplished a lot of the same harms.
Georgetown Law School--Jim Crow Laws
Virginia Commonwealth University--Jim Crow Laws
64 Parishes Magazine--Jim Crow Laws
64 Parishes is a magazine about Louisiana history and culture funded by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
IHS Library page on African-American history
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
7. "Separate but Equal" doctrine: Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education
IHS Library page on African-American history
Cornell Law School --Plessy
History Channel--Plessy
Oyez (a helpful Supreme Court website) --Plessy
Oyez--Brown v. Board
Britannica --Plessy
Britannica--Brown
History Channel--Brown
U.S. Courts--Brown
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
8. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA, 1916
IHS Library page on African-American history
BBC History--Marcus Garvey
Britannica--UNIA
Documenting the American South
A huge collection of writings, both primary and secondary sources, from and about the American South from the beginning up to 1920. Created by the University of South Carolina.
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
9. Harlem Renaissance, 1920s, including poetry
10. African-American music up through the 1940s
From the National Park Service
PBS "The Devil's Music: 1920s Jazz"
The Blues (PBS)
Blues Music (Britannica)
ProjectMusicWorks History of Gospel
KQED: Article about white artists stealing music from Black artists w/o giving credit
11. The Great Migration (1916-1970)
Great Migration from the perspective of Chicago, one of the most important cities to which people migrated
12. The antebellum South and prevailing attitudes towards African-Americans
Library of Congress--Free Blacks in the Antebellum South
Free Blacks in Antebellum Mississippi
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
13.African–Americans during WWII (1941 -1945)
National WWII Museum: African-American Experience in WWII
Fabulous page about the African-American experience in WWII from the WWII Museum in New Orleans
History Channel: Discrimination against Black soldiers at home and abroad
IHS Library page on African-American history
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
14.African-American religious life and the African-American missionary movement in Africa (1900-1940s)
African-American Christianity part 1 --up to the Civil War
Part 2--Civil War to Great Migration
African-American Spirituals (more about this particular type of religious song)
Harvard University--History of African-American Christianity
Video: What is African-American Religion? --American Historical Association and Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture (this is a video of a lecture series from a history conference, some of it is really advanced and hard to understand. Intro ends at 11 minutes and 3 seconds, it's boring and not informative so you can just skip to that part)
Pew Research--statistics about African-Americans and religion today (shows the impact of religion on African-American culture)
Nation of Islam (Britannica)
American Memory (various time periods)
This giant project from the Library of Congress collects primary sources in many forms (text, photos, videos, art, etc) about all subjects of American History. This is their African-American history page. Lots of primary sources.
15. Treatment of African-American Slaves in the south from the moment slaves were first brought to America
See topic #1 for links
16.Mark Twain's life and his views towards African-Americans and slavery
Twain's views of slavery (specific page from same source as above)
Mark Twain House (museum based on Mark Twain's life)--Biography page
This website is run by the estate of the author
This site also has a video you can watch
This page focuses on something you might not have known about Twain, that he published a really popular biography of President Grant.
If you have a public library card number, you can log into this huge biography database and find tons of information on Mark Twain!
17.Huck's vernacular/how people spoke in the south
PBS--this article explains how Twain popularized vernacular American English during a time when most American writers were still using British English
"Southern Literature" --an academic journal article about how Twain was inspired by both Black and White speech patterns and music in the South
18.Edward Windsor Kemble’s illustrations from the first edition of Huckleberry Finn. How does Kemble depict Jim and how do these images reinforce racist images?
Edward Windsor Kemble--a basic bio from the Norman Rockwell Museum. Good page to start on.
University of Virginia--these pages, by an English professor at University of Virginia, discusses the way Twain depicts Jim and Kemble's illustrations. (Content warning: Racist images and racial slurs)
More on Kemble's racist depictions of African-Americans
Library of Congress--a Kemble drawing of Huck, for comparison
Extra topics: Huck Finn Critical Reception, Book Banning:
History of reactions to Huck Finn (KQED)
A TIME magazine article about the history of censorship of books, the first page is about Huck Finn
Huck Finn's History of Censorship
This page has the transcript of a talk made by a St. Mary's College of Maryland professor about the history of censorship of Huck Finn.
This page deals with the first time the book was banned, one year after its release (1885) by the Concord (Massachusetts) Public Library.
News article about a challenge to Huck Finn in 2004 in Renton, WA
Cherry Hill: How one school district decided to teach Huck differently (1995)
Imaging Slavery in Mark Twain's books
This University of Virginia professor has collected illustrations of Jim from different editions of the novel 1885-1985--how is Jim depicted? As a slave? A person? A stereotype? Very interesting!:
This English professor at the University of Toronto has collected some reviews about Mark Twain's work from 1885 (the year after Huck was published) to 1896).
History of reactions to Huck Finn (KQED)
