The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's digital collections include manuscripts, maps, photographs, recorded conversations, digital exhibitions, and more.
 
Over 1,000 collections reside on The New York Public Library's web portal and over 300 recorded programs are located on the Center’s Livestream channel.

Can't decide which collections or discussions to explore first?

Tammi Lawson, curator of the Art and Artifacts Division, shares her pick.

Overview: The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Collection consists of works on paper, primarily lithographs, etchings, drawings and paintings created between 1935-1943. The program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression created paying jobs for artists. The entire WPA has been digitized and is accessible to the public, researchers can enjoy a variety of the work by artists such as Charles Alston, Dan Rico, Riva Helfond, and Nan Lurie and subjects such as city scenes, everyday life, and racial and socio-political themes.

Why: “Sculptor Augusta Savage was the director of the Harlem Community Art Center, the model for art programs for the WPA across the country," Lawson said. "Augusta's Harlem Community Art center enrolled 1,500 students. She employed several artists who got their start under her instruction, both as artists and then as art administrators. Charles Alston, her assistant director, later went on to be director of the Mural Project at Harlem Hospital and took a young Jacob Lawrence with him as his assistant.”

To see more online materials from the Art and Artifacts Division, visit NYPL’s Digital Collections.

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