Historical Collections

Independent, non-profit organization affiliated with Duke University that focuses on cultivating new talent in the documentary field. The center maintains four galleries of revolving exhibitions that attract students of all ages from around the country.
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A unique collection of historical images and teacher resources documenting life in post-Civil War Durham.
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Foremost library and archives forest and conservation history materials in the world, including books, periodicals, maps, news clippings, photographs, and searchable databases.
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Collection of rare books and medical artifacts that capture the history and practice of medicine over the centuries.
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N.C. Central University's main library serves as a repository for federal documents, maps, and microfilm, as well as Genealogical resources. The library's Treasure Room preserves many primary materials on African-American life and culture.
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Research Center seeks to collect, preserve, and promote the use of library materials bearing on the history of Africa and people of African descent.
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Named after the “great lady of Jazz,” pianist, composer, and teacher Mary Lou Williams, who was artist-in-residence at Duke University from 1977–81. The purpose of the Center for Black Culture, which opened in 1983, is to preserve and enhance black culture, promote interracial understanding, and sponsor programs and events on black art, history, and literature.
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The Museum of Durham History is coming soon! For the latest information on current programs and progress on its development, visit www.museumofdurhamhistory.com.
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History Beneath Our Feet, a project of the Museum of Durham History, is a unique online "Gazetteer" that tells the human side of Durham's compelling past through lively stories and images. Focusing on the Downtown Historic District and Hayti/Fayetteville Street corridor, the project collects information about the people for whom Durham's streets and schools were named and their contributions to the area's history.
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Extensive records of Durham's and North Carolina's past through historical documents, maps, records, and photographic archives, as well as printed local history and Genealogy resources.
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Open Durham is a website unlike any other in the US as it offers a window onto Durham's past through images and historical essay by address and landmark.
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Turn-of-the-century country store and doctor's office/pharmacy featuring displays of mercantile and pharmaceutical Americana and tobacco marketing memorabilia.
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America's seventh-largest private university library houses several thousand rare and unique materials, including maps, photographs, films, broadsides, Confederate prints, ancient clay tablets, manuscripts, and books printed prior to 1501. Houses many Genealogy resources, including local histories and published family genealogies.
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Collection of African-American cultural artifacts, history, and literature named for Warren’s daughter. The second African-American library in North Carolina, it was originally established in 1913 in the basement of the old White Rock Baptist Church.
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Collection of over 500 rare and historic musical instruments found nowhere else in the Southeast, including instruments from around the world dating from the time of Mozart and Beethoven.
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With Laura Drey's photographs, the Durham County Library depicts a historic time, Liggett & Myers's last year in Durham, and the complicated process of manufacturing cigarettes--an industry vital to Durham's history--in a web exhibit that chronicles the end of an era.
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Historic low brass musical instrument collection displaying over 250 vintage instruments. Tours by appointment only, call for more information.
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