Facilities and resources

We have a deep history in American Studies, which has resulted in financial support from one of the biggest foundations in the USA.

The University of Manchester Library has benefited from the institution's long history of scholarship in American Studies, and has received financial support from institutions like the Rockefeller Foundation and the US Embassy.

The library itself is one of only five National Research Libraries. With more than 4 million printed books and manuscripts, over 41,000 electronic journals and 500,000 electronic books, as well as several hundred databases, the library is one of the best-resourced academic libraries in the country.

Woman working at desk in library

The University of Manchester Library

Discover one of the largest university libraries in the country.
Students walking on the library stairs

The John Rylands Library

Visit one of the world's finest collections of rare books and manuscripts.
The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre

The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre

The centre offers outstanding resources for research in African American history and culture.

 

Library resources

There are so many resources relevant to American Studies available at the campus university library and at the John Rylands Library Deansgate. These include:

  • Stapleton Manuscripts (the history of the Leeward Islands in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries)
  • Brooke of Mere Muniments (Antiguan slave plantations in the early nineteenth century)
  • Thomas Coke Papers (missionary endeavours in colonial British America)
  • Raymond Anti-Slavery Collection
  • The Claude A. Barnett (Associated Negro Press) Papers
  • The African American Experience Database
  • Nineteenth Century US Newspapers Database
  • Voyages and Travel Collection
  • Manchester Geographical Society Collection
  • numerous sources on the global/transatlantic textile industry
  • Sixsmith collection (Walt Whitman) and the Walt Whitman book collection (cf. also the archive of the Bolton Whitman Fellowship)
  • Wallace Stevens Collection
  • Upton Sinclair Collection
  • Christian Brethren Archive (the theological foundations of contemporary American pre-millenialism)

AV equipment

We have our own film library, equipped with brand new audio-visual facilities for postgraduate use and a growing collection of films, with particular strengths in American politics, the African American experience, and the American South.

Research seminar

We also run a dedicated research seminar series, Critical MASS, in which postgraduates actively participate.

Using our cultural assets for your studies

Loading