Developed with the guidance of African American librarians and subject specialists, The American Mosaic: The African American Experience (AAE) is the widest ranging and easiest-to-use online database collection on African American history and culture.
The African American experience encompasses the contributions of myriad individuals from the black community who have achieved success in the arts, science, business, the military, and in politics as well as nameless others that endured the travails of slavery and institutionalized discrimination. A collection that taps a tremendous variety of sources is required to cover a topic of this magnitude and the importance to understanding African American history and its relation to greater U.S. history.
The American Mosaic: The African American Experience is the definitive electronic research tool for African American history and culture. Now benefiting from improved search functions and a simpler, more consistent learning platform, this ever-expanding collection provides the highest-level of scholarship in the field. This database meets two primary design goals: to provide reliable information from expert contributors; and to allow African Americans to illustrate their experiences through a wealth of primary sources.
Drawing on multiple titles and assembled with the guidance of leading librarians, AAE gives voice to the African American experience from its African origins to the present day. This vast and accessible database covers history, biographies, literature, arts, music, popular culture, folklore, business, slavery, the struggle for civil rights, politics, sports, education, science, medicine, and other themes.
The Analyze sections are specifically designed to initiate critical thinking and provide instructors with everything needed for lively, historical inquiry lessons. And like all of ABC-CLIO's electronic products, The African American Experience is regularly updated with new content, additional documents, and innovative multimedia to ensure that it continues to be the most active and dynamic resource available.
Features
• Contains over 250 primary documents, including slave narratives, speeches, court cases, quotations, advertisements, statistics, and other documentation
• Exclusive Analyze sections pose complex questions and offer various viewpoints on each controversy
• Provides Era Stories directly tied to associated primary source documents,
images, and other classroom resources
• Includes over 1,500 photographs, maps, and other images
Highlights
• Offers the widest-ranging, easiest-to-use online collection on African American life ever assembled
• Covers the experiences of African Americans in the United States from their first arrival in the Americas through to the present day, and includes material on African origins
• Facilitates in-depth research for students at all levels to support courses in history, literature, political science, art, music, and other research fields
• Makes it easy for students to consult an extensive array of primary source materials,
including the slave narratives and other firsthand accounts, in both print and audio formats
Reviews
"This is a comprehensive research database that provides reliable information on African American life, history, and culture. Users can browse a wide range of subject areas, from 'Arts and Entertainment' and 'Business and Labor' to 'Sports' and 'Women.' The Resources section includes the following headings: title list, timeline, image index, primary source index, landmark documents, slave narratives, classic texts, and audio files. Altogether there are over 5,000 primary documents provided here, including manuscripts, speeches, court cases, and statistics, as well as a timeline that can be searched by century, decade, or keyword. Lesson plans are included that tie directly to the primary resources and other classroom resources. Content includes the history of blacks in American from the first arrival through the present day and includes some information on African origins. It is worthwhile for libraries at the high school and university level for both its historical and cultural content."—ARBA
"This comprehensive, in-depth Web resource presents an uncluttered, easy-to-use, and appealing online research database....Designed for users in high school through adult, the intuitive interface and lack of advertising and clutter make this database a valuable curriculum support especially for those schools with a strong Black-American curriculum. Recommended."—Library Media Connection
"Both databases are intended for a wide audience, ranging from the middle-school student to teachers and researchers. Which to choose if your library can't afford both? Apart from the relative merits of (and your preferences for) the core encyclopedias on which they are based, The African American Experience offers a more impressive array of different kinds of data, and it also has a more well-developed classroom area.' "—Booklist-Reference Books Bulletin
"This database provides a unique opportunity for students to easily investigate and explore the rich history and heritage of African American culture. ... Greenwood's African American Experience (AAE) database provides students with a clean, yet jazzy-looking home page that displays an easy-to-access list of contents to begin browsing. ...
'Students will find the AAE easy to use and informative for quick access to general topics of interest and as a primary source for research of in-depth subjects ranging from slavery to music, from business to politics. With a wide range of informational content and additional resources provided on the sides or each results page, students will easily locate not only the information that they need, but also perhaps information that they were not aware of until now.
'Teachers will be amazed at the specialized lesson plans that utilize the content of the database to creatively provide opportunities for instruction in either the high school or college classroom. ...
'Librarians will find that the AAE ‘drips’ with educational content for students and teachers at both the high school and the college levels. With information not generally found in most reference collections, this database is comparable to only a few specialized databases, and at a price that could not be reproduced by collection the individual resources.
'With school libraries in mind, Greenwood's African American Experience deserves an A+ for providing not only a uniquely specialized database filled with exceptional content but also quality resources to help teachers develop unique and thought-provoking lessons. ... This database paves the way for great opportunities in cultural studies at both the high school and college levels.'
"—School Library Journal
"[I]mpressively provides access in full or part to over 200 Greenwood reference and monographic titles relating to African American culture and history; it also includes 67 Negro University Press classic texts, the WPA slave narratives, and other primary documents....The strongest subject content is in history, literature, music, folklore, politics, civil rights, criminal justice, and biography. Quotations, images, audio files, and teacher lesson plans are available for many topics. The library subject specialists and university professors composing the advisory board have vast experience with African American reference materials and primary documents....The AAE database is reasonably priced for its coverage and would be useful for all academic libraries. Recommended. All levels."—Choice
"The inviting home screen offers both simple and advanced searches, a very sophisticated browse function, immediate access to a clearly identified set of primary source materials, the entire contents list, access to classroom resources, and very useful online help. Quick Search is where it should be: near screen top, on the left. There's an option for Advanced Search, but even better, there's the list of 15 Subjects ready for Browsing. The bonus here is the expanding menus that pop up as you mouse over the Subjects: they constitute an outline both of the database and of research topics....[t]he Primary Documents section was truly enthralling, including Antebellum Songs of the Underground Railroad, the text of The Black Man's Burden (1915) by William H. Holtzclaw and Booker T. Washington, the 1998 edition of African American Quotations , and recorded interviews of former slaves from the 1930s and 1940s....For school and public libraries, it's an 11 for its extraordinary combination of content and design. For academic libraries, it gets a 10-still outstanding but with not quite as much in-depth research content as the Oxford product. Frankly, it would be a boon if the two files were combined, but I'd serve them up the Greenwood way....The African American Experience is enthusiastically recommended for school and public libraries and strongly recommended for academic institutions."—Library Journal
"I recently reviewed the Oxford African American Studies Center (LJ 7/06). It merited an unprecedented 11 (out of ten) and was recommended for all libraries. AAE deserves a similar rating, within certain contexts. For school and public libraries, it's an 11 for its extraordinary combination of content and design. For academic libraries, it gets a 10 … Frankly, it would be a boon if the two files were combined, but I'd serve them up the Greenwood way. ...The Bottom Line: The African American Experience is enthusiastically recommended for school and public libraries and strongly recommended for academic institutions.' "—Library Journal
"The African American Experience (AAE) is a compilation of more than 300 of the publisher's relevant print publications, including monographs, encyclopedias and dictionaries, and primary sources.... Content is very good. Thousands of biographical entries, probably AAE's strongest feature, cover earliest times to the twenty-first century and range in length from short paragraphs to encyclopedic treatment. But there are also topical entries in the areas of arts and literature, culture, history and politics, religion, sociology and more. The full text of letters and speeches from Kennedy, King, and others; audio files with songs and interviews of former slaves; and transcripts of thousands of slave narratives add immeasurably to our understanding of related encyclopedia entries.... The African American Experience is appropriate for libraries serving middle- and high-school through adult patrons. Content is very rich.' "—Booklist-Reference Books Bulletin
"With a wealth of searchable slave narratives, over 1800+ images, 200+ vetted web links, and 4,500 primary documents-all within a single resource-this database provides a unique opportunity for students to easily investigate and explore the rich history and heritage of African American culture....Alongside the depth of information provided within the database, African American Experience also contains over 88 lesson plans compiled by education and subject experts. These lessons integrate primary documents, introductory essays, and other background materials into easy-to-use and thought-provoking classroom activities for high school students....Greenwood's African American Experience deserves an A+ for providing not only a uniquely specialized database filled with exceptional content but also quality resources to help teachers develop unique and thought-provoking lessons."—School Library Journal
