The Manuscripts Division contains primarily manuscript material, ranging from the papers of a particular individual to government agencies to everything in between. This means that in addition to manuscript material, within a collection you may also encounter photographs, maps, and microfilmed materials.
The history of collecting at the Library of Congress is complex, but in the Manuscript Division it has particularly guided the way collections are organized. As a result, the vast majority of collections are organized according to an individual's papers, such as legislators, anthropologists, researchers, presidents etc. Other forms of collection organization is by government branches or departments, as well as government projects and legislation. It is important to keep this in mind when searching for materials, as Native related materials will likely not be obvious and can often be hard to locate, even within a particular collection.
The best place to start your research is the online catalog. Combined with the collecting history of the Manuscripts Division and the collections being large and often unwieldy in both size and scope, very little Native American material is organized and arranged by culture group. Therefore, we recommend starting with the following search terms as there is a good chance they will yield at least some results: “Indians of North America;” Tribal community or culture group; senators or U.S. representatives that may have had direct contact with, or corresponded with, tribal representatives, tribal nations, and tribal communities; Indian agents; geographic region or geographic location; historical events.
Given these broad search terms, you will often have to comb through finding aids or description summaries (if robust enough) to determine if the collection has relevant – or potentially relevant - materials. Most collection descriptions and summaries will provide a broad overview of the collection and possibly some historical context that may be of use, but will most likely not include specific details that you may be looking for.
However, searching by finding aid tends to produce a more narrow, and thus more relevant, set of results. To limit finding aid searches to Manuscript division material only, under the “Within Library of Congress Collection” dropdown menu select “Manuscripts” [add in screenshot]
In addition to the online catalog, the Manuscripts Division also has a variety of resources available to researchers, both online and in the reading room. As with all archival repositories, the reference archivists are an incredibly helpful resource, as well as a great first step in initiating contact. In the Manuscripts Division, Barbara Bair is the recommended reference archivist contact. She is not only the Native American specialist but also has a wealth of knowledge about the collections and their history and has worked with numerous tribal communities over the years.
Some resources are only available to researchers when they are on-site, including the Library of Congress’ subscription to online databases such as NARA, Ancestry, Haithi Trus, and Gale Indigenous Library; viewing a physical copy of a finding aid from the file cabinets in the reading room, and using the reading room’s microfilm viewing screens. Perhaps the most notable resource the Manuscripts Division reading room offers is access to an overhead scanner, which can produce high quality and high resolution images of materials at no cost to researchers.
While the Manuscripts Division does welcome communication and collaboration with tribal communities, sharing feedback here isn’t always straightforward. We recommend contacting Barabara Bair directly. Please feel free to share any corrections, misattributions, or cultural knowledge with Barbara. She will be sure to take note of the information and will talk with other staff and catalogers as needed.