Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to African Americans and maritime history.
It highlights holdings in the following areas:
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
Black Jacks : African American Seamen in the Age of Sail by W. Jeffrey Bolster
Black Hands, White Sails : the Story of African-American Whalers by Fredrick McKissack
Captain William Thomas Shorey and Shorey Street by Peter Thomas Conmy
Black Odyssey : the Seafaring Traditions of Afro-Americans by James Barker Farr
Black Men of the Sea by Michael Cohn
The Golden Thirteen : Recollections of the First Black Naval Officers by Paul Stillwell
Better Than Good, a Black Sailor's War, 1943-1945 by Adolph W. Newton
Selected Archival Collections
Lasartemay Family Papers. Eugene Pasqual Lasartemay (1903-1993) was born on May 17, 1903 to Ana Eglesia Adeline Torres de Lasarte and Patricio Lasarte in Kehaha, Kauai, Hawaii. After attending public school in Honolulu, Hawaii, he graduated from Dobie’s Engineering College in San Francisco, California and went on to work as a seaman with the Matson Navigational Company between 1923-1939. In 1937, he earned a First Assistant Engineer’s license, becoming the first licensed Black marine engineer to sail from the Port of San Francisco.
Ruth Beckford Papers. Includes an oral history interview with Albert Butler discussing Capt. William T. Shorey (1859-1919) and Victoria Shorey (1898-1971).
Royal E. Towns Papers. Includes photographs of Capt. William T. Shorey (1859-1919) and Julia Ann Shorey (1865-1944).
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Includes unpublished research on Capt. William T. Shorey (1859-1919) and Julia Ann Shorey (1865-1944).
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Photograph Collection. Includes portraits of Capt. William T. Shorey (1859-1919), Julia Ann Shorey (1865-1944), and Zenobia Pearl Shorey (1888-1908), photographs of the Shorey home at 1782 8th St., and a reproduction of William T. Shorey's United States Department of Commerce Steamboat Inspection Service license.
Harold Thaxter Lumsden Collection. In 1916, Harold Thaxter Lumsden (1899-1996) went to sea as a ship steward surviving the sinking of two merchant vessels by German U-boats before settling first in Baltimore and then in San Francisco in 1921. Beginning in the 1930s, Lumsden worked as a labor organizer for Union Local 261, unionizing workers at Hamilton Field in 1933 and shipyard workers at Bethlehem Shipyards in Alameda and Hunters Point Naval Shipyards in San Francisco, and as a business agent with Shipyard Laborers Local #886 during World War II.
Lawrence P. Crouchett Papers. Includes research notes on Black maritime history dated 1983.
Louis J. Avelino Papers. Includes an untitled manuscript of the recollections of African American longshoreman Len Greer during the San Francisco maritime strike of 1934.
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
