Areas of particular strength include the Civil War, Methodism, Civil Rights (with a particular focus on Civil Rights and the Left; and the role of women in the Civil Rights struggle), journalism, women’s lives and work, and Jewish history and culture. Manuscript collections of note include the Keith M. Read Confederate collection and the papers of Methodist leaders John Wesley and Warren Candler; of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists Ralph McGill and Claude Sitton; of women’s activists including Josephine Wilkins, Frances Pauley, Constance Curry and Joan Browning; of political and civic leaders including William B. Hartsfield, Sam Nunn and Morris Abram; of business leaders and philanthropists Asa Candler and Robert W. Woodruff; and of figures central to Southern Jewish history, such as Rabbi Jacob Rothschild. The library is actively developing collections of personal papers and archives documenting the post-civil rights transformation of Atlanta and corresponding shifts in the goals and aspirations of African Americans in politics, business, housing, education, social justice, and other arenas. MARBL continues to build its holdings of books printed in the South, with the J. Durelle Boles Collection of Southern Imprints adding significant strength in this area.

Please see the following subject guides for information concerning additional collections: African American History and Culture, Atlanta, Civil Rights, Civil War, Jewish Studies, Methodist History, and Women’s History.