Special Collections

A repository for materials related to Cape Verde and its American connection. It includes books, newspapers, clippings, pamphlets, maps, photographs, and personal papers relating to Cape Verdean history and culture. It is especially strong in materials on Cape Verdean Americans.  

Collection includes 35mm slides from photographs taken by David Baxter of Cape Verde spanning from 1980 to 1989.

Online content:

• Digitized photographs in DigitalCommons@RIC and Artstor

Clippings, articles and printed material​ on Cape Verdean history and culture collected by Eva Coombs (1924-2010). Coombs was born in New Bedford, MA to Alfred and Maria Pina. She lived in Philadelphia, PA for 35 years, where she worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

Collection includes postcards of Cape Verde.

Online content:

• Digitized postcards in DigitalCommons@RIC and Artstor

Books:

• Browse in the Adams Library catalog

Collection includes materials from the Cape Verdean Oral History Project, which began in 1972 under the auspices of the Rhode Island Department of State Library Services. It was the second program of its kind undertaken by the RIDSLS, and it was conducted by Alberto Torres Pereira, a Cape Verdean historian, linguist and writer.​

Online content:

• Digitized oral history interviews in DigitalCommons@RIC

One of the items in this collection is a handwritten cookbook by Eduardo da Graça, who emigrated from Cape Verde to the United States in 1925. He worked as a chef at the Minden Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, and his cookbook has been digitized.

Online content:

• Digitized, translated and transcribed cookbook in DigitalCommons@RIC
• Edited version the the cookbook, All American Recipes: A Selection of Eduardo da Graça Recipes​ in DigitalCommons@RIC