The Atlanta University Publications was a numbered series of monographs published by Atlanta University, with text and other content drawn from information presented at the annual Conferences for the Study of Negro Problems. As University president Horace Bumstead explained the series' origins: "One was the inauguration, for the first time in any American college, of a thoroughly scientific study of the conditions of Negro life, covering all its most important phases, and resulting in a score of annual Atlanta University Publications, conceded to be the highest authority" (quoted in Morris 91). Gathering speeches, studies, and other data from that annual event, the university issued these groundbreaking sociological annuals until 1917 when publication was halted for financial reasons. Taken as a whole, the Atlanta University series presented the most comprehensive sociological study of Black America available at the time, and covered topics pertaining to African American health, economics, culture, discrimination, education, family life, and the like. In his autobiography, Du Bois (who edited most of the volumes and contributed much of the text) wrote of the series' importance: "For 13 years we poured forth a series of studies; limited, incomplete, only partially conclusive, and yet so much better done than any other attempt of the sort in the nation that they gained attention throughout the world."

This installment includes works by Frederick H. Means ("A Review of the Atlanta University Conferences and Social Studies"), Felix von Luschan ("Anthropological View of Race"), Franklin P. Mall ("Anatomical Characters of the Human Brain"), R.S. Woodworth ("Racial Differences in Mental Traits"), W.I. Thomas ("The Mind of the Savage"), Franz Boas ("Old African Civilizations" and "Race Problems in the United States"), and Alexander F. Chamberlain ("The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization").

All titles in this series are now scarce, with most copies either purchased for libraries or discarded, and are rare in this condition. A beautiful example from this pioneering scholarly project.

Read more: Morris, The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology.