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This accession comprises teaching and research files, writings, correspondence, and program files documenting David Brion Davis's work as a historian of slavery and abolition in the western world and professor of history at Yale University. The teaching files document Davis's teaching activities and lectures at Yale University and other educational institutions. Writings document Davis's monographs and short writings, particularly his essays and reviews for the New York Review of Books, as well as scholarly and popular writings of others that were sent to Davis for review or comment. Correspondence primarily documents Davis's professional and research activities, and correspondence is also present throughout the research files, writings, and program files groupings. Program files include material documenting conferences Davis attended and contributed to and activities Davis undertook in the professional organizations to which he belonged. The program files also document Davis's activities as founding director of Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and as a Yale history professor working with researchers, undergraduate students, and graduate students at the university. The accession also contains Davis's personal papers, which document his early academic work as a student at Dartmouth College and Harvard University, his written reflections on his life and work, and his professional activities and retirement.