Datasets, that is, digital collections of related information, and data visualizations are really crucial ways for understanding the circulation of African American short stories and black literature in general. Calculating the number of unique stories and the many reprints allow us to survey how editors collectively shaped canonical histories. While conventional analog approaches such as standard bibliographies have and remain important, we can further advance African American literary studies by taking fuller advantage of digital tools and datasets, which greatly assist in exploring and quantifying multifaceted publishing histories.