Hidden Collections Registry
Item set
Title
Hidden Collections Registry
Description
CLIR Hidden Collections and Recordings at Risk grant exerpts
Items
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From DNA to Dinosaurs: The Globalization of Science in America and the Development of a University Natural History Museum
The goal of this project was to catalog 1300 linear feet (lf) and 200 cubic feet (cf) of archival materials and special collections that document the early history of science at Yale and in North America. The Peabody Museum holdings include the following exemplary materials, among others: correspondence, notes, and sketches from Benjamin Silliman (Yale's first natural history professor; 26 lf) and James D. Dana (Yale's first professor of Geology; 50 cf); field notes, maps, glass negatives, and photographs from Yale Anthropology Professors Irving (Ben) Rouse (73 lf), Michael Coe (59 lf), T. Mitchell Prudden (27 lf), and William K. Simpson (28 lf); log books, fields notes, correspondence and original illustrations documenting the pioneering explorations of the western North Atlantic, Caribbean, tropical Pacific and Seychelles by Addison E. Verrill, F.H. Bradley, S.C. Ball, Henry P. Bingham, Willard D. Hartman and C. L. Remington(150 cf); archives of the research and collecting programs of Othniel Charles Marsh, encompassing field notes, diaries, annotated print maps, sketch maps of fossil localities, drawings, and related materials produced by Marsh and colleagues from 1867 to 1899 (400 lf). Other hidden collections at Peabody include those of early American naturalists: paintings and sculptures by Arthur Lakes; oil paintings of South American birds by Francis Lee Jaques; and sketches, line drawings and paintings by James Perry Wilson and Rudolph Zallinger (41 lf). -
Revealing the history of wildlife conservation through the hidden archives at the Wildlife Conservation Society (New York Zoological Society)
As the forerunner of the wildlife conservation movement in the United States, WCS differs from contemporary zoos due to our commitment to scientific research since inception. WCS conservationists such as William Beebe and inspirational leaders such as Fairfield Osborn and William Hornaday have left an indelible mark on both the zoological and conservation communities, as well as a treasure trove of historical artifacts at WCS. Our archives range from detailed records, paintings, and drawings from terrestrial and oceanographic expeditions (1900-1948); to correspondence and clippings related to the American Bison Society (1905-1912); to necropsy reports (1901-1970); to photographs of landmarks and visitors to our parks (e.g., Helen Keller in 1923); to correspondence from Theodore Roosevelt to the fourth president of NYZS, Madison Grant (1899-1900). Documenting our activities at our five institutions within New York City (the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, and Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens zoos), our archives describe in detail the management of animals, the response of visitors, and the effectiveness of education programs. With regard to field studies in every part of the world, our archives chronicle the relationship between animals and their environments, the founding of national parks and wildlife reserves, and legislation affecting the future of wildlife. -
Whitney Museum of American Art - Film and Video Archives 1960s to 2010
This entire collection is 243 linear feet and reflects the history of American Film and Video as an art form and includes: (1) Film + Video Artist Files--paper materials kept on individual artists, artist collectives, and film companies that were maintained in conjunction with the film and video department's exhibitions: 30 linear feet. (2) The Film + Video Image Files--visual materials kept on individual artists, exhibitions, film companies, and artist collectives, project or exhibition documentation, photographs and film stills, other rare ephemera: 12 linear feet. (3) General files-- Film & Video curatorial records, exhibition, misc. files: 41 linear feet including: Film and video documentation / records of: American Film & Video Series (1970-1998); New American Film & Video Series (1999-2010); Biennials (1979-2010); Performing Arts Program held at at satellite locations, such as Equitable, Altria, Philip Morris, and Museum affiliates (1970-2010); Education programs, e.g. various Lecture Series, Programs for Docents, Curators' Symposium, Teachers' Courses, Poetry Readings (1960-2010); Adult and public programs, e.g. Seminars with Artists; Initial Public Offerings; Architecture Dialogues; Conversations on Art; Interviews with Artists (1960-2010); and the Media Collection--includes 35 mm, 16 mm and 8 mm film reels, video and beta tapes, audio recordings, laser discs, etc.: 140 linear feet. -
Exposing Unknown Boston Local TV News Collections
The Boston Local TV News project is a collaboration of 4 institutions and their local tv news collections - the Boston Public Library (BPL), Northeast Historic Film (NHF), WGBH, and Cambridge Community TV (CCTV)- to provide a catalog of 40 years of Boston news history. The materials to be catalogued are the collections of the BPL and NHF. These 2 collections include materials from the early 1960 to the 1980’s. Local news broadcasts spanning these years reflect the issues and concerns of many communities across the nation: politics both local and national, poverty, antiwar protests, affirmative action, women’s rights, anti-apartheid activity, environmental awakening, changes in health care, and new medical advances. Local sports coverage spotlights the thoughts and reactions of players, coaches and fans. The BPL holds an estimate of 2,230 cans of 16 mm film and about 300 videotapes on varying formats. These materials are from the commercial TV station WHDH, a CBS and ABC affiliate and UPN 38, an independent local Boston station. The NHF collection is from the station WCVB, an ABC affiliate. It holds an estimate of 4,000 cans of 16 mm. film and over 500 videotapes of major stories considered to be of long-term importance. From March 1972 through 1979, the station provided more local programming than any other commercial station in the US. Community affairs and news were given a priority and the result was wide ranging and in-depth coverage of Greater Boston and New England. -
Maryland Folklife Archives
The Maryland Folklife Archives are a decentralized collection of affiliated materials, principally ethnographic documentation of the cultural practices and lifeways of both long-established and newly arrived individuals and communities across Maryland and the surrounding region. The materials are located in thirteen partner institutions (Appendix A) throughout Maryland and in Washington, DC and were created over the last five decades (1960-present) by folklorists and fieldworkers associated with the Maryland Folklife Program (“Maryland Traditions”) in the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) and partner programs. The collection contains a significant amount of audio, visual, and paper documents. Topics are vast and varied, ranging over the occupational culture of Chesapeake Bay watermen, music of the Appalachian Migration to Maryland (1910-1960), African-American gospel music, Piedmont blues, equestrian traditions (including thoroughbred racing, ring jousting, foxhunting), Baltimore's street vendors, hunting and trapping traditions of the Eastern Shore and mountain Maryland, domestic material culture (quilting, hooked rugs, weaving, basket-weaving), vernacular architecture, the emergent traditions of immigrant communities, ethnic festivals, and culinary traditions. These materials were created to advance scholarship on Maryland's cultural and social history and to provide a lasting knowledge base of the region's cultural heritage for community members and the broader public. -
The Colonel Howard A. MacCord Collection
Col. Howard MacCord, Virginia's first State Archeologist, actively collected and saved materials about and related to archaeology. This collection includes not only formal publications (books and journals), but informal material such as field guides, museum exhibit guides, and pamphlets/brochures for historic properties open to the public. He also extensively collected reprints of articles from various publications. In addition, Col. MacCord communicated with every senior archaeologist in the region, as well as many archaeology students working in the Middle Atlantic. The MacCord Collection, therefore, contains copies of some of his correspondence and manuscript versions of publications sent to him for review and copies of theses and dissertations. Col. MacCord also regularly attended annual meetings of regional archaeology organizations and collected copies of presented, yet often further unpublished, research papers. These presented papers are sometimes the only record of research results. These materials encompass items that provide valuable information for archaeologists and historians, many of which are unlikely to be available from other sources. Not only does the collection therefore contain many materials that are not widely saved or available, but it also provides researchers with a unique opportunity to study these material as a cohesive whole, reflecting the changes and trends in 20th century archaeology and its cultural impact. -
Van Alen Institute Design Archive
Originally founded in 1894 as the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, Van Alen Institute (VAI) has accumulated a significant archive of historical design material documenting the development of late 19th and early 20th century architectural education and practice. VAI's institutional records date from 1893 to 1994 and comprise 254 linear feet of material. Records include the Institute's founding documents, correspondence, trustee and design jury meeting minutes, financial documents, design competition programs, publications, and scrapbooks. The archive includes material from major figures such as Richard Morris Hunt, Robert William Ware, Whitney Warren, William A. Boring, and William Van Alen. These records were identified in 2007 and remain virtually unknown to design researchers, educators, and the public. The archive also includes drawings and photographs dating from 1904 to 1994, among them 1,730 original architectural drawings, complemented by 67 remarkable drawings from the organization's early history that were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1980. Photographic material consists of over 200 albumen prints (1904-1908) and approximately 9,000 gelatin silver prints of student drawings. To date, VAI has completed preliminary processing and preservation of its visual material and cataloged one competition series, the Paris Prize in Architecture (616 original drawings and 891 photographs). The remaining 94% of the visual collection needs to be cataloged. -
The Forgotten Modern: USC's Hidden Mid-Century Architecture Collections
USC's archives provide extensive information about architects whose contributions to mid-century Southern California design are just beginning to be more fully recognized. The collections document historically significant commercial, residential, religious, and landscape projects by architects who shaped the distinctive look of L.A. at the height of its 1940-1990 building boom. Their work also influenced international design, vernacular modernism, and dramatic changes in the 20th-century built environment such as the growth of suburbs. The largest archives selected for Forgotten Modern are those of Edward H. Fickett (1916-1999), landscape architect Emmet L. Wemple (1921-1996), and Sidney Eisenshtat (1914-2005). These three archives offer nearly complete overviews of the architects' work and feature thousands of rolled and flat floor plans, sections, and elevations. Their project files include contracts, correspondence with clients, general and engineering specifications, geotechnical investigations, invoices, cost estimates, permits, and clippings. The collections preserve a wide variety of slides, photographic prints, and presentation drawings—most of which are finely rendered in color—as well as finish samples, artwork, and three-dimensional models. Forgotten Modern also includes papers and drawings of other mid-century Southern California architects, such as Tolbert Virgil Anthony, Samuel Lunden, Carl Maston, Cliff May, William Pereira, and Burnett C. Turner. -
Fry Collection of Italian History and Culture
The Fry Collection of Italian History and Culture has been assembled and donated by William F. “Jack” Fry, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It includes manuscripts and correspondence, broadsides, printed ephemera, periodicals, newspapers, and books from the early Renaissance through the 20th century. His collecting has emphasized what he calls micro-history, favoring documentation of everyday life. The largest category consists of materials from the period of Italian Fascism, illustrating, for example, Fascist propaganda, educational policies and practices, youth and women's activities, racial policies, Italian colonialism, and anti-Fascist opposition, including partisan activities in Italy during World War II. The next largest category, rich in correspondence, printed ephemera, and many official avvisi and manifestidocuments aspects of the Veneto from the 15th century through the 19th, with particular attention to the French and Austrian occupation of the Veneto in the 19th century. Other materials fall into categories assigned by the donor in lengthy notes: Italian religious practice and the Fascist regime, 20th-century Italian Communism, political culture in postwar Italy, documentation of Italian marshland reclamation, theater and music in Italy, the period immediately preceding the Fascist period, the Italian postal and telegraph service, and other rare books and manuscripts mainly from Italy (15th-20th century). -
Revealing An Architectural Drawing Heritage: Significant Northwest Architects
Architectural drawing collections documenting significant architects in the Northwest. (1) Carl Gould (1873-1939) attended Harvard & Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He worked for McKim, Mead & White & brought the academic eclectic approach west; founded UW School of Architecture. (2) Lionel Pries (1897-1968) studied at UC Berkeley & Univ. of Pennsylvania. Teaching at UW, he profoundly influenced students such as Minoru Yamasaki (World Trade Center) and A. Quincy Jones (innovative LA modern architect) & many others. (3) Elizabeth Ayer (1897-1987) 1st woman architect to graduate from UW & 1st woman architect registered in Washington. She integrated modernism with traditional forms. (4) John Graham Jr. (1908-1991) studied at UW & Yale. Gained international acclaim as a pioneer in the design of large-scale regional shopping centers & the Seattle Space Needle (1962 Seattle World's Fair). (5) Paul Kirk (1914-1995) studied under Lionel Pries & was influenced by Mies van der Rohe. A major force in Northwest Mid-century Modernism & the most widely published Seattle architect in national architecture journals. (6) Roberta Wightman (1912-2010) attended Cambridge University & studied landscape architecture at Univ. of Illinois. One of the first women to practice in the Northwest; she led efforts to gain professional recognition for landscape architects. (7) Wendell Lovett (1922-) studied at UW, & at MIT under Alvar Aalto; internationally published Northwest modern architect; taught at UW. -
Revealing Texas Collections of Comedias Sueltas
"Sueltas" is a generic term for plays published in Spain from the late seventeenth through the nineteenth century in small pamphlet formats. The Ransom Center owns 14,000 of these, mostly concentrated in the later part of this period. The collection was purchased in pieces, generally in collections of bound volumes. "Suelta" means "loose" in Spanish, and individual play titles were frequently bound together. Portions of the collection are partially, but minimally cataloged, although a card index and printed catalog (M.V. Boyer, The Texas Collection of Comedias Sueltas: A Descriptive Bibliography [Boston, 1978]) are available. Boyer's bibliography covers only about ten percent (1,119 separate plays) of the Ransom Center's collection, and only those titles published before 1834. Boyer describes the Texas collection as "one of the major collections of Spanish dramatic literature in suelta form in North America" (xxi). According to Boyer, approximately 10,000 dramatic sueltas remained uncataloged in the collection in 1978. Another portion of the collection is organized according to Boyer's bibliographical numbers. There is also a 36-drawer card catalog, which, again, describes only a portion of the collection. Texas A&M University recently acquired approximately 600 sueltas, that are partially cataloged and A&M staff agreed to the Ransom Center's proposal to include their materials in this project. -
University of South Florida Libraries Dime Novel Collection
The University of South Florida Tampa Library Special & Digital Collections Department proposes an eighteen-month project to make its hidden collection of approximately 8,000 dime novels, penny dreadfuls, and story papers available for research through an innovative collaboration between graduate students in American literature and library science. Comprised of what previous generations often considered disposable fiction from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century in England and America, the collection at USF features significant runs of titles from over 80 different series of dime novels, five and ten cent weeklies, and nickel backs. Some series, including “Pluck and Luck,” “Tip Top,” and the “New Tip Top Series,” are complete; others consist of extensive runs. The collection includes examples from across the genre's complete spectrum, featuring early prototypes of science fiction, westerns, school stories, detective yarns, sports stories, historical fiction, exploration adventures in the American west and around the world, and romances. Originally targeted at a youthful working class, dime novels now provide an avenue to study the development of popular reading material for young adults, popular culture, and the ways in which the dime novels' authors viewed themselves, their past, present, and future. -
Discovering the Sisters Stapp: The EMILIE BLACKMORE AND MARIE GRAHAM STAPP PAPERS
The preliminary finding aid provides an initial inventory of materials, including the following: a brief biographical sketch of Emilie Blackmore Stapp, an American children's author and philanthropist, and of her sister, Marie Graham Stapp; their extensive collection of lively correspondence and letters, published and unpublished manuscripts for children's stories in books, periodicals, and newspapers; original plays, illustrations and publicity materials; and, personal items, such as photographs of friends and notables, fragile scapbooks documenting Emilie Stapp's work by Stapp from 1904 through the time of her death in 1962. The Stapps lived in Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, and finally in Mississippi during a significant historical period, covering two world wars and the tumultuous Jim Crow era. A visionary woman, Emilie Blackmore Stapp possessed a moral certitude that rose above and beyond any provincial norm. Stapp recognized social injustice as evidenced by her personal commitment to better the lives of specific children who crossed her path in everyday life. As result of her support, a young newspaper boy, a "newsie," received a degree in law; and she supported a young African American girl to complete high school and attend Tuskegee Institute, earning a degree in education and later taught in an African American private school. Due to the hidden condition of this collection these stories are unknown to historians and other scholars. -
Promoting Research through Rare Book Cataloging Partnerships
The Culture Class Collection is the University of Pennsylvania’s original rare book collection and is the largest hidden collection in Penn’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML). It represents 15% of its rare book holdings and includes over 14,000 pieces of printed ephemera as well as 19,500 monographs and serials. 470 incunabula, some unrecorded in the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), number among the collection’s highlights. The collection’s greatest asset, however, is its diversity of content, particularly characteristic of the ephemera. Largely single or multi-sheet pamphlets and broadsides, bound and unbound, they include decrees, placards, chapbooks, song sheets, memorials, newsletters, sermons, and medical tracts. Marginalia and erasures in many items testify to their use and often provocative content. Censored, plagiarized, and pirated editions reveal that such present-day issues as intellectual property and freedom of expression have long been concerns of print culture. The Culture Class Collection, named for its idiosyncratic classification system, which groups works by cultural association, illustrates the breadth of Western intellectual and popular history from the first decades of printing. Electronic access will provide an easy portal to a remarkably broad scope of materials of value to scholars in the humanities, the social sciences, and even the physical sciences. -
The Pruitt and Shanks Photographic Collection: The Life of a Southern Region in 140,000 Images
A very large collection of photographic negatives produced by two studio/commercial photographers in Columbus (Lowndes County), Mississippi, and the surrounding area from the late 1920s into the 1970s. There are about 142,000 images, both studio portraits and images of events, scenes, and people taken outside the studio. There also are about 800 digital scans and about 1,000 prints made from these negatives. O.N. Pruitt, who produced the early images, sold his business to Calvin Shanks in 1960. Pruitt and Shanks were the trusted photographers of the community, white and black, taking pictures of many kinds for many purposes. They functioned as studio photographers and also as news photographers, police photographers, photojournalists, street photographers, and ever-available photographers-for-hire. Their images present the full range of community life: portraits, baptisms, work and street scenes, disasters, weddings, birthdays, diseases and injuries, dying people, dead people, funerals, executions, and lynchings. Pruitt and Shanks were competent, discerning photographers, each with an eye for lighting, framing, and choosing subjects. This work can be compared with that of other community photographers of the era, but this collection is distinguished by its size (it may be the largest extant archival photograph collection documenting a single Southern community), its range, and the fact that it captures the entire biracial and highly segregated population of the area. -
The Public's Right to Know: Cataloging the Hidden Collections of the University Libraries Public Reading Room on Nuclear Waste and Remediation
The Department of Energy/Freedom of Information Act (DOE/FOIA) collection is composed largely of regional DOE documents such as reports, testimonies, and previously requested FOIA documents. Items included are from the: Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project (UMTRA); Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP); Human Radiation Experiments; Final Occurrence Reports; Sandia National Laboratories Technical Reports; and Sandia National Laboratories South West Environment Impact Statements (SWEIS). The collection is dynamic and materials are added on an ad-hoc basis. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), a DOE funded laboratory, performs a wide variety of national security R&D energy and environmental technology research. The collection contains unclassified research materials generated by researchers and scientists at SNL and released for public review. The collection is dynamic and materials are added on an ad-hoc basis. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) safely disposes of the nation's defense-related transuranic radioactive waste. The collection consists of a variety of materials from the USEPA, NEPA, environmental monitoring, federal and New Mexico state regulations, transportation, the National Transuranic Waste (TRU) Program, nuclear safety and quality assurance and safety. The WIPP collection is dynamic and materials are added on an ad-hoc basis. -
Major Railroad Archival Collections
Major railroad archival collections at the Nebraska State Historical Society and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to be cataloged are as follows. Union Pacific Railroad Collection: Relates to all aspects of the Union Pacific Railroad Company and its business activities, including corporate, legal, and public relations; engineering; railroad construction; and locomotive design. Chicago Burlington and Quincy (CB&Q) Railroad--Lines West Collection: Includes specific field books, maps, drawings, and other materials from 1869-1950s relating to land development in Nebraska. Charles Kennedy Railroad Collection: Includes annual reports of most railroads across the United States, and state railroad commission reports from 1826-1980. Val Kuska Collection: Documents the CB&Q Railroad Company's efforts to attract settlers and improve agricultural practices in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. It also relates to rail traffic in the 1900s. Developed by a colonizing agenda and agricultural development agent for the CB&Q railroad. Among these collections are several thousand photographs, advertising posters, scrapbooks, and time tables. -
Immigrant and Ethnic Publishing and Print Project
Immigrant and Ethnic Publishing and Print Project (IEPPP) materials were published or collected by immigrants from 1890 to 2000. They were accepted by IHRC in clusters primarily from 1967 to 2000, in support of the IHRC's ethnic newspaper, serial, calendar, monograph and jubilee album holdings. Because of limited cataloging capacity and staffing, at time of donation these materials were boxed, shelved and described only by donor name, ethnic grouping, date received and genre. Most IEPPP materials date from 1910 to 1970. Donors include scholars of American immigration and ethnicity; publishers and immigrant libraries; and organizations and immigrants themselves. Many donors also provided archival collections to IHRC. Two pilot projects in 2010 helped us to estimate that items to be retained by IHRC will include 5% original and 20% copy cataloging -- with about 5% of the latter existing at fewer than 3 US institutions. About 10% of IEPPP is exceptionally rare. IHRC will select and catalog or describe print to be retained, provide a low-cost system for online access, and distribute historically significant duplicates or out-of-scope items to repositories capable of ensuring access. IEPPP prioritizes cataloging resources, integrates retained print into archival-like collections with finding aids, allows bibliographical control, and facilitates distribution of overage to other repositories to increase preservation and access options for rare materials. -
Developing a Collaborative Archive from the African Diaspora (CAAD)
Project materials document the history, culture, and experience of people from the African Diaspora most specifically in South Florida, the Caribbean, and relevant parts of Latin America from the 1600s to the present. All materials were acquired or donated to the University of Miami, The Black Archives History and Research Foundation of South Florida, and Florida Memorial Univerisity. This initial selection is based on established priorities such as lack of accessibility, scholar requests, and curriculum need. It should be noted that the CAAD will begin with materials from these three institutions and then add from other agencies through a process developed by the CAAD Steering Committee. Initially this projects will include books , maps, correspondence, and documents from the Libraries Caribbean collection, archives from the Pan Am Collection with records that reflect and document US "Pan-American" influence in political and economic relations, travel, immigration, major societal movements, hiring practices, and gender and racial discrimination, and achives chronicling the lives, careers, and activities of significant leaders and Civil Rights Activists in South Florida. Materials will also contain historical document from the Colored Town/Overtown Collection, one of the historically designated Black neighborhoods of Miami, and also the archives of Florida Memorial University a private coeducation four-year HBCU located in Miami Gardens, Florida. -
Improving Access to a Large Image Collection: The Baltimore News American Project
The unprocessed portion of the Baltimore News American (BNA) Collection at the University of Maryland, College Park, consists of 475 linear feet of biographical images. Accompanying the images are clipped newspaper captions, often glued or stapled to the back of the image, which contain additional descriptive information, as well as crucial dates. The biographical files are arranged alphabetically by last name. The 65,000 acetate negatives are arranged physically in two large groupings: subject and biographical. Basic descriptive information is located on the original negative sleeves, or, in cases where the negatives were rehoused, on those replacement sleeves. While there is some duplication of the print holdings in the negatives collection, a sampling has uncovered that more often than not, the negatives preserve unique images. The 300,000 images at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) campus are not described but cover similar topics and dates. -
Intellectual Acess to Audio Recordings of Northeast Folklore and Oral History
The Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History is perhaps the finest regional archive of its kind. Its collections of the traditional culture of Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada have no equal, either in the United States or Canada. In particular, NAFOH's strengths in documenting the occupational history and traditions of logging, farming, fishing, and other industries of this region make its collection of value well beyond the disciplines of folklife and oral history to include the subjects of ecology, environmental studies, cultural geography, labor studies, women's studies, ethnic studies, musicology, and many other areas of research. As a cross-border collection, this archive is one of the few to document the international relationships of traditional culture. One of the strongest features of this collection is the volume and quality of information dealing with the history of the lumber industries. With more than sixty accessions and 200 hours of interviews, and 1,000 photographs the series is one of the largest repositories of material on the daily life of the common woodsman and river-driver in the world. Some of this material has been published in several volumes of the Center's monograph series, Northeast Folklore, but the surface has barely been scratched. Other essential collections document coastal occupations, the lives of women and ethnic groups, especially Maine's Native American communities. -
SWIRL: Southern Women Innovators, Reformers, and Leaders
These collections reveal new information regarding the rich history of southern women leaders in health care, reform, and public policy in the 20th century. The materials--textual, oral, and visual--document and help explain the impact of Kentucky women on the advancement of southern life and culture. This project will make 171 cubic feet of archival materials and 228 oral history interviews available for research. The collections include the papers of: community activist, Hariett Drury Van Meter; political activist and newspaper editor, Anna Dudley McGinn Lilly; civic activist, Martha Jane Whiteside; women's rights activist, Diane Naser; humanitarian, Linda Neville; the records from the Ruth Beemans Graduate School of Midwifery; education reformer, Cora Wilson Stewart; the first woman elected to the Kentucky legislature, Mary Elliott Flanery; civil rights activist, Anne Braden; records from the Colored Orphan Industrial Home for the relief and benefit of orphans and aged women; and the records of the Lexington Gay and Lesbian Community. The oral histories supplement the archival collections and give voice to women from the American College of Nurse Midwives, women coalminers, women fighting for maternity care, the vote, and racial equity. Enhanced access to these collections will substantially impact the study of women and progressive movements in the upper south. -
Revealing Secrets: A Project to Provide Access to the Remarkable Literary Archives of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
As described on our project web-page, we propose arranging and describing 80 literary collections. The largest collections are the H.G. Wells papers, Carl Sandburg papers, and W. S. Merwin papers. For each of these authors we are the repository for the major collection of the author's personal papers. Additional extensive collections include the papers of James Jones (the author of _From Here to Eternity_), the authoritative collection of William Maxwell papers (author and longtime editor of the _New Yorker_), and the Edwin Rolfe papers (poet and member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War). Turning to the 19th century, we have manuscript materials documenting the life of Lewis Carroll (the Flodden Heron collection) and William Cobbett (the famous labor activist of the early nineteenth century). We have an interesting collection of uncataloged 19th-century scripts, including several pantomines. We have strong collections in the area of literary publishing history, including one of the three major groups of records documenting the famous Bentley publishing firm, a small collection relating to Mudie's lending library, and a little known archive of materials related to Grant Richards and his publishing firm, Grant Richards Limited. Finally, we have a variety of small, hidden collections that document a wide range of literary and social figures. -
The Chicago Photographic Collection: 20th Century Urban Architecture, Industry, and Labor
The Chicago Photographic Collection is a vast resource with tremendous potential for engaging a range of researchers including those interested in the history and evolution of Chicago neighborhoods, urban planning, domestic and commercial architecture, labor unions and activities, and midwest industry throughout the 20th century. This collection consists of approximately 41,000 items in a range of photographic formats (4"x5" and 8"x10" black and white negatives and prints). Large format negatives predominate, conveying extraordinary visual detail of the many topics covered across the collection, including Chicago buildings and their construction and demolition, street scenes (often depicting people) in a majority of Chicago's many neighborhoods, documentation of industrial processes, and images of Chicago labor union banquets, picket lines, and other activities. The collection is organized into three main series: Chicago Streets and Sites (approx. 34,500 photographs), Midwest Industry (approx. 2,250 photographs) and Chicago Union and Club Events (approx. 4,250 photographs). Because the collection has never been fully processed or cataloged, many potential ways in which the collection could be used to advance research into the history of Chicago specifically and the evolution of American cities more broadly are inhibited. To date, nearly half of the photographs and negatives have been physically labeled, though only about 8,000 unique images have been described. -
Accessing 500 Years of Florida's Past through the Historical Map Collection at the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History
In 2013, when Florida marks its quincentenary, the name "Florida" will have been part of American geography for 500 years. One of the best records of Florida's evolution over five centuries is the University of Florida's Historical Map Collection, a popular resource known to researchers by reputation although never included in the UF Library catalog. Housed in the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, the state's oldest repository of primary source materials, the Historical Map Collection is generally acknowledged to be the largest and most comprehensive resource on Florida's cartography at any public institution in the state. The collection encompasses rare print and manuscript maps, copies of manuscript maps from other institutions, surveys, and promotional maps to provide broad research scope to map-making in the state. Maps date between the 1520s and the 1970s, with especially strong coverage from the first permanent settlements in Florida (1560s) to the end of the 1920's land boom. From the Spanish mission trail of the 17th century to the military expeditions of the Seminole wars to the railroad surveys of the Gilded Age and beyond, the collection charts the story of Florida's discovery and development. In all, it comprises 2,000 maps in flat storage; 400 maps of county and city development; 600 maps documenting the rise of modern Florida; scores of bound maps and 5 copper plates. This project focuses on cataloging the 3,000 maps in the core collection.