Collection highlights and information about IWU’s Tate Archives & Special Collections
Posted in Alumni, Cultural Studies, Unexplored collections on Oct 17th, 2009
As mentioned in Part One of our selected mysteries, there are many opportunities for enterprising researchers to mine our collections for new topics and treasures:
Correspondence from the 1950s between Diplomat John Melby (’34) and his family
A collection of manuscript notes by William S. Bach, ca. 1927
Glass lantern slides (in two shoe-sized boxes) with some nursing [...]
Posted in Unexplored collections on Sep 4th, 2009
In a previous post, I described collections we hold related to Political Science. One of these collections contains manuscripts, publications and memorabilia related to 17th Congressional District Representative Leslie C. Arends (1935-1975). Thanks to the talents and efforts of Physical Plant employees, we were able to move a cleaned and polished Arends’ desk, previously stored [...]
Posted in Cultural Studies, Unexplored collections on Jul 24th, 2009
Special Collections houses a number of mysteries some enterprising researcher may be able to mine for treasures. Here are a few items and what little information we have about them:
Five photo albums from the 19th Century, some with people identifed, some not, and only one with clues about the people’s relationship to IWU.
Barry Lennon Farm Records, 1842-52
Correspondence [...]
Posted in Cultural Studies, Unexplored collections on Jun 16th, 2009
The collection we call “Conduct of Life” holds over 200 books from secular and religious perspectives dating from 1560. The topics include moral, social and practical considerations aimed at youth of both sexes and women. French, Latin and English seem to the the languages represented in this collection, but you can browse the entire list from our online catalog by following the [...]
Posted in Alumni, Students, Unexplored collections on May 25th, 2009
Memorial Day seems like a good time to highlight military-related documents held at IWU. Students, alumni, faculty and administrators have served in all U.S. wars since IWU’s founding. Diaries, correspondence, service records and recollections are held in both our archives and special collections.
Examples of these documents include service applications of the WWII-era Nurse’s Cadet Corps, alumni responses [...]
Posted in Cultural Studies on Apr 13th, 2009
April is National Poetry Month, and I thought I’d mention a few places where poetry can be found in our vaults.
Special Collections
We have a growing collection of Beat Generation material. This is primarily poetry in book and magazine/journal review format but biographies and some criticism is held here, too. More of the primary and secondary source material is available in the main [...]
Posted in Campus units, Local organizations, Unexplored collections on Mar 24th, 2009
Special Collections has two manuscript collections related to state and national politics: The Leslie Arends Congressional Collection and the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention papers of IWU PoliSci professor and Con-Con delegate John Wenum. The 1970 Con Con resulted in a first-ever state Constitution that explicitly guaranteed citizens’ right to a healthy environment.
The Arends Collection is [...]
Posted in Cultural Studies, Faculty on Mar 3rd, 2009
Special Collections has four collections of material for researchers interested in John Wesley Powell and the western U.S.
a manuscript collection of correspondence and articles written by researchers who have contacted IWU for information on Powell over the years,
a collection of books by and about Powell and the American West,
a wide range of material collected by Marcia Thomas [...]
Posted in Students on Mar 3rd, 2009
The Argus Digital Collection was our first large-scale digitization project. Illinois Wesleyan University’s newspaper The Argus has been published under student supervision continuously since 1894. For most of that time, it has been a weekly publication. This site went live with a browse-by-date interface in May 2003. Searchable sets of indexed terms became available in September [...]
Posted in Local organizations on Mar 3rd, 2009
In October 2006, we opened a new collection for primary source materials: The Ecology Action Center Collection of organizational records. The group began as one of the first not-for-profit recycling centers in Illinois in 1971. Today, it continues to work with the three local governments (McLean County, Town of Normal, and City of Bloomington) to increase [...]
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