In Class Exercise: Instructions
Please divide yourself into five groups.
Each group has a subject for which you should find primary sources, and suggested strategies for locating second sources on that subject. Use at least one of the three strategies to find primary sources. Spend the most time on the strategy that is highlighted for your group.
After you have tried each of the three strategies, you will be asked to give a brief presentation to the class on what you found. Your presentation should include the following information:
- Identify the strategy you used.
- Describe the strategy: how well it worked, what you found, and so forth
Group 1: Nineteenth- and Twentieth Century Women's Diaries
Strategy 1: Ask Librarian
- Celestina Savonius-Wroth, History Librarian
- Cindy Ingold: Women's Studies Librarian.
Strategy 2: Thematic Research Collections
- Databases A-ZCatalog of digital collections, article indexes, and other online resources.
Suggested digital collections for this topic:
- North American Women's Letters and DiariesColonial period to 1950. Letters from 1,325 women. Letters have been transcribed, rather than reproduced as digital facsimiles, and they are extensively indexed, as well as searchable by keyword. Biographical information is provided for each author, as well as synopses of many of the source documents, reprinted from Joyce Goodfriend’s 1987 bibliography, The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women. Based on six additional bibliographies: The Published Diaries and Letters of American Women by Joyce Goodfriend; American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals by Laura Arksey, Nancy Pries, and Marcia Reed; Women's Diaries, Journals, and Letters by Cheryl Cline; American Diaries in Manuscript, 1580-1954; Canadian Diaries and Autobiographies by William Matthews; And So to Bed: A Bibliography of Diaries Published in English; and New England Diaries, 1602-1800: A Descriptive Catalogue of Diaries, Orderly Books and Sea Journals.
- North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Oral Histories, 1800-1950Documents authored by over 2,000 immigrants. Keyword search the collection, or browse by subject (e.g. Ku Klux Klan, Eugene Debs, Abortion, Amnesty, Crime), personal events (e.g. Arrest, Death of child, Wedding), nationality/cultural heritage, places in North America, or date.
- Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920Books, periodicals, pamphlets, and broadsides. Emphasis on American women's social, cultural, and popular history. Digitized from the collections of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University Library and the New York Public Library. Collection aims to showcase the role of religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes, with a concentration on conduct of life and domestic management literature. Collection covers regional, urban, and rural settings.
- Early Encounters in North America, 1543-1850: Peoples, Cultures, and the EnvironmentPersonal accounts from traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. Includes multiple indexes for exploring the collection in different ways. Includes a complete, transcribed edition of the Jesuit Relations.
- Migration to New WorldsSources documenting the emigration of people from Europe and Asia to the United States, Canada, and Australasia. Document types include letters, diaries, scrapbooks, artwork, photographs, maps oral histories, pamphlets, ship logbooks, realia, legal papers, and government documents, including all 195 volumes of the British National Archives Record Series CO 384 (War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office: Emigration Original Correspondence).
- Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000Books, brochures, audio recordings, cartoons, diaries, court reports, interviews, letters, speeches, videos, and more. Produced by historians Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin. It includes an online journal and more than 1,600 primary source documents and several hundred images. Also included are a dictionary of social movements and organizations, a chronology of U.S. women's history, and a series of subject-based teaching strategies. The database is searchable by movements, authors, sources, a controlled vocabulary of subject terms, and other parameters.
- Women Working, 1800-1930Over 3,100 books, pamphlets, magazines, trade catalogs, diaries, memoirs, and institutional archives, as well as 1,400 photographs, all from Harvard University's library and museum collections, documenting women's work in the United States.
- Catharine Maria Sedgwick PapersGeographic coverage: New England
Date range: 1798-1908.
Document types: Diaries, reminiscences, and correspondence.
Topical coverage: Unitarianism; reform movements; intellectual history; religion.
Source institution:Massachusetts Historical Society.
Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online. - Caroline Wells Healey Dall PapersGeographic coverage: New England
Date range: 1811-1917.
Document types: Correspondence, notebooks, scrapbooks, and detailed personal journals.
Topical coverage: Unitarianism; reform movements; abolitionism; women's movement; Transcendentalism; intellectual history.
Source institution: Massachusetts Historical Society. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- American Women's Diaries. New England WomenCall Number: FILM 305.40974 AM3519838 diaries on 21 reels.
- American Women's Diaries. Southern WomenCall Number: FILM 305.40975 AM3537 manuscript diaries on 34 reels.
- Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century, Papers and Diaries. Series ACall Number: FILM 305.40975 So882
Strategy 3: Subject Headings in the Catalog
- American diaries.
- Girls -- Massachusetts -- Boston -- Diaries.
- Teenage girls -- Diaries.
- Women -- United States -- Diaries.
Group 2: High School and University Women
Strategy 1: Ask Librarian
- Cindy Ingold: Women's Studies Librarian.
- Nancy O'Brien, Education Librarian.
- Celestina Savonius-Wroth: History Librarian.
Strategy 2: Thematic Research Collections
- Databases A-ZCatalog of digital collections, article indexes, and other online resources.
Suggested digital collections for this topic:
- The History of Education: Education and Social Issues1800-1920. 425 books. From the collections of the Milbank Memorial Library, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Harvard University Library. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Myrtilla Miner PapersAbolitionist who founded the Normal School for Colored Girls in 1851, in response to the prohibition against teaching African Americans in her classrooms. From the collections of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Education Magazine Archive25 periodicals documenting education in the twentieth century, primarily United States and Australia, but also Europe, with emphasis on professional publications like American Teacher, and Black Collegian.
- Collegiate ChronicleAmerican College newspapers, including newspapers from historically black universities. Included are the Eagle from American University and the Hoya from Georgetown University, both in Washington D.C.; the F&M College Reporter from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Lincolnian from Oxford, Pennsylvania, and the Weekly Gettysburgian from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; the Ithacan from Ithaca College in New York; and the Daily Illini from the University of Illinois.
- History of Women1799-1920. 8,500 books, 2,000 pamphlets, 117 periodical titles, 80,000 manuscript pages, and 800 photos. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Everyday Life and Women in America, 1800-1920Books, periodicals, pamphlets, and broadsides. Emphasis on American women's social, cultural, and popular history. Digitized from the collections of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History, Duke University Library and the New York Public Library. Collection aims to showcase the role of religion, race, education, employment, marriage, sexuality, home and family life, health, and pastimes, with a concentration on conduct of life and domestic management literature. Collection covers regional, urban, and rural settings.
- Subject File, 1994-2017 byCall Number: 41/13/10"The Women's Resources Center Subject File contains annual reports, correspondence, tapes, photographs, reports, internship applications, orientation materials, projects, letters, marketing materials, flyers, staff meeting proceedings, conference proceedings, and other types of records dating from the range of 1994-2017 and pertaining to the Women's Resource Center (WRC) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign."
- Subject File, 1909-1980 byCall Number: 41/3/1"Student Personnel & Dean of Women's subject file containing correspondence, memoranda, reports, lists, minutes, constitutions and bylaws, histories, personnel files, chaperone applications, questionnaires, notebooks, pamphlets and related material relating to Panhellenic activities (1921-1974), Student Affairs Committee (1947-1968), enrollment statistics (1922-1953), Council of Administration (1924-1930), Black women students (1923-1940), Women's Group System (1931, 1936-1951), Woman's League (1923-1941), Residence Government System (1938-1942), Feathers service groups (1925-1941), housing statistics (1925-1973), cooperative houses (1924-1949), National Independent Student Association (1947-1962) and head resident and house directors (1924-1969), disciplinary actions (1910-1933, 1948-1974), resident halls (1921-1975), women's regulations (1945-1970), housing policies (1946-1972), coordinating placement council (1950-1969), budget (1957-1973), discrimination and affirmative action (1961-1963, 1970-1973), Illini Guides (1964-1968), poverty and the Job Corps (1964-1973), higher education graduate work (1970-1972), financial aid (1960-1970), health services (1960-1970, 1972-1974), academic freedom (1961, 1963-1968), legal aid (1965-1970), Career Development and Placement (1972-1975), deans on call for emergency duty (1969-1975), rumor center (1970-1975), senior clearance for graduation (1956-1975), & Student Services Building (1957-1967). A 1956-1980 file contains material on conference housing (1954-1971), house directors (1947-1972) and training programs (1951-1977), housing (1958-1981), Mortar Board (1966-1980), statistics (1952-1980) & student personnel work (1959-1980)"
- Black Women in Higher Education: An Anthology of Essays, Studies, and Documents byCall Number: 378.008996073 B561ISBN: 9780824068400Publication Date: 1992
- Mary McLeod Bethune Papers : the Bethune Foundation collection byCall Number: FILM 378.75921092 B465mISBN: 1556556365
- Girls and Literacy in America: Historical Perspectives to the Present byCall Number: LC1757 .G57 2003ISBN: 9781576076668Publication Date: 2003Includes primary sources.
Strategy 3: Subject Headings in the Library Catalog
- High school girls
- High school students
- High school students -- United States -- Interviews
- Women -- Education (Higher)
Strategy 4: Research Guides and Bibliographies
- Curriculum Collection Guide"The Curriculum Collection (CC), located in the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL), is representative of only part of the vast core of materials related to teacher education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. The emphasis of the CC is on textbooks, curriculum guides, and related multimedia materials. The CC is supplemented and enhanced by the School Collection of children’s and young adult books which is housed in the same room."
- The Higher Education of Women in the South: An Annotated Bibliography byCall Number: Q. 016.376975 D637HPublication Date: 1992
Group 3: Women of Color (Chinese, Indigenous, and African American)
Strategy 1: Ask Librarian
- Cindy Ingold: Women's Studies Librarian; American Indian Studies Librarian; Asian American Studies Librarian.
- Celestina Savonius-Wroth: History Librarian; African American Studies Librarian.
Strategy 2: Thematic Research Collections
- Databases A-ZCatalog of digital collections, article indexes, and other online resources.
Suggested collections for this topic:
- African American CommunitiesNewspapers, periodicals, oral histories, organizational records, personal papers, pamphlets, and ephemera that document the history of African American communities in Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, New York, North Carolina. Highlights of the collection include the Chicago Urban League records (1917-1985), the Town of Pullman records (1876-1919), the Lea Demarest Taylor papers on housing and race relations, 1893-1966, the Urban League of St. Louis records, and an extensive oral history collection. Collection is organized around five broad themes: Desegregation, Urban renewal and housing problems, Civil rights activities and protests, Race relations and community integration, and African American culture.
- American Indian Histories and CulturesDigitized from the Newberry Library's Edward E. Ayer Collection, American Indian Histories and Cultures contains both published and unpublished primary sources that document the American Indian experience from first contact with Europeans through the mid-20th century.
- Black Thought and CultureColonial times to the present. Non-fiction works, including interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, books, pamphlets, and letters, with brief, biographical entries for all authors. Some of the documents were previously-unpublished. Supports browsing by date, event, and other subjects.
- Early Encounters in North America, 1543-1850: Peoples, Cultures, and the EnvironmentPersonal accounts from traders, slaves, missionaries, explorers, soldiers, native peoples, and officials, both men and women. Includes multiple indexes for exploring the collection in different ways. Includes a complete, transcribed edition of the Jesuit Relations.
- Indigenous Peoples: North AmericaBooks, newspapers, periodicals, manuscript sources, and photographs that document American Indian experience in North America.
- Myrtilla Miner PapersAbolitionist who founded the Normal School for Colored Girls in 1851, in response to the prohibition against teaching African Americans in her classrooms. From the collections of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Afro-Americana Imprints, 1535-1922: From the Library Company of PhiladelphiaOver 12,000 printed works, including books, pamphlets, and broadsides. Part of the Archive of Americana.
- African American Periodicals, 1825-1995About 170 periodicals published by, for, or about African Americans. Part of the Archive of Americana.
- Women's Magazine ArchiveExtensive runs of 18 major women's magazines, including Better Homes and Gardens (1886-2005); Cosmopolitan (1928-2005); Essence (1970-2005); Good Housekeeping (1885-2005); Ladies' Home Journal (1885-2005); Parents (1926-2005); Redbook (1903-2005); Seventeen (1944-2005); Town and Country (1846-2005); Woman's Day (1937-2005); Chatelaine (1928-2005); and WIN News (1975-2003). Coverage primarily twentieth century.
- Ethnicity and Culture Magazine ArchiveFull-color reproductions of (so far) 24 magazines, spanning mid- to late-twentieth century, with some runs into the 2000s. Most of the magazines are American publicaitons.
- Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971Over one hundred newspapers of immigrant communities, with heaviest representation frjom Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Polish, and Slovak newspapers. Click here to view a complete title list for Ethnic American Newspapers. Part of America’s Historical Newspapers and the Archive of Americana.
- African American Newspapers, Series I and II: 1827-1998A wide ranging collection that complements our largest collection of digitized African American newspapers, ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers. While ProQuest Historical Black Newspapers covers the major, metropolitan black newspapers of the twentieth century, African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 provides access to a broader range of publications, especially the black press of America's smaller cities, and the few extant issues of the earliest black newspapers, most of which were previously available only on microfilm or in smaller digital collections scattered around the Internet. Click here to view a complete title list for African American Newspapers Series I and II. Part of America's Historical Newspapers and the Archive of Americana.
- Black Life in AmericaA federated collection of newspaper articles documenting the African American experience. Supports keyword searching, or structured browsing by time period and subject.
- Hispanic American Newspapers, 1808-1980Mostly scattered issues of over 300 Hispanic-American newspapers. Purports to be largest compilation of Spanish-language newspapers printed in the U.S. during the nineteenth and twentith centuries. Based on the "Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project" collection at the the University of Houston. Click here to view a complete title list for Hispanic American Newspapers. Part of America's Historical Newspapers and the Archive of Americana.
- Hispanic Life in AmericaFederated collection of newspaper articles documenting the Hispanic American experience. Supports keyword searching and structured browsing by time and period and subject.
- Indigenous Newspapers in North America (formerly American Indian Newspapers)59 newspapers, most of which are digitized in full color. Few are already available on our various microfilm collections, so the collection includes many sources that our new to our Library. Collection includes issues from nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Click here to view a complete title list for American Indian Newspapers. Formerly titled American Indian Newspapers.
- Chicago Foreign Language Press SurveyThe Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey was published in 1942 by the Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project of the Work Projects Administration of Illinois. Its purpose was to translate into English and classify selected news articles appearing in the Chicago area foreign language press from 1861 to 1938. The project consists of a file of 120,000 typewritten pages translated from newspapers of 22 different foreign language communities in Chicago.
- Latinx Thought and Culture: The NPR Archive, 1979-1990Two radio programs: the weekly Spanish-language Enfoque Nacional (1979-1988) and the Daily English-language Latin File (1988-1990)
- Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital CollectionAlmost 4,000 oral histories, including more than 900 interviews with Native Americans (bulk are Seminole, Cherokee, and Creek), as well as significant collection of African American oral histories, with emphasis on civil rights movement in Florida.
- Barbara Cameron Papers, 1968-2003Geographic coverage: United States.
Date range: 1970s-1990s.
Document types: Personal papers.
Topical coverage: Native American lesbian writer, speaker, photographer, and political activist Barbara Cameron.
Source institution: San Francisco Public Library. - Fannie Lou Hamer: Papers of a Civil Rights Activitist, Political Activist, and Woman, 1966-1978TRIAL. Part of Archives Unbound.
Strategy 5: Encyclopedias
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History byCall Number: 973 ONLINEPublication Date: 2014-TRIAL
Group 4: Children's Literature
Strategy 1: Ask Librarian
- Nancy O'Brien, Education Librarian and Curator of the Children's Literature Collection
Strategy 2: Thematic Research Collections
- Databases A-ZCatalog of digital collections, article indexes, and other online resources.
Suggested collections for this topic:
- Children's Literature and Culture1810 and 1930, with an emphasis on America, this collection features 2,200 children’s books and 6,500 other documents, including instructional texts (readers, primers, atlases, spelling books, painting books); religious texts; sheet music; ephemera (calendars, postcards, certificates, pamphlets); realia (board games, card games, stereoscopic photographs, paper dolls, toys); sources from the archives of the children’s book publisher McLoughlin Brothers (correspondence, catalogs, drawings, paintings); and artefacts documenting the history of children’s book production with an emphasis on printing and chromolithography. To help users explore the collection, the documents have been organized around twenty key themes: Animals and Nature; Calendar Events and Holidays; Crime and Punishment; Disability; Education; Family; Gender and Sex; Illness and Death; Leisure and Play; Morality, Manners, and Consequences; Nationality and Place; Poverty, Debt, and Welfare; Professions; Race, Ethnicity and Racism; Religion; Slavery; Temperance and Addiction; Travel; War and Revolution; and Women in Publishing.
- Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian SocietyMore than 3,300 nineteenth century U.S. newspapers published by children and young adults. Most of these newspapers exist in very short runs (typically from one issue to a few months of issues). Part of Gale Primary Sources: Newspaper and Periodical Databases (formerly Gale NewsVault).
- Growing Up in America: Children’s Literature of Immigrant Communities1816-1900. Collection of non-English language (not necessarily immigrant, as the title of the collection claims) children's books. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Selected Titles from the Children’s Collection at the American Antiquarian Society1800-1920. 453 books. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Selections from the Baldwin Library Collection of Historical Children’s Literature1850-1869. 10,980 books. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
- Juvenile Journalists: Selected Amateur NewspapersSelections from the Amateur Newspaper collection of the American Antiquarian Society. Part of Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
Strategy 4: Research Guides and Bibliographies
- S-Collection Guide"The School (S)-Collection in the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library (SSHEL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign consists of over 200,000 volumes of children’s and young adult literature. The collection was created in 1941 with an initial collection of approximately 3,000 titles. In 1993, the S-Collection acquired an uncatalogued collection of 58,000 children’s books from the Center for Research Libraries, which were subsequently added to the collection. With this addition, it became one of the most comprehensive collections of children’s literature in the nation, second only to the Library of Congress."
Group 5: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century LGBTQ History
Strategy 1: Ask Librarian
- Cindy Ingold, LGBTQ Studies Librarian
- Celestina Savonius-Wroth, History Librarian
Strategy 2: Thematic Research Collection
- Databases A-ZCatalog of digital collections, article indexes, and other online resources.
Suggested collections for this topic:
- Archives of Sexuality and GenderA collection of 51 smaller sub-collections focusing on LGBTQ history, primarily of the post-Stonewall era.
- LGBT Studies in VideoDocumentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films on LGBT history, gay culture, gay subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, and global comparative experiences.
- LGBT Thought and CultureBooks, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
- Queer PastsA collection of exhibits, each exhibit comprising twenty to sixty primary sources, with curatorial introductions. Currently features thirteen exhibits: "A Revealment Most Sensational": Eleven Stories of Trans Lives in the United States, 1878-1914; "Are They Really?" Queer Life at Mills College, 1900-1980; "Striking Out Against the Conspiracy of Silence": 1970s LGBTQ Campus Organizing in the Michigan Student Press; AIDS Knows No Borders: Protesting the US Ban on HIV-Positive Migrants, 1990-1993; Are There Really Only Two Asian Lesbians in Chicago?: Queer Asian Visibility and Community Formation in Chicago, 1980s-1990s; Coalitions Resisting the Toronto Bathhouse Raids and Beyond, 1968-1982; LGBT Direct Action Bibliography, Chronology, and Inventory, 1965-1973; Power, Politics, and Race in the 1968 Philadelphia Study of Prison Sexual Violence; Reclamation Projects: An Archive of Queer Latinidad, 1850-1921; Sodomites and Gender Transgressors in 1840s New York; The City Nightclub: A Community of Queer Youth in Portland, Oregon, 1977-1997; The Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement; and Unfolding Our History: Exploring Post-Stonewall LGBTQ History with T-shirts.
- Sex and SexualityDocuments the history of sexuality and sexology in the Ango-American world, ca. 1800-present. Module I. Research Collections from The Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections -- Module II. Self-Expression, Community and Identity.
- An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk’s Speeches and Writings byCall Number: 979.461053092 M599aISBN: 9780520275485Publication Date: 2013
- Collection of Miscellaneous Works on Gay TopicsCall Number: BASKQ. 306.76 C46Publication Date: 1967-19966 vols. Part of the Baskette Collection (see below). Includes calendars and periodicals.
- Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: A Documentary History byCall Number: 305.90664 G256ISBN: 0313306966Publication Date: 2003
- Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer: A Memoir of the Sex, Art, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine, the Titanic 1970s to 1999 byCall Number: 306.766209739 F918gISBN: 9781890834388Publication Date: 2006
- Gender Issues and Sexuality: Essential Primary Sources byCall Number: 306.76 ONLINEISBN: 9781414412610Publication Date: 2006Magazine and newspaper articles, speeches, government documents, memoirs, correspondence, interviews, and liteary works documenting history of gender and sexuality from the nineteenth century to the present.
- Homosexuality and the Military: A Sourcebook of Official Uncensored U.S. Government DocumentsCall Number: Q. 355.008664 H7542Publication Date: 1993
- Lesbian Herstory Archives: Subject Files byCall Number: ILLPublication Date: 2004150 reels microfilmed from the collections of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Available through interlibrary loan from the Center for Research Libraries. Use guide to identify reels.
- San Francisco / Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Serial Collection byCall Number: FILM 306.76605 SA5261 titles on 96 microfilm reels. Coverage: 1953-1989. Click here to view a full list of titles in the San Francisco / Bay Area Gay and Lesbian Serial Collection.
- Sex in the 20th Century, 1943-1991: A Compilation of Gallup Poll Reports byCall Number: 306.70973 SE916Publication Date: 1992
Strategy 4: Research Guides
- Queer History USAA course guide on LGBTQ+ history in the United States.
Strategy 5: Encyclopedias
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History byCall Number: 973 ONLINEPublication Date: 2014-TRIAL