Roundup of new guides to archives and manuscripts collections
Archivists in the Special Collections Research Center were hard at work arranging and describing archival collections this past fiscal year. 38 collections comprising 1,064 linear feet of material – that’s the length of more than 3.5 football fields! – are now available for research. 475 linear feet of collections (approximately 1.5 football fields of material) were also reviewed and their online guides updated.
You are invited to explore the following new guides and visit us to see the collections in person. The Special Collections Research Center is open to anyone – students, faculty, staff, and the general public.
Amberg, Alan. Gay History Collection
The materials in this collection were gathered by Alan Amberg as well as his partner, the late Jerry Cohen. Materials cover a wide range of gay and lesbian subject matter, including the beginnings of the Gay Pride Movement in Chicago in the early 1970s.
Rudolph Bachner (1905-1997) was a German-born writer and chemist. The collection contains three typescripts of Bachner’s work, including two novels and an unpublished memoir.
Walter Lewis Baily Jr. (1930-2013) was a mathematician and professor at The University of Chicago. During his career, Baily made numerous contributions to algebraic geometry, the most important of which is known as the Baily-Borel Compactification.
Baptist Divinity House. Records
The Baptist Divinity House assisted with funding, housing, career placement and other means of support for students pursing Baptist ministry at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Bill, Charles A. Collection of Yousuf Karsh. Photographs
This collection contains photographs by Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002), collected by Charles Anton Bill. Yousuf Karsh, is best known for his portrait photographs of significant cultural and political figures. This collection contains Karsh’s silver gelatin prints of Winston Churchill, Pope John XXIII, and John F. Kennedy.
Noah Samuel Brannen (1924-2013) was an ordained minister, missionary, translator, and professor. The collection contains correspondence, notes, drafts, manuscripts, and publications pertaining to Brannen’s translations of and writings on the works of various Japanese authors, especially Rinzo Shiina.
Lee Braude, sociologist, University of Chicago A.M. 1954, PhD, 1964.
Camp Farr was a fresh-air children’s summer camp near Chesterton, Indiana, established by the University of Chicago Settlement League.
Chandrasekhar, S. Papers (Addenda)
The Special Collections Research Center’s collection of Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar‘s personal papers has more than doubled in size.
Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941-2013) was a political theorist, ethicist, author, and public intellectual. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics with joint appointments at the Divinity School, the Department of Political Science, and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago.
Hamilton, Alfred Starr. Papers
Alfred Starr Hamilton (1914-2005) poet. The collection contains biographical information, personal belongings, correspondence, , book reviews, newspaper clippings with interviews and biographies, poetry journals and magazines, books, and Hamilton’s unpublished poetry manuscripts.
Historical Manuscripts Collection (Addenda)
The Historical Manuscripts Collections contains correspondence and other brief manuscripts documenting personal, scholarly, business, government, and religious affairs, written by an array of authors, primarily from North America and Western Europe. The manuscripts date from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries.
Irene Tufts Mead, Collection of Alice Boughton. Photographs
Alice Boughton was a member of the Photo-Secession movement. All of the images date to 1904. Subjects include George Herbert Mead, Alice Chipman Dewey, Lucy Dewey, Evelyn Dewey, and Sabino Dewey.
Isaacs, Roger, Collection of Bud Freeman Papers
Lawrence “Bud” Freeman (1906-1991) was a jazz tenor saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois, who lived and played all over the world. Freeman was a leader of the “Chicago style” of jazz.
Paul Kraus (1904-1944) was a scholar of Semitic languages and medieval Islamic science and philosophy.
Karen Landahl (1951-2003) was a linguist who taught at the University of Chicago, in the Department of Linguistics, from 1982 to 2003. She was also the Academic Director of the Language Labs and Archives and the Language Faculty Resource Center, and the Associate Dean for Computing and Language Technologies at the University.
Language Laboratories and Archives. Records
The Language Laboratories and Archives at the University of Chicago, and its current iteration, the Center for the Study of Language, provide language learning services and facilities for both faculty and students. This collection contains records of the various iterations of the lab, from 1952 to 2006.
Nathan Leites (1912-1987) was a political scientist who applied the tools of psychoanalysis to the study of culture and politics, with particular specialization in the Soviet politburo.
Maloof, John. Collection of Vivian Maier
This collection contains photographic prints, ephemera, and artifacts belonging to photographer Vivian Maier. It includes black-and-white and color prints taken by Maier, most of which are street photographs of Chicago and New York City from the 1950s-1970s.
Edward Andrew Maser (1923-1988) was an Art Historian, a museum curator, and an art collector. From 1961 to 1964, he served as the chairman of the University of Chicago’s Department of Art History, and in 1974 he became the inaugural director of the Smart Museum.
Charles Max Mason (1877-1961) mathematician, President of the University of Chicago (1925-1928), and President of the Rockefeller Foundation (1929-1936). The collection primarily documents Mason’s work for the National Research Council during World War One, where he developed a submarine detection device that was in regular use on destroyers by the summer of 1918. The device was a precursor to the sonar devices of the 1940s.
Norman A. McQuown (1914-2005) was an anthropologist and linguist best known for his efforts to document and study indigenous languages in Mexico and Central America and for his work in the field of non-verbal communication.
Marvin Mirsky (1923-1914) was a scholar of literature and longtime faculty member at the University of Chicago.
Carl Richard Moore (1892-1955) was a Professor of Zoology and endocrinologist. Moore made significant contributions to the field of mammalian endocrinology; he was part of the team of University of Chicago researchers that first isolated testosterone in 1920. With fellow researcher Dorothy Price, he theorized the “push-pull” interactions between the pituitary gland and sex glands, which provided insight into the complexities of fertility in mammals.
Mark Perlberg (1929- 2008) was a poet, journalist, editor, and educator. In 1968, he co-founded the Poetry Center of Chicago.
Norman Horace Perrin (1920-1976) was an associate professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Chicago.
Roman Weil Collection of Boris Artzybasheff
This collection contains illustrations by the Russian-American artist Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965) produced from 1929 to 1965, and collected by Roman Weil. The material in the collection ranges from magazine covers, industrial advertisements, a map, large advertising poster prints, and a woodblock print. The images describe foreign leaders, American political leaders, anthropomorphized machinery, descriptive maps, technological innovations, political satire, and poetic figurations.
Albert Sherer (1884-1973) was a senior student at the University of Chicago who was shot near campus in 1905. The collection contains a letter from University President William Rainey Harper to Sherer, Sherer’s police reports, newspaper accounts, a record of the 1934 University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees, and the bullets that were extracted from Mr. Sherer.
Silbert, Layle. Papers (Addenda)
Layle Silbert (1913-2003) was a photographer and writer. Noted for her portraits of authors, Silbert also wrote poetry, essays and fiction.
Noel M. Swerdlow (1941-) emeritus professor in the Departments of History and Astronomy and Astrophysics. The collection includes documents collected by Swerdlow related to the non-reappointment of sociology professor Marlene Dixon, and the subsequent student sit-ins in 1969.
Emil Teichmann (1845-1924) was a British fur trader sent to investigate possible illicit Russian fur trade in North America in 1868. The collection contains his original journal from 1868, correspondence, sketches, contracts, photographs, notes, and other memorabilia. The papers primarily document his trading negotiations, and photographic and illustrated scenes of landscape and cities like San Francisco and Sitka, Alaska.
University of Chicago. Dept of Anthropology. Chiapas Project. Records
The Department of Anthropology Chiapas Project records document the University of Chicago Department of Anthropology’s research projects in the Mexican state of Chiapas in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The projects aimed to investigate the language, culture, environment, and history of local Maya communities.
University of Chicago. Department of History. Records
This collection contains records from the Department of History at the University of Chicago. The collections contains correspondence, memoranda, minutes, letters of recommendation, examinations, reports, proposals, student lists and student evaluations.
University of Chicago. Department. of Sociology. Records
The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago was founded in 1892 and was the first academic department of sociology in the United States. This collection contains materials related to the administration of the Department such as meeting minutes, student rosters, examinations, materials relating to the passing of Louis Wirth, and materials relating to the non-reappointment of sociology professor, Marlene Dixon. It also contains programs, brochures, and photographs related to the Centennial Conference, 1892-1992 as well as a map depicting East and West Garfield Park (1924).
University of Chicago. Midway Studios. Records
Midway Studios has been the fine arts studios of the Art Department at the University of Chicago since the mid-1940s, and was founded by sculptor Lorado Taft in 1906. This collection contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, drawings, photographs, academic journals, notes, brochures, and exhibit signs. Materials document Taft’s work and legacy, and the later history of the studio, particularly the work of Director Harold Haydon.
Ruby Kathryn Worner (1900-1995) was a chemist who specialized in the textile industry. Worner studied at the University of Chicago where she earned her Bachelor’s, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry (1921, 1922, and 1925). Worner worked for the United States Bureau of Home Economics as well as Southern Regional Laboratories, making numerous advancements in textile production.
