Resources for American Studies: Issue 48, July 1999

Minutes of the Subcommittee Meeting, 2 March 1999
The Photographic Collections, The British Library
The Winterthur Museum, Delaware
The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Washington DC
Useful Websites
Useful Microform Collections at the British Library, Boston Spa
Book Reviews

Minutes of the Subcommittee Meeting, 2 March 1999

Treasurer’s Report

Ms Williamson presented the following accounts for the BAAS L&RSC to 2 March 1999. She noted that a further sale of a Directory had added £10.00 and interest of £33.07 had been received. The invoice for the January 1999 Newsletter (£171.00) was also included. The current uncommitted balance stands at £1,312.12, plus the balance for the Newspaper project (£463.68).

Notional Accounts 9.2.98–2.3.99 (confirmed with BAAS)

Income:	£	p

Opening balance	1760	.04
Looking to the Future Seminar	1845	.00
—-registration fees: 495.00
—-sponsor donation: 1350.00
Sale of Directory of American Studies Librarians	10	.00
Barclay’s Bank	43	.07
—-interest: 33.07
—-goodwill payment: 10.00

Total:	3658	.11

Expenditure:	£	p

AGM refreshments	14	.50
Looking to the Future Seminar	1193	.13
—-catering: 895.53
—-postage: 8.10
—-speakers’ travel: 289.50
BLDSC: printing of the Newsletter:	644	.18
—-no. 45 (Jan. 1998): 164.64
—-no. 46 (Aug. 1998): 308.54
—-no. 47 (Jan. 1999): 171.00
Committee Expenses:	30	.50
—-Martin Walker: Feb. 9, 1998 meeting: 30.50

Total	1882	.31

Balance:	£	p

Total Income	3658	.11
Minus Total Expenditure	1882	.31

Balance in Hand	1775	.80

Balance Breakdown:
Closing Balance 2.3.99	1775	.80
Minus Balance held for Newspaper Project	463	.68

Uncommitted Balance in Hand	1312	.12

NB Invoice outstanding: BNA £310.00 (Advertising NL 43-46)

Newsletter

A discussion was held regarding the future format of the Newsletter. It was agreed that both printed and online versions should be made available and that the online version would be the whole text, but, with the advertisers. permission, should include links to their websites. The editor proposes to compile an index to the Newsletters, which should be included in the online version. A complete set of Newsletters will be gathered and held at the BAAS archive in Birmingham.

NB the BAAS website can be accessed at http://human.ntu.ac.uk/baas/

Advertising

The Treasurer had previously circulated a note, upon which discussion was based. The new advertising rates are as follows:

Four-issue pricing scheme:
full page (A5) £300; half page £150; full page inside front or back cover £325

Single-issue pricing scheme:
full page £100; half page £50

Single issue inserts pricing scheme:
per A4 sheet, printed one or both sides £250; per A5 sheet, printed one or both sides £125

The Chair and Treasurer agreed to draft a note to accompany invoices sent out to advertisers by Janet Beer (BAAS Treasurer).

Future Seminars

The Chair confirmed that the earliest likely date for the next seminar will be 2000. He suggested Manchester as a possible venue. Professor Davies stated that the June 1998 Seminar had been very well received and commented that the more active the Sub-Committee is, the more visibility it obtains both for itself and for BAAS. It was suggested that future seminars should cover themes rather than formats and the following themes were proposed for consideration: photography, cartography, sound/video/images, immigration. The Chair asked all Sub-Committee members to consider these ideas with a view to making a decision at the next Sub-Committee meeting. (NB: At the Sub-Committee meeting on 3 June 1999 it was agreed that the next seminar will examine visual resources in American Studies, and will, hopefully, be held in June 2000.)

Newspaper Project Update, by Linda Williamson, Chair, Projects Sub-Committee

The aim of the Newspaper Project is to produce a successor to the 1974 BAAS publication American Newspaper Holdings in British and Irish Libraries, by D.K. Adams. This is a ninety-four page union list to which thirty nine libraries contributed details of their US newspaper holdings. It is ordered by name of newspaper with indexing by state and city. The intent of the new listing has been to update the BAAS list, expanding it to include the holdings of additional libraries, and to reorder the entries by state and city with indexing by title. Planned output has been both a printed list and an electronic file.

The project began with the scanning of the original BAAS list, followed by the posting of two tranches of questionnaires. It was estimated that £2200 would be needed to accomplish inputting and editing of records. Donations totaling approximately £850 were received to help toward those costs: $1000 from UMI and £200 from International Herald Tribune.

The British Library, having by far the largest number of records to contribute, decided to produce its own newspaper holdings list and submit an electronic version to the project. This was received subsequent to the publication by the Eccles Centre of United States and Canadian Holdings in the British Library Newspaper Library, by Jean Kemble and Pam Das.

Reordering of theserecords by state and city, and the addition of data on publication dates, frequency, language, and notes for title changes then began. Based at Rhodes House Library, this work proceeded in fits and starts, depending on Linda Williamson’s other work commitments and the availability of student volunteers. Verification and addition of data proved to be very time-consuming, such that only one-fifth of the British Library’s file had been reordered by the time it became necessary to suspend the project. Associated costs for work accomplished to that point totaled approximately £400.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Consortium of University and Research Libraries. North American Studies Group, under Kevin Halliwell’s direction, put together its own union list for release in 1998. Entitled US & Canadian Newspaper Holdings in Scottish Libraries, it is mounted on the web and is searchable alphabetically by title.

Kevin Halliwell is now exploring whether the SCURL list, the British Library list, and details from the questionnaires returned by other libraries can be merged and mounted on a website. Because the British Library holdings file is so extensive and is organised along the same lines as the SCURL list, it would seem most efficient to use the former as the base, with details from the latter and from the questionnaires added to it.

The straightforward nature of this merged list would allow librarians and scholars to look up newspapers by title and find which libraries within the UK and Ireland have holdings of them. It would essentially be an update of the BAAS list, having the same format, with the added advantage of being accessible online and updatable in an ongoing fashion. Regrettably, without the enhanced bibliographic information which was being added to the original project, it will not be possible to identify newspaper holdings for a given century, nor will it be possible to scan those of a given city or state.

However, the original BAAS list has certainly proved useful as it is, so this new merged product should be very well received–especially for its updated information and for its online accessibility. From donations received, approximately £450 remains to see the project through to completion. Again, further work on the project will be dependent on other work commitments of the BAAS L&RS members involved and the availability of student help.
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The Photographic Collections, The British Library

“With respect to foreign literature, science and arts the library ought to possess the best editions of standard works …”.

“The old and the rare as well as critical editions….ought never to be sought in vain…” ¹

The significance and value of any collection are, in part, based on the relationship between the scale and method of acquisition and public accessibility. The principal architect of the British Library’s acquisition policy was Sir Antonio Panizzi who, on his appointment in 1837 as Keeper of Printed Books of the British Museum Library, wrote his first memorandum to the Trustees. The result of this was the endorsement of an acquisitions policy, based on the vision of Panizzi; three methods of acquisition were secured – legal deposit, purchase and donation.

The foundation of the British Library’s acquisition policy was laid at the time the advent of photography was announced in 1839. The dove-tailing of these two highly significant events has resulted in the accumulation of one of the world’s most in-depth and comprehensive collections of photographically illustrated books, photographs and texts relating to the development and history of photography written by inventors, pioneers and practitioners of photography in many languages from every continent.

The history of North America and the evolution of photography as a means of documentation and illustration of the continent and its inhabitants is well represented in the collections of photographically illustrated books and albums containing most genres of photographic and photo-mechanical processes in the directorate of Reader Services and Collection Development of the British Library. Two complete volumes of photographs documenting the American Civil War, Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War (1865) were purchased in the same year by the British Museum Library. These volumes contain original photographs taken by Timothy O’Sullivan, A & J Gardner, W Pywell et. al. the negatives were printed by Andrew Gardner and are fine examples of documentary photography.

Many descriptive catalogues of photographic surveys have been donated; Photographs of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories for 1869 to 1873 (1874) was donated in 1879 and contains lists of photographs by William Henry Jackson. Extracts from a Narrative Privations and Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers, was published in 1865 and received via legal deposit in the same year. This work contains photographs taken at the United States General Hospital, Division No 1, Annapolis, Maryland.

As a result of copyright legislation in Canada, and a copyright exchange system, the British Library holds a collection of some 5,000 photographs taken from 1895 to 1924. The photographs represent many cultural, social and historical aspects of Canada and are a testimony to the value and significance of documentary photography as a resource for research and study.

Access to the collection of photographically illustrated books and photographs will be served by means of a comprehensive database. The R.S.C.D directorate of the British Library is in the process of identifying all works containing original photographs and early photo-mechanical processes and transferring information onto a specially designed database. The result of this project will provide access to the photographic collections – well befitting the vision of Sir Antonio Panizzi.

For more information about this project please contact Annie Gilbert, Curator of Photographs, Early Printed Collections, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, tel: 0171 412 7598, e-mail: annie.gilbert@bl.uk

References

1. DPB, DH/1 12 October 1837; Weimerskirch, Philip John. “Antonio Panizzi’s Aquisitions Policies for the Library of the British Museum”, (DLS, Columbia University,1977)
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The Winterthur Museum, Delaware

While visiting his friend Electra Webb in Vermont, Henry Francis du Pont was captivated by both the history and design of an American dresser belonging to his host. Inspired, du Pont began collecting objects that had been used in American homes between 1640 and 1840. The dates was subsequently extended to 1860 and today this collection, based at du Pont’s former country estate in Winterthur, Delaware, contains 89,000 objects in 175 period rooms.

As well as the Museum the estate also houses a superb library which contains the four distinct collections described below.

The Printed Book and Periodical Collection: This Collection holds more than 80,000 bound volumes of current and antiquarian monographs, periodicals, exhibition catalogues, and trade catalogues. Strengths of the collection include works on decorative arts and design; architecture; American painting, graphics and photography; travel literature; children’s books; women’s magazines and the literature of domestic economy and etiquette; garden history; and the material culture of everyday life in America from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries. The collection also selectively covers British, Continental, Chinese and Japanese arts and material culture as they relate to the United States.

The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera: The Downs collection consists almost exclusively of primary research material. Approximately half of its 2,500 record groups are either personal or business accounts in the forms of diaries, family papers, and records maintained by American craftspeople. In addition, the Downs collection counts among its holdings drawings (architectural, artistic, and amateur alike), household inventories, children’s toys and games, scrapbooks, and fabric swatch books. An important complement to the Downs collection is the Edward Deming Andrews Memorial Shaker Collection, named to honor America’s pioneer scholar on the Shaker religious sect. It features manuscripts, books, and visual materials on the Shakers as well as the research archives compiled by Dr. Andrews.

The Decorative Arts Photographic Collection: This collection is a unique study and research collection containing more than 115,000 photographs of decorative arts objects made or used in America prior to 1920 and located in both public and private collections throughout the United States. This ever-expanding collection is a visual file that documents the works of individual craftsmen, workshops, and manufactories. Particular strengths of the collection are its images of furniture and silver. A retrieval system allows rapid Boolean access by form, material, construction, provenance, style, ornamentation and date. Indexes in the collection provide basic bibliographic and biographical information–culled from newspapers advertisements, city directories, and major secondary sources–on woodworkers, silversmiths, jewelers, clock- and watch-makers, and potters. The Photographic Index of American Art and Design (PIAAD) is the fine arts counterpart to the DAPC and contains 50,000 photographs of American paintings, sculpture, graphic arts, drawings, gravestones, and architecture.

The Winterthur Archives: The Archives of the Winterthur Library hold the personal and business papers of Henry Francis du Pont and his immediate family. The focus of the papers in the development of the Winterthur estate and the creation and development of the museum. The approximate date range of the material is 1860 to 1970.

For more information contact: The Librarian, The Winterthur Museum and Gardens, Winterthur, DE 19735, tel.: 00 1 302 888 4600.
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The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Washington DC

Since early in its formative years, Howard University has collected materials documenting the historical experiences of people of African descent. In April 1867, shortly after the university was chartered, a committee was established to select books for a library. Some of the first books were titles on Africa, and General Oliver Otis Howard, the University’s founder, donated several books and photographs related to Blacks. Many individuals donated materials dealing with the abolitionist movement and the Civil War, including Lewis Tappan, a noted abolitionist, who, in 1873, bequested more than 1,600 antislavery books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, letters, pictures and clippings.

Despite these positive beginnings the Black history collections grew slowly during the nineteenth century. Then, in 1914, the Reverend Jesse E. Moorland, an alumnus and trustee of Howard who served as general secretary of the YMCA, announced his gift of 3,000 books, pamphlets and other historical items. In accepting the donation, the University’s board of trustees created The Moorland Foundation, a Library of Negro Life and housed it as a special collection in the new library building recently donated by Andrew Carnegie.

Responses to the establishment of the Foundation were positive and wide-ranging and Howard University moved to the forefront of institutions documenting Black history and culture. During the 1930s, the Moorland Foundation served as a clearinghouse for materials documenting the Black experience which were generated by a project of the Works Progress Administration. This project resulted in the compilation of A Catalogue of Books in the Moorland Foundation and the preparation of a card file on . all publications by or about the Negro made known to the project workers by cooperating librarians in public, university and private libraries scattered throughout the country.. Cooperating institutions included the Library of Congress, the Houston Public Library, and the libraries at Prairie View I & N College, Hampton Institute, St. Augustine College, and Drew University.

A landmark in the Moorland Foundation’s history came in 1946 with the purchase of the private library of the learned bibliophile Arthur B. Spingarn, an attorney who, while in the Army during World War I, had spoken out against the discriminatory treatment of Blacks in the military. He chaired the NAACP’s legal committee for many years, and served as the Association’s president between 1940-65. Spingarn was a widely read scholar of Black history and literature who consulted with numerous editors, writers, scholars, diplomats and booksellers throughout the world as he assembled a collection of works by Black authors that was unique in its depth, breadth and quality.

The collection is particularly strong in its coverage of Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and Haitian writers and contains many rare editions. Perhaps the rarest pieces of early Americana are Phillis Wheatley’s broadside An Elegiac Poem on the Death of that Celebrated Divine…George Whitfield (1770) and Poems (1773). The collection also contains Armand Lanusse’s Les Cenelles (1845) the first anthology of Black poetry in the United States and has many important works by early Black authors, including Jupiter Hammon, Benjamin Banneker, Richard Allen, Daniel Coker and Absalom Jones. An inscribed volume of Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) is also among the treasures. In 1958, the Moorland Foundation also acquired Spingarn’s collection of Black music, at the time one of the largest such collections in the world.

It was about this time that the Moorland Foundation became known as the Moorland-Spingarn Collection and in 1973 the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (MSRC) was created. Today the Center comprises four units: the Library Division, the Manuscript Division, Howard University Archives, and Howard University Museum. The Library Division houses the Center’s secondary sources including the Moorland and the Spingarn Collections. The Division is particularly strong in first editions and first works by early 20th century contemporary writers, including W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, Wole Soyinka, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe and Amiri Baraka.

The Manuscript Division is organised into four departments: manuscripts, music, oral history and prints and photographs. The Manuscript Department currently houses more than 180 collections, including the correspondence, writings, diaries, and scrapbooks of notable Blacks, including educators, writers, attorneys, architects, musicians and scientists. The Music Department’s holdings document Black participation in and contributions to the development of jazz, folk, spiritual, popular and classical styles. Its collections are rich in sheet music, songbook albums, and instrumental concert material. The department contains work by more than 400 composers. The Oral History Department contains the Ralph J. Bunche Collection of more than 700 tapes and television transcripts documenting the Civil Rights Movement, and the Votings Rights Oral History and Documentation Project. Finally, the Prints and Photographs Department houses more than 50,000 graphic images, including slides, postcards, paintings, print, maps, broadsides, illustrations and photographs from the 1770s to the present day.

For more information contact: The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, tel. 00 1 202 806 7239.
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Useful Websites

SiteScene: the Monthly Review of New Electronic Resources in American Studies

Established in 1998 this website reviews websites and CD-Roms dealing with all aspects of American culture. The volunteer review staff includes both subject specialists and enthusiasts and each edition aims to direct attention to key new resources in a way that subscribers will find both useful and manageable. The new SiteScene series comes out once a month and is free upon subscription to Roadsign. To join Roadsign, send a Subscribe Roadsign Your Name message to listserv@listserv.georgetown.edu. There are three past editions of SiteScene archived at: http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/asw/sitescene.html

The latest edition of Sitescene features ten websites including: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930 http://www.binghamton.edu/womhist/; The American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com; The Material History of American Religion Project http://www.materialreligion.org and Documenting the American South http://www.metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/aboutdas.html. Two of these sites are highlighted below.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930:
http://www.binghamton.edu/womhist/

This Worldwide Web site is intended to serve as a resource for students and teachers of U.S. women’s history. Organised around the history of women in social movements between 1830 and 1930, the website makes the insights of women’s history accessible to teachers at universities, colleges, and high-schools. The website provideslearning modules organised around a specific question about a single social movement. Each module contains fifteen to twenty documents entered as word-processed hypertext files that permit students to address the question. The modules draw upon microform collections of the papers of such women’s reform organisations as the Women’s Trade Union League, the National Association of Colored Women, the National Consumers’ League, Henry Street and Hull House settlements, the National Woman’s Party, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Current Modules Include:

Women and the Freedmen’s Aid Movement, 1863-1870; Minnesota Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1878-1917; African-American Women and the Chicago World’s Fair, 1893; Illinois Factory Inspection, 1893-1897; Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Woman Suffrage, 1900-1915; Local Branches of the American Association of University Women, 1900-1940; Workers and Allies in the New York City Shirtwaist Strike, 1909-1910; Women and the Lawrence Textile Strike, 1912; Women’s Peace Mission to European Capitals, 1915; Lobbying for Passage of the National Suffrage Amendment, 1917-1920; Middle-Class Women Provide Maternity Health Services for Immigrant Women, 1917-1920; National Woman’s Party and the Enfranchisement of Black Women, 1919-1924; Women Suffragists and Partisan Politics, New York, 1920; Pacifism vs. Patriotism in Women’s Organizations in the 1920s; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and Right-Wing Attacks, 1923-1931.

Documenting the American South:
http://www.metalab.unc.edu/docsouth/aboutdas.html

This electronic collection is based upon the premier Southern collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and provides unique access to primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research. Currently, DAS includes the five digitization projects listed below:

Southern Literature, beginnings to 1920: this project is based on a list of the 100 most important works of Southern literature prepared by the late Robert Bain, Professor of English at the University.

First Person Narratives, 1860-1920: Autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs form the basis of collection.

Slave Narratives, beginnings to 1920: A recent grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities will enable the Library to digitize all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides pamphlets or book forms in English up to 1920, and many biographies of former slaves as well.

The Southern Homefront, 1861-65: This project documents non-military aspects of Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidence in both public and private life.

The Church in the Southern Black Community, beginnings to 1920: This project traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life.
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Useful Microform Collections at the British Library, Boston Spa

In recent years the British Library, Boston Spa has acquired many microform collections of interest to Americanists.

American Culture. Series 1: 1493-1806; Series 2 1807 -1875. UMI. 669 reels; hardcopy indexes held for each MFR number. MFR 3008-3019.

This series covers books and pamphlets from 1493-1875 and includes items such as Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity made at Philadelphia, (1751-53); William Penn’s A Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania lately Granted by the King, (1682); George Custer’s My Life on the Plains or Personal Experiences with Indians, (1874); David Crockett’s A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee (1834).

American Periodicals, 1741-1900. Xerox University Microfilms. 2770 reels. MFR 2740

UMI’s three collections of American Periodicals on Microfilm together include more than 1100 periodicals with publishing dates ranging from 1741-1900.

Series 1: Eighteenth century periodicals; this consists of 88 periodicals on 33 reels of microfilm, tracing the evolution of American magazines from 1741 through the increased activity after the revolution.

Series 2: 1800-1850. This series consists of 923 periodicals on 1,966 reels. Westward expansion and nationalist spirit is reflected in the vagaries of this period, which marked the beginnings of a distinctly American literature. The years 1825-1850 are often referred to the . golden age of periodicals. because of the extraordinary outpourings of magazine activity.

Series 3: Civil War and Reconstruction. This series consists of 117 periodicals on 771 reels. Philosophical, social and literary backgrounds of the civil war and reconstruction eras can be traced through these magazines. The variety and scope of the periodical genre was greatly enlarged in this period and the earliest published works of many outstanding American writers can be found in this collection.

American Prose Fiction, 1774-1905. UMI. 1400 reels. MFR 3050-3053

Some of the items included in this collection are: Adsonville: or, Marrying Out – a Narrative Tale (1824); A Journey to Philadelphia or, Memoirs of Charles, (1804); Sam Squab – The Boston Boy (1844); The Young Schoolmistress (1848).

American Statistics Index. Microfiche Library. Complete Collection. CIS. 278,000 m/f. 1742.171F

This series of US government statistics is still in progress.

Anti-Slavery Collection, 18th-19th Centuries, from the Library of the Society of Friends. World Microfilms. 25 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 2667

Items included in this collection are letters, essays, sermons, poems and debates from the House of Commons regarding the abolition of the slave trade.

British Pamphlets relating to the American Revolution, 1764-1783. EP. 49 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 1700

This series comprises over 100 titles covering many aspects of American history. Materials range in time from the colonial period to the twentieth century, and in locations from Quebec to the West Indies. It includes records relating to trade, industry, plantations, agriculture and ranching, immigration and settlement, the anti-slavery movement, politics, religion and military affairs. There are personal papers and diaries as well as state documents and the records of industrial and commercial concerns. Primary printed materials (newspapers, pamphlets, guides etc.) as well as manuscript collections are included.

British Records Relating to America. EP. 176 reels of microfilm. Hardcopy indexes held. MFR 2834-2891

Some of the items included in this collection are: American materials from the Tarleton Papers in the Liverpool Record Office; material relating to the American Revolution from the Auckland Papers.

Current Urban Documents. 1986-1989. Greenwood. Approx. 900 m/f. Hardcopy index. 3504.96F

This is a collection of local government documents issued by the largest cities and counties in the United States and Canada. The index is arranged by both geographic location and subject.

Index to American Design. Chadwyck-Healey. 291 colour m/f. 10 parts. Hardcopy index. DSC MFE 569

The Index of American Design will be available to scholars, collectors, artists and designers interested in American material culture and the decorative arts. The colour microfiche cover: Textiles and costumes; domestic utensils; silver, copper, pewter and toleware; toys and musical instruments; woodcarvings and weathervanes.

The Official Papers and Correspondence of Sir Jeffrey, 1st Baron Amherst, 1740-1783. World Microfilm. 202 reels. Hardcopy index. MFR 2736

This collection consistsof the official papers and correspondence of Sir Jeffrey, 1st Baron Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America, 1758-64, Governor General of British North America, 1760, absentee Governor of Virginia, 1763-68.

Radical Periodicals in the US, 1890-1950. Greenwood. M/f.

Held as individual series.

Social Welfare Periodicals in America. Greenwood. M/f

Held as individual series.

United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919. Library of Congress Duplicating Service. 5 reels. MFR 1030-1034

This collection of 17 volumes consists of documents relating to the participation of the U.S. Army in World War I.

United States Presidential Papers. Library of Congress. 2695 reels. Hardcopy index for each President. MFR 2735 and MFR 2792-2813

Presidents included in this collection and the number of reels of material on each are as follows: Washington (124); Jefferson (65); Madison (28); Monroe (11); Jackson (78); Van Buren (35); Harrison (3); Tyler (3); Polk (67); Taylor (2); Pierce (7); Lincoln (92); Johnson (50); Grant (32); Garfield (177); Arthur (3); Cleveland (164); Harrison (151); McKinley (98); Theodore Roosevelt (485); Taft (658); Wilson (540); Coolidge (90).

Western Americana Collection. UMI. 5622 m/f. Hardcopy index. (MFE 33)

This is a collection of over 1000 published works, which are mainly books and government documents covering the 18th-20th centuries. Many titles are written by historians or professional writers, but the majority are accounts of ordinary people who participated in, or directly observed, the early Western scene. Examples of the items included in this collection are: George F. Ruxton, Life in the Far West (1849); Randall H. Hewitt, Across the Plains and Over the Divide (1906); Josiah F. Gibbs, Lights and Shadows of Mormonism (1909); Walter Hough, The Hopi Indians (1915); The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, better known in the Cattle Country as “Deadwood Dick,” by Himself, (1907).

Archives of British and American Publishers, Series 1, 2 and 3. Chadwyck-Healey. 413 reels of m/f.

Includes the records of George Allen & Company, 1893-1915; Richard Bentley & Son, 1829-1898; Cambridge University Press, 1696-1902; Harper & Bros., 1817-1914; House of Longman, 1794-1914; Elkin Mathews, 1811-1938; Grant Richards, 1897-1948; George Routledge & Company, 1853-1902; Swan Sonnenschein & Company, 1878-1911; Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Henry S. King, 1853-1912.

Items include: ledgers, registers, bound records, commission ledgers, miscellaneous publication expenses ledgers and impression books.

Congressional Information Service Microfiche Library, Complete Collection, 1970-present. CIS. 150,000 m/f. Items are purchased on demand. 3267.638F and 3267.636F

This series is a collection of all the publications of Congress (except the Congressional Record) including publications of the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Technology Assessment. Items include: the investigation of Kennedy’s assassination; an investigation into the Shuttle Explosion; and the Desert Storm Operations.

For more information on using these collections, contact:

Janet Woods
Reports and Microform Store
The British Library
Boston Spa
Wetherby
West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ

Tel 01937 546174
Fax 01937 546659
E-Mail: janet.woods@bl.uk

Book Reviews

George T. Kurian, Ed. A Historical Guide To The U.S. Government. (New York; Oxford, 1998). Pp.741. ISBN 0-19-510230-4

Based on the premise that: A history of U.S. government is part of the history of the American people,A Historical Guide to the U.S. Government will doubtless be of great assistance to all those interested in the ways in which the growth, evolution and often demise of federal departments, agencies and bureaus have been influenced by the social, cultural, intellectual and economic ideas and movements that have shaped US history as a whole.

The Guide is arranged alphabetically by entry-term, and most of the signed, essay-style entries are written by historians, political scientists or federal employees. A significant proportion of the entries are upwards of ten pages long, and most conclude with a selected bibliography of approximately ten to twelve sources, as well as references where necessary. Overall the entry-terms themselves are obvious and straightforward, however, ones such as Advising the President can seem a little awkward. However, the excellent index makes up for any shortfall in this area, and enables one quickly and easily to locate the appropriate information. Finally, an appendix consisting of many of the most important documents of public administration is included at the end.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of information in the Guide concerns the evolution and activities of the federal government in the twentieth century. Indeed, George Washington ran the affairs of state with only four assistants, and, due to peculiarly American circumstances–the open frontier, the strength of private enterprise, fear of big government, among others–the establishment of government structures in the nineteenth century was relatively slow. However, the Great Depression brought the federal government into American public life in an unprecedented way and today, despite the backlash of the Reagan years, it employs nearly three million civilians and is one of the largest public institutions in the world. The story of this incredible expansion is well-documented by this useful, illuminating work.

Jean Kemble
The Eccles Centre, The British Library