Archives Unbound:
American Studies

Archives Unbound: American Studies

Supporting a deep dive into American culture, primary source materials in this collection help researchers explore music, art, literature, and cinema from all regions of the country in the 19th and 20th centuries.

State History

Archives of the Work Projects Administration and Predecessors, 1933–1943: Final Reports of the State Program, 1943 - The WPA (Works Progress Administration until July 1, 1939, known thereafter as the Work Projects Administration) was the agency responsible for the New Deal administration’s work relief program. The WPA was a constructive alternative to a straightforward Social Welfare system. It set out to put to work the millions of Americans who were unemployed due to the stock market crash of October 1929 and the tragic economic catastrophe that followed. The first of two, this collection documents the WPA’s employment efforts on behalf of millions of Americans during the Great Depression.

Archives of the Work Projects Administration and Predecessors, 1933–1943: Final State Reports for the Federal Music Project, the Federal Art Project, the Museum Extension Project, the Federal Theatre Project, and the Federal Writers’ Project - A continuation of the WPA’s records, the second of two collections of the WPA’s Final State Reports shows that the office did not discriminate in favor of manual or skilled workers. Instead, it set up separate projects to give employment to construction workers, engineers, farmers, doctors, educators, writers, musicians, artists, and almost every other kind of working person. The WPA restored pride to ordinary working people and achieved remarkable results in constructing not just manufacturing and infrastructure works but also works of art, the “living newspaper,” and new American music. This collection chronicles the remarkable artistic endeavors the WPA helped forge.

City and Business Directories: Alabama, 1837-1929

City and Business Directories: Arkansas, 1871-1929

City and Business Directories: Florida, 1882-1929

City and Business Directories: Louisiana, 1805-1929

City and Business Directories: Maryland, 1752-1929

City and Business Directories: Mississippi, 1860-1929

City and Business Directories: North Carolina, 1886-1929

City and Business Directories: Tennessee, 1849-1929

City and Business Directories: Virginia, 1801-1929

City and Business Directories: West Virginia, 1839-1929

City directories are among the most comprehensive sources of historical and personal information available. Their emphasis on ordinary people and the common-place event make them important in the study of American history and culture. One of the few means available for researchers to uncover information on specific individuals, these directories provides such information as: • Addresses • City and county officers • Heads of families, firms and names of those doing business in the city • Lists of city residents • Occupations • Street Directories In addition, researchers can learn much about day-to-day life through analysis of information on churches, public and private schools, benevolent, literary and other associations, and banks. Finally, most directories include advertising, often illustrating the products being sold. This information lends valuable insight into the city’s lifestyles and illustrates popular trends.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: California - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on California are ninety-seven titles covering eight cities and regions. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Illinois - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on Illinois are fifteen cities and regions in 361 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Indiana - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on Indiana are Thirteen cities and regions covered in 262 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Michigan - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on Illinois are fifteen cities and regions in 361 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: New York - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on New York are 28 cities, regions, and counties in 465 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Ohio - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on Ohio are 21 cities and regions covered in 305 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Pennsylvania - This collection of local and regional histories provides vivid portraits of individual people, places, and situations. It puts local history in the service of current event with the examination of historical demographic, social, and cultural transformations. For example, these volumes can provide historical perspectives on politics and literature and show how metaphor – “Keystone State”, and the “city of brotherly love, Philadelphia”-- and myth invent, distort, and hold captive local towns, peoples, and places. Included in this collection are 15 cities and regions covered in 283 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

County and Regional Histories & Atlases: Wisconsin - State and especially local history gives students a chance to understand the people, places and things around them with which they’re already familiar. Originally compiled and produced by publishers and subscriptions agents for area residents and patrons, the original histories are difficult-to-find materials. Included in this collection on Wisconsin are 12 cities, regions, and counties in 158 titles. These titles comprise tables and lists of vital statistics, military service records, municipal and county officers, chronologies, portraits of individuals and views of urban and rural life not found anywhere else. The atlases provide additional information on land use and settlement patterns and scarce early town and city plans.

Goldey-Beacom College Historical Archives

Indiana History

Kansas History: Territorial through Civil War, 1854–1865

Mountain People: Life and Culture in Appalachia - This collection consists of the diaries, journals, and narratives of explorers, emigrants, military men, Native Americans, and travelers. In addition, there are accounts on the development of farming and mining communities, family histories, and folklore. These accounts provide a view of the of the vast region between Lexington, Kentucky and Winchester, Virginia, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Birmingham, Alabama, which spans three and a half centuries and provides information on the social, political, economic, scientific, religious, and agricultural characteristics of the region.

Overland Journeys: Travels in the West, 1800-1880 - Western settlers created what we think of as the American West. Explorers came and went, soldiers came and went, miners and others came and went. But the settlers came to stay. For settlers, the ways of reaching a destination in the frontier country were either wretched ordeals or wondrous adventures. Fortunately, many of these men and women recorded daily events and their thoughts with such picturesque zest that some accounts of westward journeys have elements of great literature within them.

War on Poverty Community Profiles: Midwestern States - The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Midwestern states in this collection include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.

War on Poverty Community Profiles: Northeastern States - The most ambitious and controversial part of the President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), which was established to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. Central to OEO’s mission was the idea of "community action," the participation of the poor in framing and administering the programs designed to help them. To assess the scale of poverty in America, the OEO developed the Community Profile Project, designed to increase the scope, accessibility, accuracy, and utility of information supporting the planning and evaluation of programs for community improvement. The Project compiled data for 3,135 U.S. counties and county equivalents that subdivided each state into independently-administered localities. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data of the United States at a local level. Northeastern states in this collection include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.

War on Poverty Community Profiles: Southern States - The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Midwestern states in this collection include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.

War on Poverty Community Profiles: Texas - The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America with an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.

War on Poverty Community Profiles: Western States - The Community Profiles provide an in-depth analysis of poverty in America by providing an extensive inventory of historical data at a local level. Each profile, composed as a narrative with statistical indices, contains information showing general poverty indicators, size and composition of the poor population, and selected aspects of geography, demography, economy, and social resources. Western states in this collection include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The documents in this archive are from the Presidential Papers of Lyndon Baines Johnson, White House Office Files, Office Files of Fred Panzer: Office of Economic Opportunity Information Center, Community Profiles, in the custody of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas.