History: Primary Sources: Collections and Papers

Offers unique and important documentation on the growth, transformation, successes and failures of one of the important American social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the modern American labor movement. Four major national organizations are documented in substantial detail in this module: the Knights of Labor, AFL, CIO, and AFL-CIO.

6,000 pages of American motion picture catalogs published between 1894 and 1908.

The papers document the effort of Lloyd and his contemporaries to combat the evils and injustices of late-nineteenth-century American society. Lloyd masterfully made the public aware of the ethical wasteland of their times. Trusting in the basic goodness of the ordinary person, he proposed practicable solutions to the problems he exposed, solutions filtered through his ideals of socialism and ethical justice. Fellow reformers and Socialists throughout the United States and the world recognized him as one of their peers, if not one of their leaders.

Papers, reports, publications, correspondence, and organizational records of the University Settlement Society, an early social welfare advocacy organization based in New York City. Also found within this collection are documents chronicling the programs and activities the University Settlement Society created for the urban poor living in tenement houses, including access to public bath facilities, advocacy for more public spaces and parks, and summer camps to encourage children to explore a world outside the squalid conditions found in rapidly urbanizing city cores. This collection is separated into 11 series: Council Papers, Headworkers' Reports, Publications, Headworkers' Subject and Correspondence File, Residents and Staff, Volunteers, Clubs, Charles B. Stover Papers, Camps, Cultural Activities, and University Settlement Who's Who.

The oldest company of private investigators in the United States, pursued some of the nation's most notorious criminals including Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, Alfred Brady, John Dillinger, and countless others. The records of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency are digitized in History Vault from the holdings of the Library of Congress. The collection consists of an Administrative File, Criminal Case Files, and the Family Directors File. The Administrative File gives an excellent overview of the history of the agency and includes documents covering their most famous cases as well the business practices of the company. The Criminal Case Files constitute the bulk of the collection. The criminal case files consist of correspondence regarding the cases, reports from operatives, mug shots, reward notices, and wanted posters. Some of the case files also include histories of the cases, often written by Pinkerton employees after a case was completed. The Criminal Case File includes files on some of the Pinkerton's most well-known cases including the Pinkerton's pursuit of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh), and the Wild Bunch Gang; the work of agent James McParland in infiltrating the Molly Maguires; and Allan Pinkerton's role in thwarting the 1861 assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln; and investigations of train robberies, bank robberies, murder, fraud, and forgeries throughout the United States. Overall, the records of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency provide many exciting research opportunities for researchers in criminology, sociology, the history of law enforcement, and labor relations

Correspondence, writings, speeches, diaries and photographs of five leading members of the Progressive movement: John R. Commons, Charles R. Van Hise, Richard T. Ely, Edward A. Ross and Charles McCarthy. Individually and collectively, these men proved they were more than idealists by devising and carrying out major reforms to solve the problems caused by the growth of industrialization following the Civil War in areas like employment and child labor, education, taxation, elections, conservation, and regulation of food, public utilities, and corporations. This module offers valuable insight into both the theorizing and practical legislation of the Progressive Era.

26 collections from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the first North American historical society and the first library to devote its primary attention to collecting Americana. The collections digitized by ProQuest from the holdings of the Massachusetts Historical Society focus on the Colonial Era, the Revolutionary War, and the Early National Period, with some collections extending into the Civil War era. Among the collections on the Colonial Era, one notable collection is the Pre-Revolutionary Diaries, 1635-1774. This collection consists of 276 diaries written by 112 people. Taken together, these diaries provide a rich portrait of life in America before the American Revolution. Highlights of the Revolutionary War and Early National Period are the Benjamin Lincoln Papers, Revere Family Papers, Elbridge Gerry Papers, and Artemas Ward Papers.

One of the crucial figures of the Progressive Movement of the early twentieth century. This collection documents his early career in the political reform movement from 1879 to 1910. During these years, La Follette emerged as the powerful leader of the reform coalition which was struggling with the state's large economic interests for control of the government. In 1901 the reformers won control of the state Republican party, and La Follette began the first of his three terms as governor. La Follette's papers focus on his fight to reform corruption and injustice in the political system of the state of Wisconsin. Under his dynamic leadership, the Wisconsin state legislature enacted sweeping reforms including railroad regulation and the primary election law which replaced the old caucus and convention system. These important pieces of legislation then served as the models for similar reforms by other states and by the federal government. Thus, it was under La Follette that Wisconsin earned the title "laboratory of democracy."

Documents in the collection include correspondence, position papers, memoranda, financial records, pamphlets and broadsides, and leaflets. The records in the collection reflect the party's internal disputes, including the 1919 split, which resulted in the formation of the American Communist Party. An important segment of the material focuses on the 1950s and 1960s, when the party's momentum was aided by social unrest and the concomitant increase in civil rights activities. These were also the years when the Socialist Party of America finally received widespread attention from intellectuals and influential government leaders in President Johnson's War on Poverty. The files from 1963 to 1976 document the Socialist Party’s new alignment with the Democratic Party as it worked to forge a labor-liberal coalition. These records will allow researchers to investigate the changes that occurred within the party during the 1960s and early 1970s: the formation of the Social Democrats, U.S.A., of the "Debs Caucus," and the Socialist Party, U.S.A.

14 collections representing 12 different anti-Vietnam War organizations. The organizations represented in this module are Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, AMEX-Canada; Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars; Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee; Indochina Peace Campaign; National Peace Action Coalition; New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Paris American Committee to Stop the War; Student Peace Union; Teachers Committee for Peace in Vietnam; and Vietnam Moratorium Committee.

Documents the life, work, and vision of Thomas Edison in laboratory notebooks, diaries, business records, correspondence, and related materials. Inventor, businessman, scientist, industrialist, entrepreneur, engineer, Thomas Alva Edison developed many of the technologies that have shaped the modem world. Perhaps more than anyone else, Edison integrated the worlds of science, technology, business, and finance; and his work laid the foundation for the age of electricity, recorded sound, and motion pictures. In addition, he used team research and development with such great success at his Menlo Park and, West Orange, New Jersey, laboratories that he helped introduce the era of modem industrial research.