To Americans of a certain age — ahem! — September will always mean “back to school”. In celebration of this momentous month, I’m pleased to continue our link list tradition and share seventy-four online College and University historical collections.

All archive and collection descriptions come directly from the college or university website. If you’ve got any online collections to recommend, we’d love to hear about them in our comments section. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy this road trip to American, Canadian, and British colleges and universities.

Florida State University, Tallahassee (my alma mater)

“Provides online access to thousands of unique manuscripts, photographs, pamphlets, rare books, historic maps and other materials from across the FSU campus libraries and beyond.”

• Cookbooks and Herbals – An interest in cookbooks and household management is a legacy from FSU’s earliest years as a women’s college….The oldest in our cookbook collection is from 1622 Venice.
• Emmett Till Archives – primary and secondary source material related to the life, murder, and memory of Emmett Louis Till….includes newspapers, magazines, oral histories, photographs, government records, scholarly literature, creative works, and other materials documenting the Till case and its commemoration, memorialization, and discussion in scholarship and popular culture.
• Florida Book Collection – A collection of books and periodicals about Florida and by Florida authors. These materials include such topics as local history, guidebooks, cookbooks, business directories, politics, Native Americans, archaeology, and the environment.
• Hasterlik-Hine Collection – documents the life of an upper-middle-class Viennese family in Nazi-occupied Austria that was deemed Jewish under the Nuremberg laws…. [and] consists of roughly 530 handwritten and typed letters, post cards and greeting cards between Giulia Kortischoner and her family and friends during the years 1938 to 1942 and 1944 to 1948.
• Institute on World War II and the Human Experience – collecting and preserving the memories of the men and women who participated in all the military branches, service with the Merchant Marine, Red Cross, USO, workers and volunteers on the Home Front (e.g., ship-building yards, defense plants, YMCA and other clubs) during the WWII era and the immediate post-war period (i.e., 1939 – 1949). With over 6,000 collections and growing, The Institute on WWII has items from individuals and units presenting all states and a few from other nations.
• John House Stereograph Collection – The collection bears the name of the British art historian who collected it over a period of more than four decades, John House (1945-2012)….House’s carefully curated collection comprises nearly 2,000 views of nineteenth-century Paris. This unique collection serves as primary visual documents of Paris before, during, and after Napoleon III and Baron George-Eugene Haussmann’s extreme urban renewal project, known as Haussmannization (1853-70).
• Maps of the Caribbean, 1584-1845 – Includes maps dating from the 16th to 19th centuries, published primarily in Paris, London, and Amsterdam. Many of the maps are hand colored. Some of the specific areas featured on the maps include the West Indies, Latin America, the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, and the Virgin Islands.
• The Ringling – the records of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; Ringling family papers; photographic collections; Circus Arts, Wild West shows and allied arts collections; and manuscripts.

Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges – Massachusetts

“The Five College Consortium Compass is a gateway to the digital collections from Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges. Search photographs, postcards, letters, newspapers and other primary source documents, all from a single site.”

• Digital Photographic Archive of Historic Havana
• Frances Perkins papers
• Mount Holyoke College glass plate negatives and lantern slides collection
• Smith College collection of cuneiform tablets
• Valentines collection
• Women of Rock Oral History Project records
• World War I images in France

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

“With more than six million volumes, the Library is a vital support for research, learning and teaching excellence at UBC.”

• Florence Nightingale Letters – A collection of letters written by and to Florence Nightingale….Many of this group of letters were written by Nightingale to Mme Julius Mohl (nee Mary Clarke) her long-time friend.
• Japanese Canadian Photograph Collection – Following the declaration of war on Japan, Japanese nationals and Canadian citizens of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from what was considered to be strategic, restricted coastal areas of British Columbia in 1942. Evacuees were first dispatched to temporary facilities at Vancouver’s Hastings Park and then from there relocated to areas in the B.C. interior and beyond.
• RBSC Bookplates – Images of bookplates from books and collections donated to UBC Library.
• Royal Fisk Gold Rush Letters – collection of over 900 original manuscript letters from the Cariboo Gold Rush period, 1862-1868.  Written by Victoria area merchants to Royal Fisk, a forwarding and shipping agent in San Francisco, the letters are a valuable source of information on trade and commerce as it developed in Victoria during the height and decline of the Cariboo Gold Rush.
• Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs – includes extensive coverage of B.C. from the 1850s to the 1950s and includes photographs in a wide variety of formats and genres including albums, diaries, portraits, landscapes and city/townscapes.
• WWI & WWII Posters – Fifty nine posters, broadsides, and ephemera from World War I and II, published in Canada, Belgium,  England, France, Germany, and the United States. The posters cover a  variety of subjects including recruitment and enlisting, savings stamps,  savings and victory bonds, women, agriculture, and munitions. 

Tulane University, New Orleans

“Digital collections include holdings from the Amistad Research Center, Latin American Library, Matas Library of the Health Sciences, [and the] Newcomb Archives & Vorhoff Special Collections.”

• Carnival Collection – more than 5,500 original float and costume designs. Most are from Carnival’s “Golden Age” (the 1870s through the 1940s) with about three hundred designs from 1950 to 1970.
• Early Images of Latin America – provides over 1,800 images from the Latin American Library’s Image Archive documenting people, places, landscapes, urban and rural scenes in various countries of the region from the mid-19th century to c. 1910.
• Joseph Merrick Jones Steamboat Photographs – 357 glass plate negatives of Mississippi riverboats, circa 1890 – 1940…These images showcase sternwheelers, sidewheelers, tugboats, packets, showboats, and other types of riverboats during their construction phase, traveling along the Mississippi and other rivers, and being dismantled, as well as river towns, docks, riverboat captains, industry executives, and other people involved with waterways.
• Joseph Woodson “Pops” Whitesell Photographs – over 2,550 glass plate negatives by noted New Orleans photographer Joseph Woodson “Pops” Whitesell (1876 – 1958)….Whitesell moved to New Orleans from his native Indiana in 1918. By 1921 he had established a studio in the French Quarter where he became a noted portrait photographer. In addition to documenting New Orleans society, including debutantes, wedding parties, boards of directors, and Carnival royalty, Whitesell was a central figure of French Quarter bohemia and was part of the arts and preservation movement that became known as the French Quarter Renaissance.
• The Lantern – a short-lived newspaper printed in New Orleans from 1886-1887. From the smell of sauerkraut in the Magazine market to a brawl between neighbors on Franklin Ave, the starvation death of a life-term prison inmate to neighborhood frustration over uncollected trash – The Lantern provides a street level view of daily life in New Orleans in the 1880s.
• Newcomb College Photographs – images of Newcomb students, classes, sports teams and athletics classes, Washington Avenue and Broadway Street campus buildings, and graduation photographs dating from roughly 1887 to 1930.

Harvard University, Boston

“CURIOSity Digital Collections – Curated views that provide specialized search options and unique content“

• American Currency. Over 700 pieces of paper money ranging in date from 1709 to 1878. This collection illustrates the history of American finance and commerce from Colonial times through the Civil War.
• France in America. Books, maps, and other distinctive materials pertaining to the early French exploration of North America, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the Louisiana Purchase.
• Harrison D. Horblit Collection of Early Photography. Documents the history and science of photography from the 1830s to roughly 1900. The images in the collection show us the evolution of the photograph from something slightly imprecise and sometimes fleeting to something more efficient, detailed, and long lasting. Nearly all (if not all) photographic processes from the 19th century are represented in the collection, including: daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, paper negatives, albumen prints, ambrotypes, and more.
• Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts. Includes works in Latin, Greek, and most of the vernacular languages of Europe that are the primary sources for the study of the literature, art, history, music, philosophy, and theology of the periods.
• Political Buttons. Images of over 1,500 political buttons, giving scholars a window into 20th- and 21st- century politics, electioneering, political Americana, and social, political, and cultural issues and movements through political ephemera.
• Studies in Scarlet Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914. Includes American, British, and Irish cases from 1815 to 1914 involving domestic violence, bigamy, seduction, breach of promise to marry, child custody, rape, and murder. Included are an account of the adultery trial of Caroline, Queen Consort of George IV, the sodomy trial of Oscar Wilde, and the trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of Stanford White, a famous architect and Evelyn Nesbit Thaw’s lover.
• The South Sea Bubble, 1720. One of the world’s most extensive collections relating to the 1720 financial crisis.
• Women Working, 1800-1930. An exploration of women’s impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression. Working conditions, workplace regulations, home life, costs of living, commerce, recreation, health and hygiene, and social issues are among the issues documented.

University of California, Berkeley

“Your all-in-one portal into the UC Berkeley Library’s digital gems….This includes digital collections, archival records, and other materials that provide enduring value for intellectual inquiry, research, and discovery.”

• California Sheet Music
• Chinese in California, 1850-1925
• French war posters from the First World War
• Italian Librettos
• Japanese Historical Maps
• Muybridge (Eadweard) Stereographic Views
• Panama-Pacific International Exposition Photographs
• Port Chicago Oral Histories
• Rubyfruit Readher
• Suffragists Oral Histories
• Western Survey Expeditions

Howard University, Washington, D.C.

“An online repository curated by the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and the Howard University Libraries.”

• 1880s Photograph Scrapbook
• Booker T. Washington Collection
• Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing
• Harry Bowman Black Vaudeville Collection
• Howard University Jazz Oral History Project

Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.

“Oberlin’s rich assortment of digital collections of objects and texts can be found on CONTENTdm as well as the Internet Archive“

• Frederick R. Selch Collection of American Music History – these images date from the early 16th through the late 20th centuries. They depict the history, design and use of musical instruments and all manner of musical performance. 
• History of Fashion – a teaching and learning tool that provides access to over 350 garments and accessories from 1830 through the 20th Century.
• Maya Archeology – shows Maya architecture and scenery from Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala and serves as a resource for the exploration of the various and complex interrelationships within Maya society.
• Oberlin African-American Genealogy & History Group (OAAGHG) Obituary Project – aspires to list all locally published obituaries and news accounts of the deaths of African-Americans who died in the Oberlin area between 1863 and 1939.
• Oberlin and the Civil War
• Sela G. Wright Collection – offers an original Ojibwe language manuscript…compiled by Wright for his work as an educator and missionary among the Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota in the 19th century.

University of Colorado, Boulder

“The University of Colorado Digital Library (CU-DL) is a collaborative project between the three campuses that make up the University of Colorado System (Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver), the Anschutz Medical Campus, and the Auraria Higher Education Center, which is comprised of the Community College of Denver; Metropolitan State College of Denver; and the University of Colorado Denver.”

• Bent Hyde Papers, 1905-1918 – consists of original maps of Indian and military positions of such areas as Sand Creek, the Arkansas River, etc., and correspondence between George Bent and George Hyde, covering the years 1905-1918.
• Colorado Directories – …this collection consists primarily of directories from Leadville, Colorado Springs, and Denver.
• Hal Sayre Papers – The first item in the Hal Sayre Papers collection is Sayre’s handwritten, first-person diary recounting the Sand Creek Massacre. The corresponding print collection includes numerous diaries, extensive personal and business material, maps, legal papers and business records. An experienced railroad and canal engineer, Hal Sayre (1835-1926) came to Colorado during the gold rush.
• Historical Hats and Headdresses – contains 65 watercolor plates.
• Novela Mundial Series – La Novela Mundial is a series of popular fiction that was published by Rivadeneyra (S.A.) in Madrid, Spain between 1926 and 1928, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera….Similar to “dime store” books, these were known as “novelas de kiosko,” because they were sold in newsstands, most for between 30 and 50 cents.

• NSIDC Glacier Photograph Collection – The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado has a collection of Glacier Photographs that consists of roughly 30,000 photographs of glaciers, mostly taken in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Greenland.
• Women Poets of the Romantic Period – a significant collection of first and early editions of poetry by women writers of the British Romantic Period (1770-roughly 1839).

University of London

“Our digital library is one of the best in the world, and we manage UCL Discovery, the institutional repository which enables the world to access our researchers’ work for free.”

• George Orwell Archives – the most comprehensive body of research material relating to the author George Orwell (Eric Blair) (1903-1950) anywhere.
• Jewish Collections – Printed, manuscript and archival collections of Hebraica and Judaica which are of national and international importance.
• London History
• Medieval Manuscript Fragments – A collection of around 150 fragments of medieval and early modern manuscripts.
• The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Digital Library – contains rare books and art works related to Greek history, archaeology and culture.

 

 University of California, Los Angeles

“Serves as the catalyst for the creation, management, and delivery of digital content in support of the UCLA Library mission and goals.“ 

• Children’s Book Collection – over 1,800 digitized children’s books, including Goody Two-Shoes (1888), which has been downloaded over two million times through the site.
• Ethnomusicology Archive: D. K. Wilgus Folksong Collection – approximately 8,000 commercially recorded albums of traditional music, song, and narrative as well as 1,000 field-recorded tapes.
• Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, ca. 1918-1990 – approximately 3.5 million photographic negatives and 1.5 million photographic prints documenting events and people in California, the United States, and the world.
• Motion Picture Stills, 1903 – consists primarily of American motion picture film stills, and includes black and white photographs and some color prints and slides. Also included are publicity stills from various studios.
• Pierce (C.C.) Photographic Collection – Collection consists of historic negatives and prints. Most are of Southern California scenes; Los Angeles is well represented with views of downtown streets, commercial and civic buildings, and residential areas.

Finis!