Featured Collection:
Historic Evanston Map: The Archives is pleased to make available online an historic map of Evanston—originally published around 1876 by Theodore Reese—that is believed to be the oldest printed map of the city. Much neglected prior to its acquisition by the University Archives, it has now been carefully restored and digitized by the Northwestern University Library, with special thanks due Northwestern's Academic & Research Technologies department. The interactive map can be navigated using controls to zoom, navigate, and measure distance. Lot identification numbers correspond to the historical Evanston real estate records and Evanston city directories held in the Archives, making this a useful tool for tracing the history of a property. Visit our website to see the map or explore property resources.
This Month's Highlights:
North Shore Music Festival: During a thirty year period, from 1909-1939, Northwestern was home to the North Shore Music Festival, a popular concert series featuring opera and the orchestras of Theodore Thomas and the Chicago Symphony. Visit our blog to learn more about this piece of summer history.
Rope Burns for the Alma Mater: Jason Nargis profiles Northwestern's Tug-of-War Team. The team, which was the most popular on campus during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, won two gold medals and featured notable member E.B. Fowler. Click here to learn more.
Tip of the Month:
Finding Aids: Finding aids (also called guides or descriptive inventories) are the key to locating archival and other primary source materials. The finding aid to an individual collection includes a detailed description of the collection, explains how it is organized, and outlines its contents, listing locations within a collection where relevant materials may be found. Click here to browse the Archives' online finding aids.
The University Archives:
The Archives has nearly 1000 processed collections and thousands of linear feet of material. Browsing our website can help inspire choices of topics for research or general-interest purposes. Check our Finding Aids site for information about processed collections; our History and Traditions pages and Exhibits sites provide some great ideas; and browse through past entries in our This Day in NU History for items that pique your interest. As most of our holdings are not listed in the library catalogue, we encourage inquiries by those looking for primary source documents.
A few of the topics that Archives visitors investigated this month included:
- N.U. Urban Legends
- The Forest Preserve District of Cook County
- Dance Marathon
- Various avenues of biographical research
