osu_archives

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Locating Primary Sources Online:

Exploring the Resources Outside OSU
for your research projects

We have wonderful archival materials the OSU Archives, but we don’t have it all… This list contains some interesting primary source collections outside the walls of the Valley Library.

The Digital Scriptorium is an image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that unites scattered resources from many institutions into an international tool for teaching and scholarly research. It bridges the gap between a diverse user community and the limited resources of libraries by means of sample imaging and extensive rather than intensive cataloging. http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu/

The Nike Archives: Public museums were founded in part to help societies hold onto their cultural and historical memories, but businesses collect, too. The documents, products, and records a company keeps in its archive help create institutional memories; sometimes those memories are of products that worked, sometimes not. The Nike Archives has over 23,000 pieces of sports memorabilia, nearly every shoe produced. Their goal is to collect at least one of every item Nike has produced. If you’d like to see what is missing, there are still about 50 models missing, here’s the list: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2006/jan/nike/nikewishlist.pdf

The Women and Gender Project: The Archives for Research on Women and Gender (ARWG) project specializes in acquiring, preserving, arranging, describing, and providing access to primary source materials that document the lives of women, constructions of gender, and expressions of sexual identity in South Texas. http://lib.utsa.edu/Archives/WomenGender/

The Carnegie Melon: History of Medicine Library site. http://www.library.cmu.edu/Research/Humanities/History/medprimary.html

The Web of Healing: This exploration of healing in eighteenth-century Philadelphia was developed and brought to life by a group of graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania’s department of History and Sociology of Science. Initially developed to be used as a teaching tool for undergraduates, this site is designed to serve as a pedagogical and public history resource. http://www.pachs.net/exhibits/web_of_healing/archives/index.html

Erosion of a Sea Stack Over 100 Years: The photographs on this site show the demise of Jump-off Joe, a sea stack at Nye Beach, Newport, Oregon. http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/pubinfo/jump.html

Coastal Engineering : research, consulting, and teaching, 1946-1997: Full-text book on the Internet Archive. http://www.archive.org/details/researchcoastengineer00wiegrich

ES 351

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The University Archives is the repository for official and unofficial records that document OSU’s history. Our collections include historical records of enduring value generated by faculty, academic departments, administrative offices, students, and campus organizations.

Archival Collections: What Will I Find There?

• Diaries and Journals

• Letters/Correspondence

• Institutional and Business Records

• Photographs and other Visual Images

• Maps, Blueprints, and Plans

• Transcripts and Recordings of Oral History Interviews or Oral Traditions

• Sound and Video Recordings

• Physical Artifacts

So How Do I Find Archives?

— National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections: This is an online catalog containing descriptions of archival collections from all over the nation.

— National Archives and Records Administration - Pacific Alaska Region: the National Archives keeps documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government; this site includes finding aids for records held at the Pacific Alaska Region facility.

— Primary Resource Repositories: This site contains links to the Web pages of archives and special collections throughout the U.S., Canada and the world. It is organized by state and then alphabetical by repository.

— Library of Congress American Memory: American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections.

— Northwest Digital Archives site: The site’s database includes finding aids (more than 1,800 currently) from 16 archival repositories in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. The search page includes options for searching or browsing with terms for several ethnic and cultural groups.

What Can I Find in the OSU Archives?

The primary mission of the University Archives is to collect, maintain, preserve and make available to researchers the historical records of Oregon State University. Within this large body of documentation are sources for the study of ethnic communities that have shaped OSU and Oregon. The collections listed here are but a few containing information about the many communities that make up our university.

• OSU Archives

• Braceros in Oregon Photograph Collection

• Student Affairs Records (Record Group 102)

• Budgets and Planning Records (Record Group 125)

• Gifford Photograph Collection (P 218)

• E. E. Wilson Photograph Collection (P 101)

• Basques in Harney County Oral History Collection (OH 4)

• Oregon Multicultural Archives

Oregon Multicultural Archives (OMA)

— What is the Oregon Multicultural Archives? The OSU Libraries’ Oregon Multicultural Archives acquires, preserves, and makes available collections that document the lives and activities of African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American communities of Oregon.

— What Will I Find There?

— What Will I Find in the OMA Digital Collection? The Oregon Multicultural Archives Digital Collection consists of images that document the lives and activities of ethnic minorities in Oregon. The images are drawn from the archival collections that form the Oregon Multicultural Archives.

— Where Can I Find Out More About the OMA?

— Where Can I Find More Sources?

Where can I find more? Links to other online archival collections

— Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive: The CRBEHA brings together selected highlights of the ethnic collections from leading repositories in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In addition to the digital archive, CRBEHA provides tutorials on how to research and interpret library and museum resources, and encourages public dialogue about ethnic history sources and issues in its online discussion forum.

— Black Oral History Interviews: This collection, developed by Washington State University, consists of interviews conducted by Quintard Taylor and his associates, Charles Ramsay and John Dawkins. They interviewed African American pioneers and their descendents throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, from 1972-1974.

— First Nations Tribal Collection: This collection developed at Southern Oregon University consists of documents, books, and articles relating to the indigenous peoples of this bioregion, including the Klamath, Modoc, Takelma, Shasta, Cow Creek Band of Umpqua, and Yahooskin nations.

— American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Digital Collection: This site provides an extensive digital collection of original photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures, complemented by essays written by anthropologists, historians, and teachers about both particular tribes and cross-cultural topics. These cultures have occupied, and in some cases still live in parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. This collection is also available via the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress.

— Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (JARDA): JARDA is a digital “thematic collection” within the OAC documenting the experience of Japanese Americans in World War II internment camps, including Japanese Americans from Oregon. Curators, archivists, and librarians from ten participating OAC contributing institutions selected a broad range of primary sources to be digitized, including photographs, documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, letters, and oral histories. Over 10,000 digital images have been created complemented by 20,000 pages of electronic transcriptions of documents and oral histories. These materials are described and inventoried in 28 different online guides or “finding aids.”

Adventures in the Archives: Hunting for History

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Upward Bound Students: Welcome to the OSU Archives!

Congratulations! You have found your first clue!

The map shown above is one that was drawn by a student for the 1934 Beaver yearbook. We don’t know much about the artist, Wayne Bagley, but we do know that he included all the clues on his map that you will need to finish this scavenger hunt.

In your hunt for Oregon State University history, you will use Wayne’s map to find buildings in the main quad of campus, going from building to building in search of clues. On the second day of the hunt, you will spend some time investigating the Archives, looking for more information about Wayne and his roaring 1920s college life!

Wayne was a student at Oregon State College, as OSU was known in the 1920s, from 1926-1930. He was an active artist while at OSC, though he was an Engineering major! He was a member of Kappa Kappa Alpha, the Hammer and Coffin (the Oregon State chapter of the national honor humor fraternity), the National Honorary Fraternity in Art, as well as a member of Theta Delta Nu and an editor for the Beaver yearbook. In 1928, he was on the staff for the Orange Owl, which was a comic magazine on campus and a publication of the Hammer and Coffin.

The Orange Owl, Oregon State’s humor magazine for 8 years, was full of literary articles, verses, jokes, skits, cartoons, and pictures. In 1928, the same year Wayne was involved, the Hammer and Coffin decided to stop publishing the magazine because there were so many complaints by people who were offended by the articles; later that year, the magazine was shut completely down by a student interest committee.

To begin, click on the map, and then write down the “Item Number” on a paging slip and give it to the person at the Archives reference desk.

Good luck and have fun!

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Franklin Elementary School

Welcome Adams Elementary students!

“Schoolhouses were among the first buildings erected once the settlers took care of the more pressing needs of food and shelter. The rural school site, which was often one acre, contained the schoolhouse, a wood shed, two outhouses, perhaps a horse shed, and sometimes play equipment. The schoolhouse was usually a rectagular, front-gabled building with one room. The outsides of schoolhouses ranged from crude, unpainted board, to exteriors finished with painted trim elements. Many of the first schools were of log construction, like the schoolhouse erected in 1848 on what is currently the northeast corner of Second and Jackson in Corvallis and the Gingles Schoolhouse, located in the North Albany area.”

“Most students walked, while some rode horses to the district schoolhouse– often a mile or more away but rarely more than five miles from home. Many schools were closed in the worst winter months because of deep mud and heavy rains. In the summer, farm work closed the schools, leaving several months in the fall and spring for classes.”

“Schoolhouses were also the social hubs of communities, because the schools sponsored many community events. Popular amusements included box socials, pie socials, and ice cream socials. Christmas, May Day, and graduation were among the most important days for school celebrations.”

From A Pictorial History of Benton County, found on the Archives Reference shelf on the 3rd floor of The Valley Library.