The Donnelley and Lee Library’s unit for Archives and Special Collections organizes, processes, exhibits, promotes and services two significant collections:
College Archives
The Archives include the College’s own non-current, retired records dating from the 1850s: publications, official minutes and records, student theses, plans, and files (correspondence, photographs, and memorabilia) – some stored in microform, audio-tape, video-tape, film and digital formats.
Since the founders were members of the Chicago’s leadership elite, early records include material relating to historic figures. These, during one hundred and fifty years, have included trustees, faculty, alumni, friends and visitors – political, cultural, social, reform, research and educational persons of note.
The College, from the laying out of the campus location, was a pioneer in many fields: architecture and landscape architecture, co-education, Asian education through missions, graduate education, athletics, social organizations, scholarship and diversity.
Regular institutional publications include the annual/biennial official catalog or bulletin (print version suspended 2008), newspapers, yearbooks (through 2002), literary magazines, alumni bulletins and newsletters, directories and handbooks.
Special Collections
The Library’s Special Collections, with origins in nineteenth-century donations from major Chicago-area private libraries, reflect the College’s beginnings and patronage from Chicago’s leadership community. Generally, the approximately quarter-million manuscript leaves and approximately fifty-thousand books and publications are distributed among five categories:
- Presbyterian roots of College founders, the Scots, Scots-Irish and the orthodox descendants of New England Puritans who, moving west, sought doctrinal stability in the hierarchical structures of Presbyterianism. Scotiana (Stuart) and early and eastern American history (Chicago Historical Society [History Museum], transferred 1980s; Harvey).
- Chicago’s-empire history: railroads (Elliot Donnelley, Arthur D. Dubin [ASTP ‘47], Munson Paddock, James Sloss, etc.); slavery conflict and Civil War (Getz, Nebenzahl, and others) ; the press/Chicago Tribune (J.M. Patterson, J. Howard Wood [Class of 1922]); North American exploration and westward expansion (Bent, Halsey, Getz, O’Kieffe, and others).
- Lake Forest and Lake County history: atlases, histories, manuscript collections, photographs, architectural and landscape drawings and blueprints (Anderson, Arpee, Barnes, Bennett, Bentley, Bergmann, Geary, Getz, Griffith Grant & Lackie Realtors Inc., Holt, McClure, McCormick, Shaw, Stuart, and other families).
- Chicago Renaissance: books, manuscripts, photographs on literature (Beach, Bentley, Chatfield-Taylor, Hamill, O’Kieffe, Patterson, Shaw); theater (Aldis, Bentley, LF Playreaders, Leverton, Patterson); art, architecture, and North Shore country estates (Asmann, Bennett, Bergmann, Hamill, LF Library, Shaw, Templeton, Weber); gardens (Bennett, Hamill, Lake Forest Garden Club, LF Library); history (Getz, Graff, Halsey, Hamill, McCutcheon, O’Kieffe, Stuart, Smith); Plan of Chicago (1909) and work of planner Edward H. Bennett (Bennett); and historic/fine printing and collecting (Davidson, Donnelley, Hamill, Hentz, LF Library, Templeton).
- Contemporary since 1960: Women’s studies (Lloyd, Northwestern U.); educational reform (Effective Schools Process [sm]); social issues (Lloyd, Brown); poetry, arts (Lisel Mueller, Ragdale); Africa and African-American (Mojekwu, purchases on the Rosenthal Fund); modern architecture (Schulze/Philip Johnson; Frazier & Raftery; Bertrand Weber (John Weber); historic preservation (Geary); Lake County (Getz, Geary); travel (Brown, Coutts, Dubin, Laflin, Weeks, etc.); transportation, railroad photography (Center for Railroad Photography and Art, Dubin, etc.).
Catalogs and Indexes
Catalog access for the book collections and the J.M. Patterson Papers is available on OCLC and in the Library Catalog, a part of iShare . Institutional titles can be searched as author, subject, or keyword under Lake Forest College, Lake Forest University, and Lind University. Finding aids for Archives and Special Collections materials not in the library catalog can be found either on the appropriate web page of this site or by contacting the staff.
Access
Some major archival publications (catalogs, yearbooks) and special collections books are accessible in the Special Collections reading room of Donnelley and Lee Library, when in session, Sundays through Thursdays from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, and by pre-arranged appointment, at 847-735-5064. Access to other special collections is by arrangement/prior-appointment with the Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections, at 847-735-5064. The College’s Stentor newspaper (1887 to the 1990’s) is available in the Microforms Reading Room; more recent issues can be seen in Special Collections.
Development and conservation for special collections is supported by George R. Beach, Everett D. Graff (Class of 1906), the Martin Rosenthal Memorial Library Funds, and others. Donations and modest purchases relate integrally to the collections listed above; occasional, more significant donations and purchases tend dramatically to relate and pull together aspects of collections.
Prepared by
Arthur H. Miller
Archivist and Librarian for Special Collections
amiller@lakeforest.edu
Rev. January 8, 2007; latest August 28, 2009