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HIST 131J / ER&M 392: City Limits: Urban History in the United States, 1865-Present: Beinecke Visit

This guide is intended for students in Professor Jennifer Klein's course and provides an overview of key resources in the Yale Library for your research papers this semester.

Materials and Questions for Monday, October 16th

As you explore the items in front of you, keep the following questions in mind:

  1. Who created this archival collection or publications, when were the materials in it created, where were they created?
  2. What is going on in the folders you looked at? What is the context for the document(s) you looked at?
  3. Whose perspective(s) comes through in the document(s) you examined? Whose doesn’t?
  4. What can you know based on the sources you have in front of you? What do you not know?
  5. What questions do the sources raise that could help someone shape a research paper for this course?
  6. Did anything surprise you when looking at the folders in your collection?

These questions are a framework. Don't feel like you have to answer each one.

May Day Rally and Yale collection (RU 86)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

The materials consist of correspondence, press releases, oral history transcripts, objects, and printed material documenting Yale student involvement in the 1970 May Day rally in New Haven, related to Yale's student strike, the anti-war movement, and the Black Panthers trial in New Haven.

Family Counseling of Greater New Haven, Inc. records (MS 1808)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

The Family Counseling of Greater New Haven, Inc. (FCGNH) records document the administrative history of a local social welfare agency from 1881 to 2000. The early organization began as a philanthropic society but became a professional social service agency. The records of the FCGNH provide a regional example of the success of the Children's Bureau to promote local state agencies committed to child and family welfare during the Progressive Era and post war years. At the local level, the records document the hardships of social change, poverty, and family breakdown caused by industrialization, immigration, economics, and war. These records further reveal the difficulties the organization faced in maintaining welfare-based services with limited resources.

Anson Phelps Stokes family papers (MS 299)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

The Anson Phelps Stokes Papers consist of correspondence, writings, subjects files, memorabilia, photographs, financial records, and family papers.

Sanborn Insurance Map - New Haven (Atlas Coll. Folio G1244 N48 S26 1923)

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Company compiled maps of urban areas focusing on building types and materials to determine fire risk.

Charles-Edward Amory Winslow papers (MS 749)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

The C.-E.A. Winslow Papers consist of sixty-five linear feet of correspondence, organization and subject files, teaching papers, photographs, and other materials spanning the period 1892 to 1977, although the bulk of the papers date from 1915 to 1945. Winslow played a leading role in defining and shaping the public health profession in America, and his papers trace the growth of the profession from its origin in bacteriology and sanitary engineering through the development of the voluntary health and health education movements to the emergence of medical care. Winslow made contributions in nearly all areas of public health, and the papers contain material in a wide variety of fields, including public health administration and education, environmental and occupational health, and nursing, in addition to medical care and the voluntary health movement.

Robert Moses Papers (MS 360)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

Record of projects which Robert Moses sponsored or was connected with, particularly in New York City and surrounding areas. Included are park and recreational area developments, and slum clearing.

  • Inventory 1934-(1952-1970), 1952, Box 1: Books 

City and Regional Planning collection (MS 1970)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

This collection consists of reports by city, local, and regional planning agencies spanning approximately from 1873 to 2000. Development plans, transportation studies, water resources inventories, park and recreation plans, urban renewal reports, housing market indexes, labor and employment statistics, demographic information, industry and manufacturing data, and planning and zoning reports are included.

Candida Scott Piel papers (MS 1831)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

Candida Scott Piel worked for the American Foundation for AIDS Research and her papers document a socially active gay and lesbian culture, centered in New York City, around the turn of the twenty-first century. The papers include subject files, printed materials, writings, ephemera, and audiovisual materials. There is particularly substantive material on AIDS and AIDS treatments, "the circuit" culture, the Jewel Box Revue, and events organized by Piel.
The Jewelry Box Revue was a Miami-based and travelling drag show that started with only gay men as "female impersonators" and later added women "male impersonators."

New Haven Redevelopment Agency records (MS 1814)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

roject files, minutes, correspondence, and property records, documenting the work of the New Haven Redevelopment Agency, primarily from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Paul Joseph Bass papers (MS 1826)

Link to the finding aid in Archives at Yale

The papers consist of topical files and clippings relating to the career of Paul Bass as a journalist primarily covering affairs in New Haven and Connecticut. The collection includes topical files relating to the American Independent Movement, the , Richard C. Lee, former New Haven Police chief, Nicholas Pastore, and other topics.