May 16 marks the 100th anniversary of Studs Terkel’s birth, and an occasion to memorialize one of the most prolific writers and cultural critics in the history of Chicago letters.
Core Collections
Chicago and the Midwest
The collections contain extensive materials on the history of Chicago and the Midwest, including its growth, politics, and eclectic inhabitants.
American History and Culture
The Newberry has deep collections reflecting the breadth of American history and culture through World War One.
Genealogy and Local History
The Newberry has been actively collecting genealogy and local history materials since 1887.
Music
The Newberry collects on western European music to the early 20th century, American music to the mid-20th, and on musical life in Chicago.
Recent Acquisitions
The child’s companion and juvenile instructor
The Religious Tract Society was founded in 1799 as a publisher that issued religious tracts throughout England. Its aim was to promote literacy, religion, and appropriate behavior among the “lower classes.” The Society soon added material for children to its publication list, reprinting tracts by Hannah More and other 18th-century writers who composed works for young readers. This early juvenile periodical was issued monthly from 1846 to 1921 and contained stories with a heavy dose of moral instruction along with attractive woodcuts.
Jean Calvin’s Institutes
This is the first edition printed in England of Jean Calvin’s Institutes in the original Latin. In its earliest recension, the Institutes were published in Basel in 1536; the first English-languge edition was printed in London in 1561. Our copy has been copiously annotated by an anonymous sixteenth-century reader. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century books with contemporary reader notes are by virtue of our online catalog easily retrievable. The Newberry has a number of sixteenth-century editions of Calvin’s Institutes with similar annotations.