The collecting of large corporate archives at the Newberry was initiated in 1943 by Librarian Stanley Pargellis, who advocated the acquisition of records of Midwestern enterprises that contained materials for social and intellectual history as well as business history.
Research
Featured This Month: Railroads
Core Collections
The Newberry collections focus on the humanities. Please also browse our Research Guides and check our Online Catalog.
Digital Resources
In this exhibition you will see a small sample of rare and special books on religion, published from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries that the Newberry collected over the last two decades.
American Indian Histories and Cultures is a deep and wide ranging selection of visual and textual resources related to Native American culture and history. Taken from the Newberry Library’s Edward E Ayer Collection, one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of American Indian history, the resource provides documents, images, context, and insight into American Indian culture and history, the European settlement of the Americas, and the interactions between the two groups. *Access to this subscription database is available on-site through any of the Newberry’s public computers.*
The Newberry Transcription Project uses Civil War soldiers’ letters held in the Newberry Library’s Modern Manuscript Collection to understand the history of America’s bloodiest conflict.