Research

Featured This Month: Travel and Westward Expansion

Beargrass, NL Case N 381.761 V1.

Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: 200 Years of American History

Based on an exhibition originally mounted at the Newberry, this website explores how two histories, that of the United States and that of Indian peoples along the expedition route, came together two hundred years ago and how they remain intertwined today.

List of people on Lewis and Clark expedition, from the Account Book of William Clark. 1825-28. Graff 743.

Westward Expansion

The Newberry’s manuscript holdings relating to North American Indians and the history of the American West are contained almost entirely in two special collections, the Edward E. Ayer Collection and the Everett D. Graff Collection.

Edward E. Ayer Collection

Everett D. Graff, NL Archives 15-01-01 Bx #1.

Collecting America: How a Friendship Enriched Our Understanding of American Culture

When Chicago steel magnate Everett D. Graff walked into Wright Howes’ bookshop on Michigan Avenue in the 1920s he sparked one of the most important friendships in the book world.

John Franklin. Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea. 1823. Ayer f125.1 1819 F8.

Travel, Exploration, and the American Frontier – Reference Sources

American Geographical Society Research Catalog. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1962. Call Number: Ayer f290 A503 1962. Includes a General Section, followed by regional sections on North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Polar Regions, Oceania and the Tropics.

Clark, Thomas Dionysius, ed. Travels in the New South: A Bibliography. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. Call Number: Ref Z 1251 .S7 C42

Core Collections

The Newberry collections focus on the humanities. Please also browse our Research Guides and check our Online Catalog.

American History and Culture

American Indian and Indigenous Studies

Chicago and the Midwest

Genealogy and Local History

History of the Book

Manuscripts and Archives

Maps, Travel, and Exploration

Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Studies

Music

Religion

Digital Resources

Make Big Plans: Burnham Plan Centennial

In images and text, this digital exhibit examines how The Plan of Chicago, or the “Burnham Plan,” contributed to the development and aspirations of the Chicago’s urban landscape.

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries

The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a reference work designed to provide information about the creation and boundary changes of every county in the United States, from the earliest county creation in the 1600s to 2000.

Daily Life Along the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad

This digital collection contains a selection of unique photographs discovered in the Newberry Library’s unprocessed 20th century Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad archives about ten years ago.

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