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Special Collections in the Yale University Library

What makes them “special”?

Rare, unique, difficult to replace.

Don’t circulate, have to be used in the reading room of the special collection to which they “belong”.

Books, archives (records of a person, family, or organization), individual manuscripts, photographs, posters, brochures and flyers, notebooks and diaries, scrapbooks, newspapers and magazines, paintings and drawings, architectural plans, clothing, objects, email, databases, ... - special collections come in all formats.

Why might I want to use them?

Primary sources for research projects.

“Primary sources are materials in a variety of formats that serve as original evidence documenting a time period, an event, a work, people, or ideas.”

For example, senior essays that have won the Kaplan Memorial Prize for outstanding senior essays based substantially on research done in Manuscripts and Archives. 

Inspiration and fodder for creative projects.

For example, a dance piece, Invisible Wings (1998), choreographed by Joanna Haigood, used special collections to create a dance piece that explores the Underground Railroad’s use of the land at Jacob’s Pillow in Western Massachusetts in the early 19th century.

For your own enlightenment and enjoyment, because they’re readily available to you as a Yale student and you should take advantage of that sometime while you’re here!

How do I find and request material from Yale Library’s special collections?

The Guide to Using Special Collections at the Yale University Library provides information about the Library’s special collections, and how to find and request special collections materials in Orbis (the online catalog) and Archives at Yale (guides to archival collections held at Yale). There’s also an “Additional Collections at Yale” tab that provides information about other non-library special collections at the campus’ museums and the Law Library.

You might also find the Primary Sources at Yale website useful as you think about where you might find sources for course-based projects over your next four years as a Yale College student.

Primary sources exist in special collections, licensed databases, on the web, in the stacks of Sterling Memorial Library, in your physical surroundings ... it all depends what research questions you’re asking!

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Collection materials we looked at physically

All of the materials we looked at physically in the Gates classroom are from the collections in Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library. They’re listed below chronologically from oldest to most recent.

“Account of the cost of New College, 1748-1752, by President Clap,” notebook.  [Thomas Clap, President of Yale College, Records (RU 130), Box 1, folder 7]. The “New College” referred to here is now known as Connecticut Hall. Note the charges for “Strong Drink” on page 41 and the documentation of the use of African Americans, who presumably were slaves, on page 47.

Minutes of a special meeting of the President and Fellows of Yale-College, 21 July 1761. [Yale University Corporation and Prudential Committee Minutes (RU 307), Box 5, folder 1]. The meeting, among other topics, address putting “a stop to those vicious and extravagant practices, which have for many years past attended the public Commencements,” practices that evidently involved the consumption of “strong drink” by the candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree.

The Laws of Yale-College, In New-Haven, In Connecticut, Enacted by the President and Fellows (New-Haven: Printed by Thomas and Samuel Green, 1774). The Laws essentially functioned as a catalog for Yale College in the 18th century, listing admission requirements, the course of study, fees, and regulations for student behavior. 1774 was the first year the Laws were published in English. Previously they were published in Latin and students had to translate them as part of their activities in their first year of college. 

The Student’s Companion, Numbers I-IV (January-April 1831). This bound volume contains the only issues of one of the earliest publications by students of Yale College, which was edited by The Knights of the Round Table, supposedly a group of nine students who remained anonymous.  It contains historical accounts, short stories, poetry, book reviews, and philosophical reflections all published under pseudonyms. The entire publication was, by the close of the 1831 school year, revealed to be the single-handed work of David Francis Bacon (Class of 1831). See especially the four-part article “The History of Yale College” (parts begin on pages 18, 64, 112, and 161).

Letterbook containing correspondence from, among others, Alexander Smith Johnson (Class of 1835) to his father (Alexander Bryan Johnson, a Utica, New York, banker and businessman) and mother (Abigail Louisa Smith Johnson, granddaughter of President John Adams) while he was a student at Yale College, 1831-1835. [Alexander Bryan Johnson Papers (MS 741), Box 1, folder 1]. Accompanying typed sheet indicates all letters in the bound volume from Alexander Smith Johnson, their date, and page number, on topics including cholera in New Haven (17 July 1832), the completion of Yale’s Trumbull Gallery (20 February 1833), and the visit of President Andrew Jackson to New Haven (17 June 1833).

The Yale Gallinipper, Volume 1, Numbers 1-2 (February-March 1846). The Gallinipper was a sharp-witted “humor” journal published anonymously and critical of Yale’s administration, faculty, and students. A gallinipper is a female mosquito, the one that bites, and after many decades it was revealed that it was produced by three well-connected young women from New Haven who had family ties to Yale: Louisa Torrey (future mother of William Howard Taft), Henrietta Blake (great-niece of Eli Whitney), and Olivia Day (daughter of Yale’s president Jeremiah Day).

Class album, Yale College Class of 1878, volume 2, containing photographs of New Haven and the Yale campus, 1878. These photographs depict Yale at a time when the Old Brick Row buildings of the 18th and early 19th centuries were beginning to be torn down to make room for the more “modern” Old Campus buildings we know today.

Scrapbook of Yale memorabilia of Charles Locke Scudder (Class of 1882), 1878-1882. 

Yale Daily News, Volume V (September 1881-July 1882).

Folder of correspondence from Herbert Brewster Fuller (Class of 1900) written while he was a student at Yale, 1898. [Herbert Brewster Fuller Papers (MS 1644), Box 1, folder 3].

Scrapbook and diary of Paul Stetson Phenix (Class of 1916), Volume 1, documenting his activities during his senior year at Yale, 1915-1916.  [Yale Student Scrapbook Collection (RU 138), Accession 1983-A-109, Box 1].

Yale Daily News, Volume XXXXI (September 1917-June 1918).

Minutes of Yale University committees on preparation for war service, 1942-1943. [Charles Seymour, President of Yale University, Records (RU 23), Box 184, folder 27].

Folder of correspondence, mainly from Yale alumni, to Yale president A. Whitney Griswold relating to the arrest of Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr., during his Freedom Rides activism across the southern states, May-August 1961. [Alfred Whitney Griswold, President of Yale University, Records (RU 22), Box 51, folder 483].

Folder of correspondence, mainly from Yale alumni, to Yale president Kingman Brewster, Jr., relating to the awarding of an honorary degree by Yale to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the 1964 Commencement exercises, June-August 1964. [Kingman Brewster, Jr., President of Yale University, Records (RU 11), Box 126, folder 14].

Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY), founding days correspondence, articles, AFAM program proposals, 1968-1969. [Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale Records (RU 957), Box 1, folder 11].

Student Committee on Human Sexuality. Sex and the Yale Student, booklet, 1970.

Yale Daily News, Volume XCI (September 1969-May 1970).

Strike Newspaper, 23 April-6 May 1970. [May Day Rally and Yale Collection (RU 86), Accession 2012-A-028, Box 2, folder 7].

Transcript of an oral history interview with Connie Gersick, 5 June 2009. [Oral Histories Documenting Yale University Women (RU 1051), Accession 2012-A-042, Box 1]. Gersick moved to New Haven in 1969 to be closer to her boyfriend and future husband, then a Yale undergraduate. She was hired to work as an assistant to the director of Yale’s Office on the Education of Women during the first years of coeducation at Yale. In 1975 Gersick herself was appointed as director of this office, a post she held for two years before returning to graduate school.   

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Fifteen or so interesting things about Yale

Spend about 15 minutes exploring the collection material in front of you. What is one “interesting” (defined any way you want to) thing about Yale that you learned from this primary source?