History Day @ Your Library

GoWYLD Databases

2012-01-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the GoWYLD databases to get topic ideas and to conduct research. You can access these resources from school and your public library. You may also use them from home. You just need your library card # and pin to log in remotely. Check with your school or public library for assistance.

Start at GoWYLD.net

The Databases can be accessed alphabetically or by subject area.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Select Student Research from the subject list.

Select eLibrary. Search: Navajo Code Talkers

Notice that there is some general background information at the top, followed by magazines, newspapers, reference items, websites, transcripts and pictures.

Go back to the Student Research databases page.

Select U.S History in Context (note: you will not need to use your library card to access this database from home).

Search: cotton gin or Navajo Code Talkers

Your results will include reference items, primary source documents, images, magazines, and academic journals. Be sure to click on the header (“Primary Sources,” for example) to see all the results.

**Note that you can search both the U.S. and World History in Context at the same time. This will be useful when searching some of the History Day topics, such as Sputnik or Mahatma Gandhi.

Women and the Right to Vote

2012-01-13T14:52:00.004-07:00

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation"

--Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 gave all American women the right to vote. After decades of national efforts lead by prominent figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women gained a voice in national affairs. Yet in some areas, women already exercised this right and were even allowed to hold public office. In 1869, the First Wyoming Territorial Legislature included a provision granting women suffrage and in the following year, Esther Hobart Morris of South Pass City became the first female appointed as a Justice of the Peace in the U.S. Upon its admission to the Union in 1890, Wyoming included the amendment once more in its State Constitution. The momentous rights afforded to women in Wyoming led to great renown and earned it the nickname of the "Equality State". Prior to the Constitutional Amendment, the neighboring states of Colorado, Utah, and Idaho followed Wyoming’s lead and gave women the right to vote by the end of the 19th century.

Women’s suffrage is a fascinating topic for this year’s NHD theme, "Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History". The Wyoming State Library offers a wide range of resources on women’s suffrage and the efforts made by those in support of, and against, the cause. To help you explore this topic at the national and state levels as well as the differing reactions it stirred, a few suggested reading materials are listed below.

History of Woman Suffrage
Call Number JK 1896 .S8 V. 1-6
**In Library Use Only
Written and edited by leading figures of the women’s suffrage movement, the six volume set traces the movement’s history and provides recollections from some of the earliest and most prominent advocates of the cause.

“Our Mothers Before Us: Women and Democracy, 1789-1920”
Federal Documents Collection, Call Number AE 1.102:W 84/2
Designed for educators, this toolkit looks at women's involvement in a variety of reform movements and provides document transcriptions of primary sources, such as the Declaration of Sentiments at Resolutions presented at the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls and letters written to Congress, not only from women like Susan B. Anthony, but also everyday women.

CD-Roms
Woman Suffrage Documents from Historical Collections and Government Records WyDocs PC 6.2:5
Esther Hobart Morris Records WyDocs PC 6.2:6
If you’re looking for sources significant to women’s suffrage in the U.S. and Wyoming, take a look at 2 CDs of digitized historic documents from the Wyoming State Archives. Here you will be able to view the 1869 law giving women the right to vote in the Wyoming Territory, documents appointing the first female Justice of the Peace, Esther Hobart Morris, and sources regarding passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

The Wyoming Newspaper Project is a great online resource for finding articles about women’s suffrage from the national and local levels.

As mentioned in the first blog, take a look at ProQuest’s Congressional Serial Set available through the WYLD databases. You will find a wealth of resources on women's suffrage including Committee Hearings, House and Senate Reports, Documents, and Legislative Histories.

**and don’t forget to check with your local library for additional resources!

Looking for Primary Sources for Your NHD Topic?

2012-01-06T15:03:00.011-07:00

Visit the Wyoming Newspaper Project! This resource provides invaluable information about state and national events between 1849 and 1922.

Discover the stories that formed Wyoming, through the Wyoming Newspaper Project. For the sheer volume of information they contain, newspapers are the single most important printed record of human activity. Historians, genealogists, and other scholars rely on them to provide a first-hand and sometimes the only account of local news.

Available through the website are all the newspapers printed in Wyoming between 1849 and 1922, in an easily searchable format. More than 800,000 newspaper pages have been converted from microfilm to a digital format. Using the links on the left, you can browse the entire collection or search for newspapers from specified towns or counties, on certain dates, or by a specific title. The text is searchable, providing news articles, news briefs, obituaries and other items of interest.

For additional information about the Wyoming Newspaper Project, contact Erin Kinney at 275-0656.

Prohibition and Government Documents

2011-12-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

One invaluable resource for your students’ National History Day 2012 projects is the database HeinOnline. HeinOnline is a premier online research product with more than 70 million pages of legal history. This online database is a fully-searchable, image based format. HeinOnline provides online access to the Congressional Record Bound volumes in entirety, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, famous world trials dating back to the early 1700′s, legal classics from the 16th to the 20th centuries, the United Nations and League of Nations Treaty Series, all United States Treaties, the Federal Register from inception in 1936, the Code of Federal Regulations from inception in 1938, and much more.

HeinOnline provides exact page images of the documents in PDF format just as they appear in the original print – this includes all charts, graphs, tables, pictures, hand written notes, photographs, and footnotes – thus providing excellent primary sources.

Using “prohibition” as the search term, our results list will contain various documents such as Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Wickersham Commission Reports, and U.S. Attorney General Opinions. Click the titles below to see examples:

Challenge: Liquor and Lawlessness Versus Constitutional Govenment by William Gibbs McAdoo (1928).

Selected Articles on Prohibition, Modification of the Volstead Law by Lamar T. Beman (1924).

U.S. Wickersham Commission Reports. U.S. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Report on the Cost of Crime (1931) (Includes a fascinating chart which tracks the cost of enforcing prohibition laws in the federal courts 1929 - 1930).

These are only a few examples of the many documents and resources available through HeinOnline. To access this database, start from GoWyld.net. From here, access HeinOnline either through the alphabetical listing at the top of the page, or by selecting the Government Information link. Selecting HeinOnline from the list of databases will take you to the HeinOnline hompage. Explore this fabulous resource for your each of your students’ History Day projects!

NOTE: Only available in the State Library, State Law Library, and participating public libraries. Check this list to see if you have access through your library.

Agency Documents

2011-12-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

Not only does the Wyoming State Library Federal Documents collection contain useful Congressional and Presidential documents, but also many publications by various federal agencies. One example is the Social Security Board, which existed from 1935 to 1946.

On August 14, 1935, against the backdrop of dark economic times of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law The Social Security Act of 1935. Upon the signing of the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, a three-person Social Security Board was created to run the new program. The Social Security Act was a revolutionary idea at the time of its inception and many found it very controversial. Focusing on this revolutionary legislation and subsequent reaction and reform, might be a possible topic for your students. Within the Wyoming State Library collection are a series of Informational Service Circulars published under the newly created Social Security Board. These circulars include:

· Call #: SS 1.4:1/8

A Brief Explanation of the Social Security Act – Informational Service Circular No. 1, 1938

· Old-Age Insurance under the Social Security Act – Informational Service Circular No. 3, 1938

· Call #: SS 1.4:6/4

Aid to Dependent Children under the Social Security Act – Informational Service Circular No. 6, 1937

· Call #: SS1.4:4/7

Social Security: What and Why? – Informational Service Circular No. 7, 1936

· Call #: SS 1.4:8/2

Public Assistance under the Social Security Act for The Needy Aged, The Needy Blind, Dependent Children – Informational Service Circular No. 8, 1938

What a terrific original source these and other agency materials might make for your students’ History Day projects!

Presidential Papers

2011-11-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”

Executive Order 9981, President Harry Truman, July 26, 1948

“Q. Mr. President… does your advocacy of equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Forces envision eventually the end of segregation?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes”

The President’s News Conference of July 29, 1948; Public Papers of the Presidents - Harry S. Truman

It is difficult to imagine that in the not-too-distant past, legal segregation was the rule for practically every aspect of American life – including the Armed Forces. Thinking of this year’s History Day theme, one source of valuable primary source information for your student’s History Day project may be the Public Papers of the Presidents series. The Office of the Federal Register began publishing the Public Papers of the Presidents series in 1957 as an official publication of United States Presidents' public writings, addresses, and remarks. The series provides an historical reference covering the administrations of Presidents Hoover, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. (The papers of President Franklin Roosevelt were published privately before the commencement of the official Public Papers series). The Wyoming State Library contains the print version of this series. These are located at call number AE 2.114:. Online versions from President Reagan to President Obama can be found at the National Archives website.

Government Control of Railroads

2011-10-28T10:02:00.000-06:00

“Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, under and by virtue of the powers vested in me … do hereby… take possession and assume control at 12 o'clock noon on the 28th day of December 1917 of each and every system of transportation… located wholly or in part within the boundaries of the continental United States…”

· Congressional Serial Set-ID: 7329, Senate doc. 159, January 7, 1918.

With this proclamation, President Woodrow Wilson put the United States railroad system under the control of the federal government. Some might argue this as a necessary reaction to the threat of World War I. An interesting topic to consider for NHD 2012! Primary and secondary resources abound at the Wyoming State Library (WSL) and through your local Wyoming library.

As an example of a primary resource, students might consider searching through the Congressional Serial Set (the official collection of reports and documents of the United States Congress). The Wyoming State Library houses print copies of the Congressional Serial Set through 1996. These are located at call number Y 1.1/2:.
Digital versions are available through the Wyoming Libraries Catalog (WyldCat) or through Proquest Congressional, a database available through GoWyld.net.

Additionally, WSL houses numerous U.S. Department of Transportation documents, including a report titled The Railroad Situation: A Perspective on the Present, Past and Future of the Railroad Industry, call number TD 3.15/5:79-7. This report contains an excellent historical overview of the U.S. railroad industry up to 1929. Even more in depth research into this topic might include a 1916 War Department document titled Military Railways Professional Papers No. 32, which discusses the difference between war and peacetime railroad practice and service. This volume is located at call number W 7.10:32/1916 at WSL.

For further information research for NHD, contact the Wyoming State Library or your local librarian!

Resources @ Your Library

2011-10-17T16:07:00.001-06:00

As you begin to work with students for History Day 2012, keep in mind that your library houses a wealth of resources - primary and secondary. Wyoming Libraries make available tools for research that can be accessed from school, your local library, and home. Take a look at GoWyld.net and select a subject or a title. For example, U.S. History in Context or Britannica Online. Watch for future blogs about these electronic resources. Or, contact Chris Van Burgh at 777-3642 for more information.

In addition to resources at your school, local library, or home, the Wyoming State Library offers a unique collection of resources supporting this year's History Day theme in the form of Federal Documents. The theme of "Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History" can encompass a substantial number of topics which can be supported by a myriad of Federal Documents.

For example, the Wyoming State Library houses nearly all Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. One illustration might be a student researching on the topic of the use of the Atomic Bomb during World War II. The Public Papers of Harry S. Truman contain all public messages, speeches and statements of President Truman on this topic, including news conference remarks. Watch for future blogs on Federal Documents. Or, contact Karen Kitchens at 777-7281 for more information.