Collections

Special Collections contains over 450,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera. Listed below are some of the highlights of our materials.

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• Item Spotlight
• Finding Materials

Did you Know...

• A unique resource for research, found in our Ethnic Studies Collection, is a locally assembled collection of over 150 boycott and other Latino buttons and badges representing numerous causes in the Latino community since 1936.
• Special Collections has a collection of Edward Gorey works that now numbers over 175 items.
• Among the many nineteenth century etiquette books in the Nye Popular Culture Collection is Thomas Handford's Home Instructor (Chicago, 1890), which counsels young women that, "above all things, give no ear to a man addicted to habits of drinking...Better live alone to extreme old age, better to go into your grave, than become a drunkard's wife."