Clarke Historical Library

Resources

The Clarke Historical Library has developed a number of online resources that visitors to the website are encouraged to use.  These include:

Aladdin Company of Bay City

• The Aladdin Company was among the premiere manufacturer of “kit homes” in America. The company sold home “kits” that were assembled onsite by the purchaser, or a contractor hired by the purchaser, from 1906 until 1981. Over 75,000 kits were sold. The site features copies of the many catalogs issued by the company in a fully searchable format.

 

Bibliographies of Clarke Library Material

Several bibliographies have been created to assist users in finding Clarke Library material. These include:

• African American History Resources
• Broadside Press of Detroit
• Children’s Fiction Set in Michigan
• Children’s School Books
• Civil War Material
• International Children’s Books
• Michigan Local History
• Underground Railroad
• Women’s History Resources

A bibliography of the Library’s Native American material has also been created but is grouped together with a large body of other material we have placed on the web regarding Native Americans.

 

CMU Information and Exhibits

The Clarke serves as the archives of Central Michigan University. Several aids have been created to document the University, including:

• Celebrating Homecoming
• Chippewa Yearbooks (searchable text version of CMU’s yearbook)
• CMU Presidents (photographs and brief biographies)
• 50th Anniversary of the Clarke (celebrated in 2004)
• The Buildings of CMU (brief building histories and, if the building’s name honors a person, a brief biography of that person)
• The Libraries of CMU (brief history of library buildings on the CMU campus)
• What’s That Name? (List with dates of the seven names by which the institution has been known)

 

 

Full Text of Michigan Local History

• Faces and Places Familiar, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, 1906
• Portrait and Biographical Album of Isabella County, Michigan, 1884 (Isabella County history information)
• Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1860
• Link to “Early Detroit Images” from the Burton Historical Society
• Link to” Michigan County History and Atlases” Digitization Project

 

 

Information and Exhibits

• Consisting of over twenty major divisions, material in this section features both online resources and web versions of past Clarke exhibits. Learn about the residents of Beaver Island, find references to obituaries published in Isabella County, or enjoy past exhibits on subjects as diverse as cookbooks, lighthouses, the states oil and gas industry, or Ernest Hemingway’s childhood adventures in Michigan. There is also an extensive amount of information regarding Native Americans in Michigan.

 

 

Isabella County Sesquicentennial

• In 2009 Isabella County celebrated its sesquicentennial.  In celebration of this event various files regarding the county’s history were placed on the Library’s website.

 

 

Native Americans in Michigan

• Native American Bibliography ( a bibliography of Clarke holdings)
• Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections (annotated bibliography of material pertaining to Native Americans drawn from the entire 40 volume set of largely primary source material). Links to a research guide and to digital copies of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections can be found here: http://guides.lib.msu.edu/page.phtml?page_id=2159
• Children’s Literature (children’s books discussing Native Americans or Native American themes set in Michigan)
• Native American Treaties: Their Ongoing Importance to Michigan Residents (a group of six essays demonstrating how Native American treaty rights have been interpreted in Michigan, as well as transcriptions of Michigan-related treaties)
• Legacies of Early Isabella’s County Indian Reservation
• Indian Family History (full text documents for individuals interested in tracing their genealogy, with a particular emphasis on documents relating to the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.

 

 

Professional Advice

Consists of two essays, one discussing ways to preserve material in your home and a second essay, discussing editing and publishing family manuscripts.

• “Preserving Memories: Caring for Your Heritage”
• “A Guide to Editing and Publishing Family Manuscripts” by Robert Root

 

 

Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America

• A joint project with Michigan State University, Sunday School Books explores the world of 19th century books used by children in Sunday schools. These books served as important precursors to children’s literature. They document a change in what children were asked to read that began with bible texts selected for children through bible stories that incorporated biblical stories in language more familiar to children and eventually into “moral” stories, stories which incorporated biblical values into contemporary stories.