Author Archives: Suzanne Reller

Searching for Archival Collections?

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Archives and Rare Books Library Stacks

Archives and Rare Books Library Stacks

Are you thinking about doing some archival research this fall?  If so, both the Archives and Rare Books Library and the Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions have a new way for you to find archival collections at the University of Cincinnati and across Ohio: Encoded Archival Description, or EAD.  The OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository available at http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/, allows you to search archival collections across the State of Ohio, including those at the University of Cincinnati.

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A Glimpse at a German-American Family: The Helmecke Family Collections at the Archives and Rare Books Library

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Carl Helmecke with his wife Mildred and daughter Roberta in Philadelphia in 1919.

The German-Americana Collection at the University of Cincinnati Archives and Rare Books Library holds a wealth of materials on German immigration to the United States and the experiences of these immigrants once they were here. Two collections that document the experiences of one of these families are of the Helmecke family.  These collections span from the father’s immigration to Cincinnati in 1902 to the beginning of his son’s academic career in Colorado in the 1930s.

In 1902, Stephen Helmecke of Braunschweig, Germany came to the United States to work for the Globe Wernicke Company, a library furniture company located in Cincinnati. Stephen’s wife, Marie (Engel), and his two children, Carl Albert and Marie Gertrud, followed him to the United States in 1903. The family lived in Cincinnati for five years before moving to Grand Rapids, Michigan where both Carl and Gertrud attended the University of Michigan. Carl eventually received his Ph.D in German and taught at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. Gertrud became an osteopathic physician, and was the first woman elected president of the Ohio Osteopathic Association.

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Major Urban Reference Collection Now Available in the Archives & Rare Books Library

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fire_squad_191321

In 2004, after 90 years, the City of Cincinnati’s Municipal Reference Library was about to come to an ignominious end, consigned to the dumpster. With the active involvement of city planner Skip Forwood and UC history professor Judith Spraul-Schmidt, the bulk of this valuable collection of urban resource materials was rescued and given a home in the Archives & Rare Books Library’s Urban Studies Collection. Now, it is catalogued and available once more for research.

Photo: “The Flying Squad, Co. No. 4” from the 1913 Annual Report of the Cincinnati Fire Department, one of the many resources of the Muncipal Reference Library

The Municipal Reference Library was created in 1913 under the Municipal Code of Cincinnati, which detailed the purpose of the library, and the Administrative Code, which stated that it would be maintained by the city’s planning department. Consisting primarily of city records, periodicals, reports, ordinances, news clippings, and studies, the MRL historically had been open to the public, but primarily used by city employees. Continue reading →

New Online Exhibit Looks at German-Americans in the World War II Era

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A desolate street in an unknown post-war German city

A desolate street in an unknown post-war German city

A new online exhibit is available on the Archives and Rare Books Library website highlighting the library’s German-Americana collection. This exhibit, entitled A War in Shades of Gray: German-Americans and Germany in the World War II era, examines the thoughts and experiences of a few German-Americans through images and words from the German-American collection. The exhibit begins in Hitler’s pre-war Germany and continues through the end of the war to the clean-up and the questions that remained after the war.

The exhibit displays photographs, essays, and letters from three archival collections:the George E. Armstrong Photograph Collection, GA-08-02, the Gerhard R. Schade Papers, GA-06-03, and Helmecke family papers, GA-09-04, along with images from the Rare Books Collection. Almost twenty images and documents are on display in the exhibit including Nazi propaganda, a letter from a German-American teaching in Nazi Germany, photographs of the destruction to German homes, buildings, and infrastructure taken at the end of the war, and the thoughts of a German-American on the Cold War that began soon after the end of the war.

Discover Carl Blegen

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blegenHave you ever wondered about the man who gave his name to the Blegen Library? Now, thanks to a new exhibit located on the fourth floor of Blegen Library, you can find out more about this icon of the world of archaeology.

Curated by Janice Schulz, University Records Manager and Archives Specialist in the Archives & Rare Books Library, Discovering Carl Blegen includes images from Blegen’s major campaigns in Troy and Pylos as well as his work and life at UC and abroad. Continue reading →