Primary Sources
- Oliver C. Carmichael PapersThe papers of O.C. Carmichael are comprised of correspondence, his writings including addresses, articles, book manuscripts and institutional reports, and other materials relating to Oliver Carmichael’s long and distinguished career in teaching, university administration, and educational consulting. There are also papers relating to his leadership and service roles at many organizations including Vanderbilt University,
Dates
1920s-1966 - Allen S. Eskind World War II PapersThis Collection is .21 linear feet and includes Allen Eskind’s WWII Journal in fifteen chapters and his official correspondence during his time of service with the U.S. Navy. A photograph album in electronic digitized format that documents his Naval tour of duty during the second World War will be available online at the Vandy Goes to War: World War II Remembered website.
- Denna Frank Fleming PapersThe papers of Denna F. Fleming include material from several areas of his life and work -- those of teacher, writer, political scientist, and concerned citizen. The correspondence files cover the period from 1930-1974. From 1939 to 1947, Fleming presented a series of weekly radio programs broadcast from WSM concerning events leading up to, during, and after the World War II. The programs were favorably received and many of them were collected and published in the book While America Slept. Transcripts of most of these broadcasts are in the collection.
Files on international and national organizations in which Fleming had an interest show a concern about the Vietnam War and the possibilities of a third world war. Committed to peace, Fleming supported numerous organizations including the American Association for the United Nations, Inc., the Arms Control Association, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Fund for Peace. - John B. Lomax CollectionThis collection contains 54 silver gelatin photographs documenting the African-American soldiers of the 3067 Quartermaster Salvage Collecting Company in training in Wyoming during WWII, with almost all of the photographs annotated with humorous remarks and identifications of the images. There is also a photostatic copy of discharge papers.
A copy of discharge papers belonging to John B. Lomax and accompanying the present photographs suggest that he is the compiler and annotator. Most of the photographs picture the men of the 3067 in uniform, and in the snow, at Camp Guernsey in Wyoming, though a few of the photographs likely show the men in service in Europe or on their way there, with a tropical backdrop to more than one image. The men clown around outside the mess hall, pose outside barracks after visiting the rifle range, stand at attention with rifles, sit in Jeeps, stand casually in the snow, and more. A small panorama pictures the entire African-American unit standing proudly behind four white officers. - John Speier Manchester PapersThe John Speier Manchester Papers are contained within one Hollinger box of 21 folders and one copy of the book School Boy to Helldiver. The collection consists primarily of 197 handwritten letters John wrote to his family in Nashville, Tennessee during his military service. The collection also includes military orders, telegrams, and other original artifacts. The collection follows the structure that Emily Manchester Townes outlined in her book School Boy to Helldiver. The first seventeen folders are arranged in chronological order from December 1, 1943 to November 18, 1944. Folder 18 contains correspondence and documents after John’s death on November 13, 1944. Folders 19 - 21 contain other materials related to the collection.
- Robert A. McGaw PapersRobert Armistead McGaw served on the Vanderbilt University administration staff for 31 years from 1948 to 1979. He started his career at Vanderbilt as assistant to Chancellor Harvie Branscomb in charge of publications, the first person to fill such a role at the University. In 1964 he was appointed Secretary of the University by Alexander Heard, and held that position until his retirement in 1979.
The Robert A. McGaw Papers are comprised of four series; Vanderbilt University, Designs, Writings and WWII. The papers follow closely McGaw’s career and are important to anyone interested in the history of the university. Of special note is the Design Series where McGaw assisted in re-designing the symbols of the university in the 1970s. - Joe Thompson, Jr. PapersJoe Thompson, Jr. graduated from Vanderbilt in 1941 and then served in the U.S. Air Force as an aerial reconnaissance pilot. He flew over 90 missions, most of them behind German lines in a P-51 Mustang. Mr. Thompson, known as Tiger Joe, is also a gifted amateur photographer who took hundreds of pictures during his four years of military service.
- Vandy Goes to WarThis project records the histories and reminiscences of men and women who attended or had connections with Vanderbilt and Peabody during the war years and documents their experiences in the service and on the campus during that time and afterward when some came back to school and attended on the G.I. Bill. The interviews include eye witness accounts of soldiers fighting at the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 and early 1945, in the Far East at Okinawa, flying aerial reconnaissance in the European theatre, and medical and hospital work in North Africa and southern Italy. One soldier, a prisoner of war in a camp in Germany tells his story. Another tells of being an eighteen year old soldier liberating prisoners from Dachau Concentration camp in southern Germany. Women speak of taking leadership positions in campus life, when so many men had gone to war and of their efforts on the home front and of the realities of rationing and limited necessities.
- The MasqueraderCall Number: LH1.V25 M376Publication Date: 1923-1967Published under the supervision of the Calumet Club of the Sigma Upsilon Literary Fraternity. The Masquerader, a humor magazine, was published by the Calumet Club between 1923 and 1967. Six issues appeared yearly between 1930 and 1943; three to eight issues were published in other years.
The contents of the Masquerader include jokes, campus anecdotes, light verse, photographs, cartoons, and, especially in later issues, humorous articles and fiction. A regular feature of volumes 9-13 is "Campus Quotables,” which includes witty sayings from professors John Crowe Ransom, Edwin Mims, Walter Clyde Curry, and Randall Stewart, among others. - The CommodoreCall Number: LD5597 .C65Publication Date: 1909-presentThe Vanderbilt yearbook was first published in 1887 as the Comet, named to "compliment...our brilliant young astronomer Professor E.E. Barnard, who has done so much to spread abroad the name and fame of Vanderbilt." The name of the book was changed to Commodore in 1909.
The yearbook was published by the fraternities of Vanderbilt from 1887 through 1916. Since 1917, it has been published as a private enterprise by the students.
The first Comet included brief articles on the various departments of the University; the crest, membership role, and pictures of two editors from each fraternity; and sections on athletics, clubs, societies and organizations, as well as "miscellany," which included poetry and humorous prose.
Publication has been suspended only once, in 1944, when a smaller paperbound book, Towers, was published by the senior class. - Co-Ed Handbook byCall Number: LD5591.4 .A88Publication Date: 1945-1968The Co-Ed Handbook, a guide for women students, especially freshmen, was published from 1942 to 1951 by the Women's Student Government Association, and from 1951 to 1968 by the Women's Council of the W.S.G.A.
Contents of the Handbook include information on the W.S.G.A, the Honor Code, the Panhellenic Council, University residence hall regulations, sororities, and activities. The last issue of the Co-Ed Handbook was in 1967-1968. - Vanderbilt Law Review byCall Number: K26 .A58Publication Date: 1947-presentThe Vanderbilt Law Review, published by the students of the Law School since 1947, contains articles of professional interest to lawyers, as well as sections of notes, comments, recent cases, and book reviews.
Many numbers are devoted to symposia, containing articles centered on a single theme, such as estate planning or criminal law and administration. The final numbers of volumes VI-XIV (1951-1961) contain annual surveys of Tennessee law. In volumes XV-XVII (1961-1964) this survey appears in number 3. Volume X, number 5 (August 1957) contains a cumulative index to volumes I-X (1947-1957). Indexes appear periodically in subsequent issues.
- African American Newspapers (Readex) This link opens in a new windowExtensive African American newspaper archives. Includes the Wisconsin Historical Society, Kansas State Historical Society, Freedom's Journal (NY), The Colored Citizen (OH), Rights of All (NY), Wisconsin Afro-American, New York Age, Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, Richmond Planet, Cleveland Gazette, The Appeal (MN), etc.
- Digital National Security Archive This link opens in a new windowFull-text collection of declassified documents relating to U.S. foreign policy decisions from post-World War II to the present.
- Foreign Office Files for Japan This link opens in a new window
British government files document Anglo-Japanese diplomatic relations and provide significant insight into the events between First World War victory and Second World War defeat, crucial to understanding the political journey of Japan and its rise to modernity.
- History Vault This link opens in a new window
Digitized letters, papers, photographs, scrapbooks, financial records, diaries, and other primary source materials.
• American Indians and the American West
• American Politics and Society
• Civil Rights and the Black Freedom Struggle
• International Relations and Military Conflicts
• Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War
• Women's Studies
• Workers and Labor Unions
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowHistorical access to the following newspapers: Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta Daily World, The Baltimore Afro-American, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Defender, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Call & Post, The Commercial Appeal, Detroit Free Press, The Globe and Mail, Hartford Courant, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Advocate, The Jewish Exponent, Korea Times, Knoxville News Sentinel, Leftist Newspapers, Los Angeles Sentinel, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier Journal, Michigan Chronicle, New York Amsterdam News, The New York Times, New York Tribune, Norfolk Journal & Guide, The Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, San Francisco Chronicle, South China Morning Post, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Tennessean, The Times of India, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
- Service Newspapers of World War Two This link opens in a new windowWartime newspapers published for soldiers serving in major theatres around the world. Both Allied and Axis publications are presented, offering a broad view of the war and the experiences of those on its front lines.
Secondary Sources
American Higher Education since World War II by Call Number: LA227.2 .G45 2019ISBN: 9780691179728Publication Date: 2019-07-02In the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger shows how American universities emerged after the war as the world's most successful system for the advancement of knowledge, how the pioneering of mass higher education led to the goal of higher education for all, and how the "selectivity sweepstakes" for admission to the most elite schools has resulted in increased stratification. He identifies 1980 as a turning point when the link between research and economic development stimulated a revival in academic research--and the ascendancy of the modern research university--that continues to the present.
Wartime Schools by Call Number: LA209 .G54 2004ISBN: 0820463558Publication Date: 2004-01-05The politically conservative educators of World War II dramatically and rapidly altered policies, programs, schedules, learning materials, classroom activities, and the content of academic courses. They motivated students to salvage materials, sell war stamps, grow crops, learn about wartime issues, and take pride in patriotism. They prepared millions of people for the armed services and the defense industries. These accomplishments were possible because the educators were supported by an unprecedented alliance that included teachers, school administrators, industrialists, military personnel, government leaders, and the President himself. After the war, conservative educators continued to portray themselves as home-front warriors waging a life-threatening battle against enduring global dangers.
When Dreams Came True by Call Number: HN58 .B56 1996ISBN: 1574880411Publication Date: 1996-11-01When Dreams Came True is the inspiring history of how millions of World War II veterans and their families achieved the American dream - an education, a home, a stable and profitable career, and ownership of their own business.
More than any other law, the GI Bill was responsible for the post-World War II explosion in college graduates, the education of leaders of the civil rights movement, the growth and dominance of the suburbs, and the proliferation of interstate highways, supermarkets, and franchise stores and restaurants. Quite literally, the GI Bill changed the way we live, the way we house ourselves, the way we are educated, how we work and at what, even how we eat and transport ourselves.
To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African-American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II by Call Number: UB418 .A47 M66 1996ISBN: 0814763243Publication Date: 1996-01-01To Serve My Country, to Serve my Race is the story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit composed of African-American women to serve overseas. While African-American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African-American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. Under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the black press, and even President Roosevelt, the U.S. War Department was forced to deploy African-American women to the European theater in 1945. African-American women, having succeeded, through their own activism and political ties, in their quest to shape their own lives, answered the call from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these African-American women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispell bigoted preconceptions about their abilities.
College Women in the Nuclear Age by Call Number: LC1756 .F34 2012ISBN: 1283735199Publication Date: 2011-01-01In the popular imagination, American women during the time between the end of World War II and the 1960s--the era of the so-called "feminine mystique"--were ultraconservative and passive. "College Women in the Nuclear Age" takes a fresh look at these women, showing them actively searching for their place in the world while engaging with the larger intellectual and political movements of the times. Drawing from the letters and diaries of young women in the Cold War era, Babette Faehmel seeks to restore their unique voices and to chronicle their collective ambitions. She also explores the shifting roles that higher education played in establishing these hopes and dreams, making the case that the GI Bill served to diminish the ambitions of many American women even as it opened opportunities for many American men.
These Strange Criminals: An Anthology of Prison Memoirs by Conscientious Objectors from the Great War to the Cold War by Call Number: Online ResourceISBN: 1442620803Publication Date: 2016-01-29In many modern wars, there have been those who have chosen not to fight. Be it for religious or moral reasons, some men and women have found no justification for breaking their conscientious objection to violence. In many cases, this objection has led to severe punishment at the hands of their own governments, usually lengthy prison terms.
This important and thought-provoking anthology consists of thirty prison memoirs by conscientious objectors to military service, drawn from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and centring on their jail experiences either during the first or second world wars or in Cold War America.
