Social Welfare History Archives

Some topics in public health never go away, infectious disease and barriers to access to health care among them. In the recently digitized “A Public Health Journal” TV program (APHJ), dating from 1985-2004, and available online via UMedia, students, scholars, public health officials, and the members of the community can explore some of these evergreen issues.

World War I, the Great Depression, and immigration all contributed to a growing number of people who were unattached — unmarried and not linked to communities in significant ways. To study these single people, most of whom were men, Doris Brossard, a doctoral student of modern U.S. history, gender, and women’s history at Rutgers University, recently came to the University Libraries to access the Social Welfare History Archives and the Kautz Family YMCA Archives.

The Social Welfare History Archives received a $10,000 Legacy Amendment grant from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society for the digital preservation and access project Public Health in Minnesota: Digitizing Recordings of “A Public Health Journal” TV program.

Clarke Chambers Fellow Caitlin Fendley visited the Social Welfare History Archives to research American Ideas about overpopulation and population control.

2018 Clarke Chambers Fellowship recipient, Youngeun Koo — a Ph.D. candidate in Korean Studies at the University of  Tübingen, Germany — reflects on using the International Social Service American Branch records and other collections related to adoption in the Social Welfare History Archives.

Four research fellows are now using the Social Welfare History Archives and Kautz Family YMCA Archives with assistance from the Clarke Chambers Fellowship. The fellowships fund travel to the archives for dissertation writers and early career scholars. The first Chambers fellowship was awarded in 1992 and, to date, 126 fellows have visited the archives.  

The University of Minnesota Libraries has partnered with Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota to archive the organization’s historical records, including more than 50 linear feet of photographs, minutes, correspondence, newsletters, promotional materials, reports, and other records documenting more than 100 years of Lutheran Welfare Society and Lutheran Social Service history.

Three research fellows are using the Social Welfare History Archives and Kautz Family YMCA Archives with assistance from the Clarke Chambers Fellowship. The three Chambers fellows for 2016 are: Mark Hauser, Margaret Boren Neubauer, and Angelica Stoddard.

The Immigration History Research Center Archives, with our colleague Immigration History Research Center, celebrates 50 years this fall at the University of Minnesota.

Four research fellows are using the Social Welfare History Archives and Kautz Family YMCA Archives this year with assistance from the Clarke Chambers Fellowship.

Hours spent doing research and writing exhibit text for the Archives and Special Collections department’s current exhibit, “The job is never done”: Fifty Years of Documenting Social Welfare History, uncovered many interesting documents, facts and quotes – a few of which were used for the exhibit. Here are a few of the curator’s favorites from the exhibit!

The current exhibit in the Elmer L. Andersen Library Main Gallery is "The Job is Never Done": Fifty Years of Documenting Social Welfare History. ...

By Linnea Anderson, Archivist, Social Welfare History Archives The fellowships were established in honor of Clarke Chambers, Professor Emeritus of History and the founder of...

Whatever study promoted the idea that using social media cuts into work productivity might be a slightly mistaken. Without Facebook, for example, the promotion of the newly acquired (and not quite processed) National Parks and Recreation Association collection might never have happened!

By Ellen Engseth, Curator of Immigration History Research Center Archives and Head, Migration and Social Services Collections Joining the staff of Archives and Special Collections...

By Linnea Anderson, Archivist, Social Welfare History Archives One of the most enjoyable aspects of teaching with archival collections is participating in the students' discovery...