Yale University Library’s Manuscripts and Archives has extensive holdings in the areas of public policy and administration; diplomacy and international affairs; political and social thought and commentary; science, medicine, and the environment; legal and judicial history; the visual and performing arts; architecture and urban planning; environmental policy and affairs; psychology and psychiatry; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender history and culture. In addition, Manuscripts and Archives holds substantive documentation on New Haven, Connecticut, and New England history. Many of these Manuscripts and Archives collections have a strong link to Yale, either to the institution itself; to faculty, students, alumni, and other members of the Yale community; or to areas in which Yale has had strong teaching and research interests.
To search Yale’s manuscript collections, visit the Yale Finding Aid Database.
Sample environmental collections include:
Established in Connecticut in 1984 to coordinate and continue the activities of several groups resisting the production and deployment of Trident nuclear submarines and missiles in Connecticut.
Attorney. Correspondence, notes, and background material that document Cooper’s legal work to preserve the quality of the environment in the New Haven area and on Long Island Sound. Cases involve issues of energy transmission, coastal area development, highway construction, pollution of public water supplies, air quality control, and nuclear power plant construction.
Yale biology professor. The papers highlight Galston’s concern over the ecological harm done by herbicides and his efforts to end the use of Agent Orange, which was sprayed as a defoliant in Vietnam by the United States military.
The papers document Grinnell’s leading role in the American conservation movement. The material focuses on his adult life (1886-1938) and details his work as editor of Forest and Stream magazine, authority on American Indians of the North American West, and active participant in the National Audubon Society, the Boone and Crockett Club, the American Game Protective and Propagation Association, and the National Parks Association.
Educator, zoologist, and ecologist. The papers consist of correspondence, writings, addresses, notes and research materials, subject files, memorabilia, and photographs relating to G. Evelyn Hutchinson’s work as a zoologist and limnologist, as well as his travels as part of the Yale North India Expedition.
Public official. The papers document Kent’s activities as a municipal reformer in Chicago and Northern California; his interests in conservation, recreation, and public control of water power; his campaigns for election to Congress; his service in the U.S. House of Representatives and on the U.S. Tariff Commission; and his business interests in cattle ranches in Nebraska and Nevada.
The collection comprises the records of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an American environmental action organization founded in 1970. The records consist of NRDC’s organization-wide publications, including annual reports, magazines, and newsletters, and correspondence, publications, press clippings, technical reports, and photographs documenting NRDC’s Nuclear Program.
Project files, minutes, correspondence, and property records, documenting the work of the New Haven Redevelopment Agency, primarily from the 1950s to the 1980s.
The committee was formed in 1966 to establish a program for the preservation and protection of Connecticut’s coastal and inland wetlands. Through educational publications and meetings, the committee worked to garner public support for legislation protecting Connecticut’s marshes from dredging, landfill, and commercial development.
Educator. Chairman of the Yale University Conservation Program, the papers focus on Sears’s activities on behalf of professional scientific organizations and civic groups interested in conservation, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Ecological Society of America, the National Research Council, and the National Science Foundation. Numerous files concern Sears’s involvement with citizens’ groups and government agencies for conservation in Ohio.
Records of deans (1900-); officers and faculty; departments, offices, programs, and projects; student records; student, alumni, and support organizations; and audio-visual material and memorabilia. (Multiple collections and record groups.)
To search Yale’s manuscript collections, visit the Yale Finding Aid Database.