Peek in the Stacks

Kitty Bell, born in Paris, France, moved to Shanghai, China in the mid-1930s when she was adopted by a family who lived there. She was 8 years old when she arrived in Shanghai, and attended various schools as she grew up, including Sacred Heart in Shanghai. She also attended the Holy Ghost Convent in Tsingtao, a small seaport and industrial center on the Yellow Sea in northeast China....

James F. Dargan was born in the town of Randolph, Norfolk County, Massachusetts in 1843. Dargan was the eldest of six children born to Irish immigrants, and by the age of seventeen worked as a boot maker in his father’s shop. On September 17, 1862, at the age of nineteen, he enlisted in the Union Army, 4th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry....

1938 marked one of the most economically devastating years of the Great Depression, shortly following the recession of 1937, but preceding swift economic growth brought upon by the United States’ entrance into World War II. In addition, the 1930s brought dramatic population growth in California due to...

Special Collections and Archives houses a unique oral interview with Helen Thomas (1920-2013), long-time member of the White House press corps (1961-2010), in the Tom W. Reilly Collection. She was well known in the White House, among the press corps, and by political pundits. Her White House career spanned the service of ten presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama. She was also....