As our nation celebrates and commemorates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Milner Library provides access to many sources documenting our country’s past. One collection in particular, the Government Information and Maps Collection, has been a witness to the promises, challenges, struggles, tragedies, and triumphs in our ongoing quest for equality and the rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Milner Library is one of approximately 1,110 Federal Depository Libraries providing access to the National Collection of U.S. Government Public Information. The National Collection includes core cornerstone documents, like the Declaration of Independence, but with over 500,000 items in Milner Library’s depository collection, it also provides access to publications from all branches of the federal government, showcasing its breadth through landmark legislation and reports, Supreme Court cases, statistics, maps, and more!
Historic depository collection
Government information at Illinois State University dates to the founding of the University in 1857, when over half of the original library’s holdings were federal government publications donated by prominent members of Congress representing Illinois:
- Senator Stephen Douglas (Democrat, 1847–1861)
- Senator Lyman Trumbull (Republican, 1855–1873)
- Representative Owen Lovejoy (Republican, 1855–1873)
Representative Owen Lovejoy not only gave from his personal collection, but he also appointed the university as an official repository for government publications in March 1858. The university was among the earliest depository libraries in the nation. It was also one of the first and few “normal school” libraries given depository status. In fact, the university was just one of three teacher institutions listed as a depository in the nation prior to the Civil War. This designation provided access to government information and also ensured that the library would continue to grow without incurring added expense. Though the federal designation lapsed during the turbulence of the U.S. Civil War, Senator Richard Oglesby re-designated the university library as a depository in 1877. Milner Library will be celebrating 150 years of continuous federal depository status in November 2027!
Government-supported research connected to the university
Government publications have been a valuable curricular resource for the university since its founding, but it is also noteworthy that among its publications, there are nineteenth-century government documents written by scientists associated with the university’s early history. Prominent examples include John Wesley Powell, Cyrus Thomas, George Vasey, and Stephen Forbes. All were members of the Illinois Natural History Society (INHS), an organization that was located at and supported by Illinois State (Normal) University (ISNU) when the Society was founded in 1858. These INHS leaders authored government-funded research that was subsequently published in federal agency reports and distributed to federal depositories. They are preserved in print in Milner Library, and many are now freely available online.
- While at ISNU, John Wesley Powell planned his historic 1869 geographic expedition through the Grand Canyon and later led explorations to the Colorado River region. The university helped fund this early research. His explorations also included university students. In 1879, Powell was appointed the first director of the Smithsonian’s Bureau of (American) Ethnology. He would hold that position until his death in 1902. He also concurrently served as the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) (1881–1894). Powell’s landmark Report of the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States remains a foundational environmental source. (Milner Library’s government information collection possesses the early reports from the Bureau of American Ethnology and USGS.)
- Cyrus Thomas became an archeologist for the Bureau of American Ethnology and is best known for his research on the origin of the mound builders. His research dispelled the racist myth that mounds were built by an extinct advanced race. The Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology was published in the Bureau of Ethnology’s 12th annual report.
- George Vasey served as botanist for John Wesley Powell’s expedition in 1869. In 1872, Vasey was appointed the first Botanist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Curator of the National Herbarium. Vasey built up the nation’s collections of North American grasses and authored The Agricultural Grasses of the United States (1884) and Grasses of the Southwest (1891).
- Stephen A. Forbes served as the organization’s director when it was renamed the State Laboratory of Natural History (SLNH). Forbes was also appointed the State of Illinois Entomologist. His seminal 1887 work, “The Lake as a Microcosm,” is viewed as a foundational source in ecology.
Two important contributors working at SLNH, instrumental in its successes, were Rachel Fell Treakle and Ange. V. Milner.
- Rachel Fell Treakle graduated from and served as an assistant botany instructor at ISNU while also working at the INHS. She specialized in southwest grasses, and primary sources reveal she donated her rare botanical specimens to the Smithsonian’s National Herbarium. Treakle also donated a substantial portion of her collection to the university helping create the George S. Vasey Herbarium that continues to be maintained by the University’s School of Biological Sciences.
- Ange. V. Milner worked for the SLNH from 1881 through 1884, cataloging the Society’s scientific reference collection. As a self-taught librarian she used the Bureau of Education’s Public Libraries of the United States (1876) as her guide. Milner would later be hired as the university’s first full-time librarian in 1890 and remained in that position until October 1927. A prolific author, Milner was an early and steadfast advocate for the use of government information by teachers for their students. Milner also preserved depository World War I posters that remain in the Government Information Collection and have been digitized. (Learn more about Ange. V. Milner.)
Another notable figure connecting Illinois State University with the nation’s past is William Saunders.
- Jesse Fell hired William Saunders in 1868 to design the university’s campus grid for what we now know as its Quad. An early landscape architect, Saunders is best known for designing the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg following President Abraham Lincoln’s request. In 1862, Saunders was also appointed as the first Superintendent the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Experimental Gardens and authored the Department’s first publication, Catalogue of the Plants, Bulbs, Tubers, Etc., for Distribution from the U.S. Propagating Garden with a Report on the Objectives and Aims of the Garden.
An informed populace
Federal Depository Libraries guarantee that any member of the public may visit and access depository resources such as those listed above and can do so without impediments. The United States is guided by the principle that its populace has a right to free, unimpeded, local access to official information produced by its government. James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, is typically cited as the visionary behind the democratic necessity of an informed populace to participate in the democratic process:
“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”—James Madison to W.T. Barry in 1822 from the Library of Congress.
As the nation celebrates its semiquincentennial, Milner Library proudly serves as one of the oldest federal depositories in the nation. We gladly support the curricular and research needs of the university and community with current and historical sources reflecting all aspects of government activity. Milner Library is your library, and you are always welcome!
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