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Transportation in Special Collections

This guide offers brief descriptions of relevant transportation collections. Links are provided whenever online inventories exist.

Railroads SCUA Gallery

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Teaching with Primary Source Materials

Our collections exist to be used. When students work directly with primary source materials, historic photographs, and documents that are old or unique, they discover an excitement and passion not generated by textbooks.

Primary source documents can inspire, but they also teach about learning to verify sources, tracking down connections, finding evidence from content and from physical clues.

Railroad Materials in SCUA Collections

Special Collections and University Archives collects in the topical area Northwest History and Culture, including materials in all formats that describe or reflect Northwest history and culture.

Published works on Northwest railroads are available in the Oregon Collection. Photographs of Northwest railroads are held in many collections at Special Collections and University Archives, including Lee Moorhouse, Angelus Studio, Brice Disque, and Randall Mills.

Abilene & and Southern Railway Company, defendant.

West Coast Lumbermen's Association, complainant, vs. Abilene & Southern Railway Company. Interstate Commission docket no. 13211, 1923.
Bx 153
The complaint was against railroad rates charged for lumber shipments from Eastern Oregon. The files include correspondence, exhibits, testimony, briefs, and the decision. These are the files of A.S. Titus, tragic manager of the California White and Sugar Pine Manufacturers' Association.

Crosby, Alexander, 1906-1980. 

Papers, 1921-1980.
55 boxes
Coll. 013
Crosby was a newspaperman, 1929-1942; pamphlet writer and editor, 1942-1959; author of children's books, 1959-1980. The collection includes articles collected by Crosby on railroads, and a subject file on railroads.

Pierce, Walter M., 1861-1954.

Papers, 1888-1969.
87 boxes
Coll. 068
Pierce was a U.S. Congressman for Oregon's Second District from 1933-1943. Previously he served as Governor of Oregon from 1923-1927. Although Pierce was an active member of the Democratic Party, he was essentially a Populist by inclination. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal federal relief and regulatory programs, and an ardent proponent of public-owned and operated power facilities.
Transportation is one of the many subjects covered by the Pierce papers. Material on railroads is found in the subject/correspondence files, subject/issues files, and the clippings files. Most of this concerns long-short haul, 70-car limit, and labor.

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Preferred Citation Format for SCUA Materials

[Identification of item], Date (if known), Collection Title, Collection Number, Box and Folder number [or photo ID number], Special Collections & University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Oregon.

Mission | Special Collections & University Archives

Special Collections and University Archives is the primary repository for the University of Oregon’s archives, rare books, historic photographs, and one of the largest historical manuscripts collections in the Pacific Northwest. Our mission is to acquire, preserve, and make available a clearly defined set of primary sources and rare books, reflecting the written, visual, and audio history and culture of Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and selected aspects of American and world history. Our diverse collections support all types of research, from K–12 education to international scholarship. We strive to play an active and creative role in the teaching, research, and service missions of the University.

Historical Collection Strengths

  • Oregon history, politics, culture
  • Authors and illustrators of children’s books
  • The conservative and libertarian movement in the last half of the twentieth century
  • Popular literature, with an emphasis on Western fiction
  • Missionaries to foreign countries, especially in the Far East
  • Labor History
  • Journalism and Communications
  • Photographs of the Northwest, including the Major Lee Moorhouse and Angelus Studio collections
  • Environmental history
  • Northwest literature, including fiction by Ken Kesey, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Ursula K. Le Guin, Molly Gloss, and William Stafford
  • Doris Ulmann photograph archives of Appalachia
  • Utopian and intentional communities
  • Northwest architecture
  • Northwest economic history