Are you getting ready for the Iowa Caucuses next Tuesday? The University of Iowa Special Collections has some remarkable holdings of the history of presidential politics. Come visit us to catch a glimpse of caucuses and elections past, and even see the signatures of U.S. presidents!   The Iowa caucuses have been the first majorContinue reading “Once Upon a January Day: Presidential Politics in Iowa”

We are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War Two by highlighting some items in our collections relating to this event.  Library and Information Science graduate student Katherine Wilson’s exhibition at Special Collections & University Archives brings the Iowan war effort to life. How did the University of Iowa and ordinary Iowans respondContinue reading “The U.S. Goes to War – and the War Comes to Iowa IV.”

  How many of the issues of the 2012 presidential elections are new to our society?  What did politicians and the media say about unemployment and social security in the 1930s, the 1970s, or the 1990s? Were the elections of the last century less divisive in their language than those of today? What guidance canContinue reading “The More Things Change… Political Cartoons Exhibit Highlights Un/Civil Discourse over the Past Century”

As a virtual supplement to our exhibit The Comics Continuum (on view in the Main Library 3rd floor hallway, now through November) this fall we are featuring items from our comics collections on the Special Collections & University Archives blog. Below we’ve described two examples of collaboration in comics from the exhibition, but please exploreContinue reading “Collaboration in Comics: Tradition and Experimentation”