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History of the
Department of Special Collections and University Archives

The University of Tulsa, and Henry Kendall College before it, had long been collecting many of the materials that would eventually become our current special collections decades before the department was created to manage them.  

The earliest extant collection began with Alice Mary Robertson's gift of her library in the 1920s and in 1931, the bequest of her personal and family papers.  Miss Robertson was a granddaughter of Samuel A. Worcester, a missionary to the Cherokee before the Trail of Tears.  Her parents were missionaries to the Creek.  Miss Robertson taught in mission schools, served as Postmistress of Muskogee, Oklahoma, and became the second woman elected to Congress (1920-1922). Her personal and family papers provide important documentation of Cherokee, Creek, and Oklahoma history, and her bequest established a direction for collecting materials relating to Native Americans which continues to this day.

In 1929-30, when the old part of McFarlin Library was built, the large room in the north end of the second floor (now the Student Study) was planned to be a museum space to showcase Alice Robertson's Native American artifacts.  More collections were acquired to further populate the museum.  Among these were the Ellis Clark Soper Collection, the Bright Roddy Collection (of Navajo weaving and beadwork), and the James Wolfe Collection of artifacts from Borneo.

The museum did not survive the 1930s, and while many of the materials brought in went onto other collections elsewhere, many of the items have remained with us.

In 1975, former Tulsa businessman John W. Shleppey considerably enriched these holdings with the bequest of books and manuscripts concerning Native Americans which he had collected over his lifetime. The collection included 6,000 books, many rare. In 1989, Cherokee-related holdings were extended with the gift of the J. B. Milam Library, nearly 2,000 volumes. Milam served as Principal Chief of the Cherokee nation from 1941 to his death in 1949.

A second collecting direction was started with a series of gifts in the early 1960s by members of the Tulsa Bibliophiles, a group of collectors active during the 1950s. One Bibliophile, Rush Greenslade, gave his splendid collection of Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, and 17th and 18th century editions of English writers. As a group, the Bibliophiles set themselves the challenge of collecting Walt Whitman, and they formed, then gave, their impressive collection to the University in 1965. These books provided a base for more intense collecting of literature to support a doctoral program established in the 1960s. Several collections were purchased at this time from bookseller and collector John Bennett Shaw.  Manuscript collections began to be added in the 1970s with the library and personal papers of literary critic Cyril Connolly as the first notable acquisition. They now occupy about 2000 linear feet. 

Over 128,200 (as of Oct 2006) printed books are housed in Special Collections. These are described in the library's bibliographic database (which contains 300,000 records describing the library's collection of 2.1 million books, government documents, maps, periodical volumes, microforms, and other materials). The library catalog also contains collection-level records for many manuscript collections. The bibliographic database, INNOPAC, is available to the public from the Library's homepage: http://www.lib.utulsa.edu .

While rare books and manuscripts must be used in department reading rooms, these rich resources are available to all students and staff of the University as well as, without charge, to members of the public who would like to consult them. Visitors not familiar with the city of Tulsa will find it useful to consult General Information for directions to campus, local accommodations, and weather information.. 

Under Access Policies you will find all request and application forms required of manuscript readers as well as advice on digital and photocopy replication services. 

You may direct questions regarding manuscript collections and access policies to the Head of Special Collections. 

The Department is located on the fifth level of the East Wing of McFarlin Library, 2933 East 6th Street, Tulsa, OK 74104-3123. Telephone: 918-631-2496. Fax: 918-631-5022.