Zines are "self-publications, motivated by a desire for self-expression, not profit." Read more at the Barnard Zine Library.
Our holdings
MSU has a strong collection of British and American punk zines from the 1970s and 80s, and we're working to expand our holdings of more recent zines.
How to find
Search the MSU Library Catalog using Basic Keyword Search.
Our holdings
MSU Special Collections has more than 25,000 cookbooks from all over the world, dating back 500 years, including several hundred titles by African American authors. They often include significant autobiographical content.
The subject heading "African American cooking" can be deceptive because some early cookbooks on that topic were actually written by white authors, who included recipes they had learned from African American cooks.
However, the book Black Hunger: Soul Food and America by Doris Witt includes a Chronological Bibliography of Cookbooks by African Americans covering the years 1800 to 1998. You'll need to logon with your MSUnet ID and password to read this e-book.
In the Appendix preceding the bibliography, Witt mentions a few of the historical and political issues that cookbook history touches on.
How to find
Consult the bibliography above. Then search the MSU library catalog by author or title. Note that "cookbook" was almost always written as two words ("cook book") up to the 1950s and sometimes later.
Blatant stereotypes of African Americans can be seen in commercial cooking pamphlets, the small brochures with recipes that often accompany new grocery products or appliances.
Our holdings
Special Collections has an extensive collection of these cooking pamphlets, dating from the 1860s to the present. The library's Little Cookbooks website has descriptions for each item in the collection, and images for about 40% so far.
All the items (digitized or not) can be used in the Special Collections reading room.
How to find
Go to the Advanced Search page on the Little Cookbooks website.
We have a good collection of newsletters and magazines from the contemporary women's movement.
Use the library catalog Advanced Search:
Throughout history, different cultures have had expectations about how women should behave, and their proper role in the family and in society. And, after the invention of the printing press made books cheaper and literacy more common, both men and women began writing "advice books" to instruct women about these expectations.
The subheading "conduct of life" is used in the subject headings to identify these books. Books with the subheading "health and hygiene" may also be of interest. Sort your results by date for a quick overview of how the content has changed over time.
Use the library catalog Advanced Search:
The links here will limit your results to Special Collections. For more titles, change your search to Entire Catalog.
The Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in America (Radcliffe College) carried out the Black Women Oral History Project from 1976 to 1981.
Hundreds of women were nominated to be interviewed, and 72 chosen. They represented a cross-section of African American women who had made "significant contributions of varying kinds to American society in the early and mid-decades of the twentieth century."
Special Collections has the full set of print transcripts of the interviews and a guide to the transcripts.
The finding aid on the Schlesinger Library website has:
The Feminist Federation Credit Union established in Detroit in 1973 was the first of its kind, and it inspired similar organizations in Lansing, Ann Arbor, and other cities nationwide. Its goal was to empower and unite women by allowing them to pool their financial resources, so that women who were saving money could provide loans to women who needed them.
Black lesbian poet Terri Lynn Jewell (1954-1995) was born in Louisville but attended MSU and lived in the Lansing area as an adult.
The Terri Jewell Papers (MSS 220) include her personal papers, drafts of poetry and essays, and material gathered for unpublished writing projects.
Our archival collections are stored off-site. Please request three days before your visit.