The Montana State University Archives and Special Collections, also known as the Merrill G. Burlingame Archives and Special Collections, is located in Bozeman, Montana. The archives is on the second floor of the Renne Library on the Montana State University-Bozeman campus and consists of materials relating to the history of the American West, trout and salmonids, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and other topics.
The Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections is located in the Montana State University Library in Bozeman, Montana. Merrill G. Burlingame and Minnie Paugh were instrumental to the creation and development of the archive, establishing a solid foundation of research and collection of regionally important materials. Minnie Paugh (1919–2003) [1] was a reference librarian and instructor at Montana State College (now Montana State University), where she helped establish the university's Archives and Special Collections. She was a prolific researcher and writer, contributing to several Montana history books. Paugh also generated a collection of oral histories, consisting of notes, tapes, interviews, photographs, and historical ephemera. [2] Her interests included indigenous tribes of the North American West, particularly those in Montana, Yellowstone National Park, and the agricultural and ranching history of Montana. Paugh made significant contributions to the area of Montana history, the development of Montana State University's Archives and Special Collections, and the creation of an extensive Montana oral history collection held at Montana State University. [3] [4] Paugh's work is housed at the Montana State University Archives and Special Collections, including books, unpublished materials, and family histories. In addition to her own materials, the Merrill G. Burlingame Archives and Special Collections contains many collections that Paugh personally worked on and contributed to. [5] [6] Similarly, Merrill G. Burlingame (1901–1994) was a prolific researcher and historian who published numerous works essential to the development of the archive. Burlingame was a history professor at Montana State College and an active member in the creation of the Museum of the Rockies. These included journal publications and books on topics such as politics in Montana, the military in Montana, and general history of the American West. [7] [8]
The areas of collection at the MSU Archives and Special Collections include but are not limited to Montana history, notable residents of Montana, Native American history, and environmental and agricultural history. The materials are divided into 11 broad areas of collection.
The Montana State Archives and Special Collections consists of 34,000 volumes and 1200 linear feet of manuscript materials. There are also video and sound recordings, microforms, newspapers, maps, and photographs pertaining to the above areas of collection. In addition to physical holdings, the archive also produces and manages digital collections, which include the complete digitization of the Ivan Doig Archive, the Montanan Yearbooks collection, and the 1972 Montana Constitutional Convention Oral History collection. [10] [11] [12] [13]
There are numerous collections of note held at the Montana State Archives and Special Collections, including collections on Yellowstone National Park, environmental history and ecology of the North American West, Native Americans, Western writers, and more.
Montana State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It enrolls more students than any other college or university in the state. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 68 fields, and doctoral degrees in 35 fields through its nine colleges. More than 16,700 students attended MSU in the fall 2019, taught by 796 full-time and 547 part-time faculty. In the Carnegie Classification, MSU is placed among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity", one of only two universities to receive this distinction with a "very high undergraduate" enrollment profile. The university had research expenditures of $129.6 million in 2017.
John Merin Bozeman was a pioneer and frontiersman in the American West who helped establish the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming Territory into the gold fields of southwestern Montana Territory in the early 1860s. He helped found the city of Bozeman, Montana, in 1864, which is named for him.
Ivan Doig was an American author and novelist, widely known for his sixteen fiction and non-fiction books set mostly in his native Montana, celebrating the landscape and people of the post-war American West.
James R. Reid was a Canadian American who was a Presbyterian minister. He served as the second president of Montana State University from 1894 to 1904.
Gustavus Cheyney Doane was a U.S. Army Cavalry Captain, explorer, inventor and Civil War soldier who played a prominent role in the exploration of Yellowstone as a member of the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition. Doane was a participant in the Marias Massacre of approximately 200 Piegan Blackfeet people.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) is a regional conservation nonprofit organization dedicated to working with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the over 20-million-acre (81,000 km2) Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Roland R. Renne was an American agricultural economics professor who served as President of Montana State College from 1943 to 1964. Renne was also active in Washington, D.C., and United States overseas agricultural economics work. He was the 1964 Democratic candidate for governor of Montana.
Fred Fielding Willson, most commonly known as Fred F. Willson, was an architect in Bozeman, Montana who designed many buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Montana State University Library (MSU Library) is the academic library of Montana State University, Montana's land-grant university, in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It is the flagship library for all of the Montana State University System's campuses. In 1978, the library was named the Roland R. Renne Library to honor the sixth president of the university. The library supports the research and information needs of Montana's students, faculty, and the Montana Extension Service.
Michael Peter Malone was an American historian who served from 1991 to 1999 as the 10th president of Montana State University. One of Montana's preeminent historians and writers, he was named by both The Missoulian and the Great Falls Tribune newspapers as one of the 100 most influential Montanans of the 20th century. His Montana: A History of Two Centuries was called the "definitive history of the state" by the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
James McClellan Hamilton was an American historian and economist who was the third president of Montana State University. He served from 1904 to 1919. A group of historians named Hamilton one of Montana State's four most important presidents in 2011.
Merrill G. Burlingame was a history professor at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana who specialized in Montana history and the history of the American West. He was instrumental in the founding of the Museum of the Rockies and driving force behind the resurgence of the Montana Historical Society in the 1960s. In his time, he was known as "Mr. Montana History."
Dr. Caroline M. McGill (1879–1959) was a co-founder of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, the first pathologist for the state of Montana and the first successful female doctor in Butte, Montana.
The Trout and Salmonid Collection is a special collection of literature and archives in the Montana State University Library's Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections Library. The collection is also known as The Bud Lilly Trout and Salmonid Collection, named after Bud Lilly who was instrumental in starting the collection. The approximately 20,000-volume collection, established in 2000, is devoted to preserving literary, scientific, government and media resources related to all aspects of trout and other salmonids. The collection contains materials in many languages and is not restricted by geography. It is considered a world-class collection of international significance relative to the study of trout and salmonids.
Olga Ross Hannon was an art professor at Montana State College from 1921 to 1947. As an artist she is known for mountain landscape and Indian culture paintings.
Harriette Eliza Cushman (1890–1978) was the first female Extension Service poultry specialist in the United States, a lifelong supporter of the arts, an environmental advocate, and an honorary member of the Blackfoot tribe.
Mike Clark is a social and environmental activist who worked with several non-governmental organizations, including Greenpeace USA and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Richard Langton Reese was an environmental activist who founded the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and an alpinist who participated in the North Face Grand Teton rescue in 1967.
Isabel May Haynes was a businesswoman who managed Roosevelt Lodges in Yellowstone National Park and co-owned and -operated Haynes Picture Shops with Jack Ellis Haynes.
Jeffrey Jaeger Safford was a professor emeritus of history at Montana State University-Bozeman and prominent proponent of historic preservation in Montana.
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