Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection

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With over 300,000 items the Nye Collection is a major scholarly resource for the study of popular culture from the nineteenth century to the present.

It is organized into categories of Comic Art, Science Fiction, Juvenile Literature, Mysteries, Popular Information, Romances, Textbooks, Westerns, Sunday School books and Performing Arts. While the emphasis for years was American popular culture, materials from other countries are now being collected as well. A large clipping file of articles from the popular press supports and complements the collection.

Online Resources

• Shaping the Values of Youth: Sunday School Books in 19th Century America - A digitized collection of some of the Sunday School Books Collection.

Did You Know ...

• Science Fiction holdings total approximately 20,000 items in the Nye Popular Culture Materials and feature Astounding Stories, and many other early science fiction magazines dating back to the 1930s.
• Among the many nineteenth century etiquette books in the Nye Popular Culture Collection is Thomas Handford's Home Instructor (Chicago, 1890), which counsels young women that, "above all things, give no ear to a man addicted to habits of drinking...Better live alone to extreme old age, better to go into your grave, than become a drunkard's wife."