Research Guides: National History Day 2025-2026: Revolution, Reaction, Reform: Home

Welcome to the Schlesinger's National History Day Guide!

Welcome to the Schlesinger Library Guide for National History Day 2025-2026: Revolution, Reaction, Reform.

The Library's collection features many stories that fit this year's History Day theme, and the subjects listed in the navigation menu highlight areas in which the Schlesinger has a significant amount of material. You are welcome to use any of the Library's research guides and HOLLIS, Harvard University’s library catalog, as tools for your project; however, this guide is an excellent starting point, featuring many digitized collections that are available to high school students across the country and unrestricted physical collections that can easily be accessed by students able to visit the Schlesinger Library in person.

Online Access: Digitized materials from Schlesinger collections are often made available via the online finding aid. Please see the HOLLIS for Archival Discovery Guide for help navigating finding aids. Researchers new to finding aids and archival research may also be interested in Finding Your Way Through Finding Aids by Dorothy Berry, which gives a thorough overview of the purpose and use of finding aids.

In each topic, you will find relevant archival material, books, journals and newsletters. Materials have been organized by what is already accessible online and what may be accessed in person or would need to have a copy request made. To learn more you can visit our page on copy requests.

Virtual Reading Room: Materials that have been copied for reference purposes and kept on file are available in our Virtual Reading Room. Access to the Virtual Reading Room is provided for 30 days at a time. The Virtual Reading Room is updated on a rolling basis. Please check back periodically for updates regarding new materials or renewed access. Please note, a Microsoft account is required to access the Virtual Reading Room. To make the process most efficient, if possible, please make sure your Microsoft email address matches the one used for your HOLLIS Special Request account. Instructions for signing up for a free Microsoft account are available online.

In-Person Visits: To visit the Schlesinger Library a researcher or student would need to create a HOLLIS Special Request Account and check the current hours. To learn more about how to request materials, please visit our guide for placing requests. Please note that researchers younger than sixteen years old are welcome to use the collections when accompanied by an adult or by prior arrangement. Arrangements can also be made to meet with a librarian before a research visit to provide an introduction to using our reading room and conducting special collections research.

Please contact us with any questions you have about using this guide or accessing materials. In the subject line please write National History Day

Examples of Revolutionary Collections

If you are starting out on your research, the collections below are examples of primary sources from individuals who lived through revolutions. These collections also demonstrate how some of our materials can only be viewed in person, while others can be accessed online.

Autobiography of Patricia Esther Jackson Hewes (1900-1976)
Collection contains an autobiographical account of Patricia Esther Jackson Hewes's childhood in Mexico, partly during the Mexican Revolution, and her emigration to the United States.
Papers of Sattareh Farman-Farmaian (1921-2012)
The collection contains letters, publicity materials, clippings, reviews, speeches, published and unpublished articles, and essays, most of which relate to the promotion of and responses to Sattareh Farman-Farmaian's autobiography, Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem through the Islamic Revolution (1992). Approximately one-third of the material arrived loose or in labeled folders, containing either fan mail with a list of correspondents, or publicity materials organized by event or conference at which Farman-Farmaian appeared. A small amount of foldered material consists of biographical and earlier material. The remainder of the collection, although consisting of similar materials, was bound into eleven booklets in plastic comb bindings and five three-ring binders with plastic sheet protectors. Also included in the collection were eighty-two audiocassettes consisting of speeches and interviews that were removed to form their own collection; see the Sattareh Farman-Farmaian Audiotape collection, 1987-2008 (T-339).
Photograph album depicting the Philippines during the Philippine Revolution, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War (1896-1899)
The collection contains an album created by an unknown person of black and white photographs with handwritten captions depicting the Philippines during the Philippine Revolution, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War. Images include scenes depicting military executions; war-damaged buildings; the bodies of Filipino men killed in battles; a Filipino independence day parade; United States soldiers, including troop encampments and an image of Colonel John M. Stotsenburg; and United States soldiers' graves in Paco Cemetery. Also included are portraits of Emilio Aguinaldo, an unidentified Filipino woman holding a basket of flowers, a group of Filipino boys playing soldier, and a group of Filipino men identified as "insurgent leaders"; photographs of indigenous Filipino people including Moro Sultans on the island of Mindanao, Aeta men in a piragua, a Tinguian "petty king" and his guards; images of women working in the fields at a tea plantation and in a cigar factory; and street scenes and images of buildings, bridges, and canals in the Philippines. Also included are a small number of scenic photographs of Nagasaki, Japan, and color tinted images of Japanese women in Yokohama, Japan.
Papers of the Jumelle family (1751-1925)
Collection includes letters, bills, and miscellaneous documents, some dating from the period of the French Revolution. Included are letters from Modeste Jumelle, 1788-1794 to her family. She had been left behind in a convent in Paris when they returned to Saint-Domingue. Also included are love letters from Mademoiselle de Vanderstrate to Pierre Laurence Jumelle during the first year of the French Revolution, 1790.