Description: Work files for Burt E. Powell's Semi-Centennial History of the University of Illinois including transcripts of letters and newspaper articles dealing with the work of Jonathan B. Turner, Bronson Murray and others, the passage of the Morrill Act and the founding of the University and primary source material. The transcripts include lists of material copied from the State Historical Library and indices to the Turner and Murray material. The source material includes some transcripts, reminiscences by C. Robinson Griggs (1914) and Adelia Potter Reynolds '74 (1915), biographical sketches of Matthias L. Dunlap, John M. Gregory and the first board of trustees, 34 letters from Murray to Turner (1853-55) and a transmittal from Murray to William L. Pillsbury (1890), Prof. Charles Moss' manuscript on the teaching of classics at the University, copies of material loaned by Mrs. Louis Gregory, notes of early days by Joseph O. Cunningham and related material.
For similar collected recollections and documents on the University's founding, see RS 35/3/125 "University of Illinois Early History Collection."