Archives
The Museum's Archive features a wide-range of primary and secondary source material relating to McLean County history.
The Museum's Archive features a wide-range of primary and secondary source material relating to McLean County history.
Materials include correspondence, diaries, business ledgers, photographs, postcards, maps, microform, newsletters, newspapers, oral histories, scrapbooks, unpublished manuscripts, and much more!
The Archive includes collections relating to local businesses, agriculture, churches, families, military units, organizations, schools, and general subjects. Finding aids for more than 600 collections are available online. The Vertical File Catalog enables one to search more than 3,000 files too small to be collections. These Vertical Files contain family letters, legal documents, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and other primary and secondary materials.
The McLean County Museum of History is a nonprofit institution, and as such has no direct institutional relationship with either the County of McLean or the City of Bloomington. Thus, we are not a repository for county or municipal records. Instead, our collections come mostly from donations by local residents and others interested in preserving McLean County history.
As a general rule, the Library/Archives does not accept unsolicited donations. If you are interested in donating material, please first contact Library/Archive staff. We are always happy to talk about a prospective donation with you!
If you are interested in obtaining copies of archival images, please refer to these documents: