Manuscripts and Archives holds both published sources and manuscript and archival material specifically relating to Yale history. The Yale Publications Collection will be an obvious starting point for any topic relating to an event at Yale.

a. What were the Bread and Butter Rebellions and when did they occur?

Bread and Butter Rebellions were student protests about the quality of food served in the commons in the early 19th century. There were no student or administrative publications then that would be relevant to this topic, but published histories of Yale will contain information. Footnotes and bibliographies in these works can be helpful in terms of identifying possible sources. Manuscripts and Archives also holds papers done by students on topics in Yale history. These can also be productive reading.

To identify manuscript and archival resources you can search keywords in the bibliographic databases. You may have to try several terms before you find one that produces relevant collections. Try searching for the following terms and see if you can determine why some work and others do not.

Bread and Butter, rebellion, student protest, student movements, riots, food fights, or terms of your own choosing

Once you have identified a potentially useful collection you should check the finding aid for it. You may have to look within the actual records to determine the personal names of students who signed protest petitions. You could check their names in Orbis or the departmental catalog to see if the department holds papers by them.

You would also want to check the records of the Yale president and secretary (or other administrator's records, office records, or personal papers of faculty or alumni). Since record units can cover long periods of time, it is difficult to describe all the possible subjects for which the records may be relevant. For instance, the Yale College faculty records, YRG 9-I, RU 541, include several volumes of minutes recording faculty disciplinary actions, but there are no references to the Bread and Butter Rebellions in the brief summary of these records in the database. It is always wise to check further with the reference archivist for help in locating relevant sources.

b. What was the reaction to the Martin Luther King assassination on the Yale campus?

We assume you have enough background information about the King assassination to know that it took place on April 4, 1968. You could look at the Yale Daily News following this date. You might also check the Yale Alumni Magazine, class histories, and the Yale Banner. There might be information in the records of the Yale president and secretary (or other administrator's records, office records, or personal papers of faculty or alumni) though you would not necessarily find a catalog entry for this subject in Orbis, unless it was a predominant theme in the record group or papers. You would need to use some intuition about who might have been involved in campus reactions. The local paper may also have had commentary on how Yale responded. These are available in the Microform Reading Room in Sterling Memorial Library.