Tag Archives: historical documents

Discovering State Docs: Explore “The Antidote” through Nebraska Public Documents

Posted on February 11, 2026 by Aimee Owen

The Antidote by Karen Russell is the 2026 selection for One Book One Nebraska, the annual statewide reading program coordinated by the Nebraska Center for the Book. Although set in a fictional Nebraska town, Russell bases much of her story on real events, places, and people in Nebraska during the first few decades of the 20th century. Russell includes a list of resources on her website, but I thought I would see what I could find in our Nebraska Public Documents collection:

The Prairie Witch/Antonia was confined to the Milford Industrial Home around 1907-1908. The biennial report for that time period lists details such as the daily schedule, farm and kitchen labor outputs, and infant mortality rates. It also mentions that 3 children were transferred to the Nebraska Home for the Friendless in Lincoln. The 1907-08 biennial report for that institution laments that its name is misleading; in 1909 it was changed to the State Public School, and again changed in 1911 to the Home for Dependent Children.

p. 409 of the 10th Biennial Report of the Nebraska Industrial Home, Milford, NE

The 1935-36 Annual Report for the State Board of Agriculture mentions drought, dust storms, the Republican River flood, and the effects this severe weather had on Nebraska’s farms, as well as a plea for renewed use of cover crops and soil conservation practices.

p. 16 of the 1936 Annual Report of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture

The 1935-36 Biennial Report for the Department of Roads and Irrigation describes the damage to roads and bridges from the Republican River flood in spring 1935, as well as mentioning the loss of live from the flood and tornado.

p. 15 of the 21st Biennial Report of the Department of Roads and Irrigation

These documents are just a few of the thousands of historical annual reports (1870s through 1956) from Nebraska state government agencies that are available in the Nebraska Public Documents database. This free and publicly-accessible collection is result of a collaborative digitization effort between the Nebraska Library Commission, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and the Nebraska State Historical Society. (Read more about the project here!)

Historical government documents provide a glimpse into how our Nebraska forebears lived, worked, and governed. Primary sources such as the ones found in the Nebraska Public Documents database help researchers, students, and the general public understand the important issues and events of the day, and what motivated our elected officials to make decisions and the impacts those choices made. Take a look – what will you discover?

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Discovering State Docs: “Tilden’s Own Betsy Ross”

Posted on December 1, 2025 by Aimee Owen

With the America 250 festivities being planned for 2026, let’s look back at what Nebraskans did to celebrate the American Revolution Bicentennial in 1976.

A “birthday party” several years in the planning, folks from all over the state participated in parades and picnics, contests and concerts, fashion shows and festivals, symposiums and street dances. You can flip through the Nebraska Bicentennial calendar of events or an issue of the Nebraska Bicentennial Broadside newsletter to see where and when events took place in the Summer of ’76. The photos in this post can be found in the Nebraska Bicentennial Album.

“Tilden’s own Betsy Ross (real name) with flag she sewed.”
“Tire cover on a van helps publicize the state bicentennial.”
“Children in Papillion played a major role in their bicentennial.”

These are just a few examples of documents housed in the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse as part of our state documents collection. In an ongoing effort to make this collection as widely accessible as possible, we are retroactively scanning older documents such as these, and adding them to our online catalog.

Our Government Service Administrative Technician, Laura Mooney, found several more bicentennial gems worth highlighting, including:

“The play ‘1776’ was performed at Hemingford.”

The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in 1972 as a service of the Nebraska Library Commission. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, and provide access to all public information published by Nebraska state agencies.  By law (State Statutes 51-411 to 51-413) all Nebraska state agencies are required to submit their published documents to the Clearinghouse.  For more information, visit the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse page, contact Aimee Owen, Government Information Services Librarian; or contact Bonnie Henzel, State Documents Staff Assistant.

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Discovering State Docs: “Take Up the Apple”

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Aimee Owen

Title page of the 1894 Annual Report of the Nebraska State Horticultural Society

“At the annual meeting of the Society, held in January, 1893, the Secretary recommended that the plan of issuing the reports of the Society as monographs be adopted. This contemplated issuing a series of four or five volumes, each of which should be devoted, largely, to one topic. The Society accepted the suggestion, and instructed the officers to prepare a program for the next annual meeting which should take up the apple and treat it as fully as available material would allow. This volume is the result.
At the meeting of which this is a record a resolution was adopted taking the grape, and such other of the small fruits as can be treated
in the same volume, as the topic for the next winter’s meeting.
With no precedent for guidance it was no easy matter to get together just what would make the best sort of a report on a single fruit, and the result is by no means perfect. No one realizes this more than those who have had the work in hand.” (Excerpt from the preface of the Annual Report of the Nebraska State Horticultural Society for the year 1894.)

This document is just one of the thousands of historical annual reports (1870s through 1956) from Nebraska state government agencies that are available in the Nebraska Public Documents database. This free and publicly-accessible collection is result of a collaborative digitization effort between the Nebraska Library Commission, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and the Nebraska State Historical Society. (Read more about the project here!)

Historical government documents provide a glimpse into how our Nebraska forebears lived, worked, and governed. Primary sources such as the ones found in the Nebraska Public Documents database help researchers, students, and the general public understand the important issues and events of the day, and what motivated our elected officials to make decisions and the impacts those choices made. Take a look – what will you discover?

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