May 4 Collection

NATIONAL HISTORY DAY INFORMATION

This web page has been created to help students preparing National History Day presentations related to the events at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.

Information Packet

We have created an information packet for students interested in May 4. Included in this packet are newspaper articles, photographs and letters written after the shootings as well as the items listed below. There is also an Frequently Asked Questions page for May 4, 1970 and a subject index to the May 4 collection.

• A chronology from Kent Magazine covering April 30-June 22, 1970. A chronology of events from May 1-May 4, 1970 is also available through our online exhibition.
• Governor Rhodes' speech on May 3, 1970 about campus disorder
• Two aerial photos of the site of the shootings and two photos from our News Service collection, one of students and one of guardsmen
• Map with the locations of the National Guard, wounded and slain students
• A guide that explains how to interpret inventories for the contents of the May 4 Collection
• Flowers and Bullets poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko from our poetry collection, Box 83

Click here to request an information packet to be sent to you through regular mail.

**Please note: This packet is primarily intended for individual off-campus researchers who cannot easily use the May 4 Collection in person. Faculty members are urged to contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives if they would like to request packets for students in their courses.**

Sources Available

Primary sources

• Items (letters, recordings, photographs, etc.) created during the time the event took place. Some examples in our May 4 Collection are: Oral History Project, videotapes, photographs (see Boxes 28 and 73 for examples of digitized photos), and legal proceedings.
  
• Please note there were many court cases related to the shootings. An overview is included in the information packet. There is also a legal chronology on our website.

Secondary Sources

• Items created after the events occured by persons who were not actual witnesses to the event (books, papers, theses, etc.). A selected annotated bibliography is available. A annotated digital bibliography listing is available for those who cannot visit the archives for research. It contains links to digitized articles, related websites and digitized items available in our collection.