Episode 54: April Anderson-Zorn: ISU Women in History Pt. 2
Speaker 1 0:00
Music. Welcome to Redbird Buzz. I'm Rachel Kobus from alumni engagement, and today we are happy to have with us again, Illinois State's own university archivist, April Anderson-Zorn. April has been the keeper of knowledge and the protector of history when it comes to Illinois State University, for over 14 years. She earned her master's in library and information science from Florida State and a master's in history from Central Florida. One of her biggest goals is to create greater awareness of the archives and provide comprehensive online access. And today, she's here to share her knowledge and create awareness for several empowering women that made an impact on the history of Illinois State University and on World War One. So let's say hello again to our university archivist, April Anderson-Zorn.
Rachel Kobus 0:59
so April, you're back, what's the word, Redbird. Can you tell us a little bit about, obviously, yourself, but what you're here to share with us today?
April Anderson-Zorn 1:09
Sure. So I think you hit the highlights. Been here about 14 years. Now. I'm the university archivist. My ultimate goals, obviously, are archival education and archival advocacy through the use of the Redbird archives, so getting the Redbird story out there and collecting Redbird stories to make them available to researchers, to educators, to students, to alumni, all and any story we try to collect here at University Archives. And we also do education programs here as well, whether we go in the classroom to teach about archival advocacy and archival education, or we have lots of interns. So we have interns working on our collections, right? Yeah, we take them all. We love to train them, and we're one of the few places in the region that offers hands on training, so we love to have our interns here. So what have I been up to? [Haven't seen April for a while, been on sabbatical doing amazing things, and that's kind of another reason we're here, too. Yeah, found amazing things] I did so, so I was on sabbatical in fall of 2025 Oh God no, fall of 24 See, I'm already, like, ready for the next, jumping ahead, ready for next. So I researched one of our heavily used collections. Here, it's the records of our world war one service members that were connected to ISNU,, Illinois State Normal University at the time--those records is around 600 ish files in this collection. The collection originally created by first university librarian Angeline Vernon Milner. So this collection, she identified individuals who were students, who are faculties in some way affiliated to ISNU at the time of the outbreak of World War One. This was part of her role as a member of the war services committee that had been formed for the University at the time. Her role was to not only collect this information, but to also get information out to folks who were serving both in camps and bases here in the United States, you know, for various training purposes, but also in France, in France and just overseas. So sending copies of the Vidette, for example, to students who are fighting, so they might be on the front lines, and they get that package of mail, and the Vidette is there, right? So, yeah, it connects them back to the university. She even sent copies of the index the yearbook at the time, just to connect them back to home. So yeah, she was very dedicated to her students, and they would write to her. So this collection comprises not only these profiles, these these sort of file well, they're like a form that she sent out, and there's various iterations in the couple of years that we were involved, but these forms essentially collect data from these students, asking their full name when they were at ISNU. What did they do while they were here? Who's their next of kin? Because, God forbid, something happens. Where are they from? And then she was asking very specific information about their service while they were overseas. Did they experience mustard gas poisoning? Did they get the flu? Because, of course, the flu pandemic was breaking out at that time, and was just as deadly as, say, cannon fire, you know, and gunfire. So she's collecting this information and this collection, and I don't think I'm overstating it when I say this, having now done this research that I did, and I'll talk about in a minute, this information that we have is you can't find it anywhere else. These records are the only ones that exist, of these individuals that talk about their service and really dive down into what did they do and what did they experience during World War One. Now, having said that 34 of those records, roughly, are women,
Rachel Kobus 4:36
yes women for World War One, and trying to find Yeah, because obviously men got drafted. What did women do?
April Anderson-Zorn 4:43
In fact, yes, well, let me tell you. So. So the sabbatical was really around. My question ultimately was, what happened to these women when they got back? Okay, so roughly half of them, when I say 34 women that we were able to identify in those records, roughly half of them served in some sort of medical capacity, whether they were doing it with the Army Nurse Corps, which was the majority of them, the Navy Reserves, and maybe they were doing some sort of paperwork at a hospital, but they had some sort of medical affiliation. The other half were working with the YMCA, which were providing relief services toward the back of the front lines, you know, toward the back when these guys were coming off the front lines and needed that break, they were there to give them the coffee, the letter home, to help, and in many cases, they were also the mental health, untrained mental health experts, because these guys had seen some pretty horrific things, and [they're not where we are today with no understanding, right?] And so they're here. They are giving them a cup of coffee and watching these men just break down. So here we have these YMCA workers. A lot of our former students are them as well. And we have also war reconstruction workers who they're the the idea being that, as we were ending the war, what's going to happen to these folks as they were coming back and they were working with reconstruction efforts. So the sabbatical was, I have the files about what they did while they were there. For the most part, there's certainly and we'll talk about that in a minute. Some of these files where we have very little, but my question was, what happened to them when they got back? In my early research, before sabbatical, I realized that a lot of these women were coming back highly skilled, combat trained, but they couldn't find work when they got back, there was no work to be had. One of our women, in fact, had was working just as a nurse in a home to take care of children when she had been on the front lines and had been under fire. If you haven't read the book by oh my gosh, her name is totally escaping me at the moment, The Women, which recently came out, it's, it's the the idea of the research is very and I didn't read this book until recently. I'd already done the research, and I went this right here. This is what we should be doing. Because she's, she's talking in her book about the women experiencing from their firsthand accounts during Vietnam. And I kept thinking, this is similar. This is so similar to what I'm reading and researching on these women, so they're coming back and having a hard time acclimating so what happened to them? And I wanted to know what happened to them. And the sabbatical was me going through every single one of their files, finding them online. A lot of that through the National Archives and Records Administration, the military records that may or may not have, and again, we'll talk about that. But also through ancestry.com because there's just, there's several generations removed now that it's easier to find, I was able to get social security numbers, for example, to then go and request those records from NARA and learn, hopefully, learn their history, yeah, yeah. Very cool, yeah. What a great sabbatical it was.
Rachel Kobus 7:41
Yeah, you've picked a few women then to share with us you felt like had a large impact, and also just had a very interesting story, and some just left a good footprint on Illinois State, Normal University.
April Anderson-Zorn 7:55
Yeah. So let me pull up my notes for you now, before I really kind of hop into this, I gotta say, I want to give a shout out, because I couldn't do this work without folks from tech services in Milner library. So the metadata team, Angela Yon, Maddi Loiselle and Emily Baldoni, did so much of the heavy lifting when you look at this collection online, which, by the way, all of those 600 plus records are available online and keyword searchable. You can go through each individual record and see them. You don't have to come to us now, because this is such a valuable collection, because that's how I learned about that those three, Angela Maddi and Emily, did such amazing work to put that back end metadata on on those records for you to be able to go and research it and find it. I couldn't have done it. And then, of course, Carmine Beecroft and Ellie Harman did amazing work in the digitization center to scan that material to then have tech services so I could sit at home in my PJs, you know, eating a cheeseburger, doing we work, doing work. Yes, exactly, but, but using those records and and being able to do the sabbatical research, I could not have done it without their efforts. So that being said, like I said, I wanted to answer these questions. So let me pull up, whose file do I have with me? First, I'm showing you the physical stuff. Again, all of this is online.
April is leading this podcast today. I'm here literally to learn. I'm learning about all these women. Well, what's happening? Letme lead you on this fantastic journey. So let's talk about Ellen Babbitt. Ellen Babbitt I had known about, and actually, Ellen Babbitt was the one that kind of kick started this whole thing, because her file is so fascinating to me, and what she writes about in her experiences toward the very end of the war, and when I researched her a few years ago for a separate project. I thought, Oh, my God, this poor woman. This is what, this is what she did during the war, this amazing work, and this is what her life ended at. And I still think her story should be highlighted. Yes. So Ellen Babbitt worked for the Red Cross. Her initial time at ISNU was kind of scattered. It was in the. Late 1800s she was a student here, like most students, she just couldn't afford to be here for the whole time. She was coming in and taking classes bit by bit, she ended up not graduating, and she ended up going to teach at Chicago. She could still teach at the time. They weren't necessarily earning a diploma. You were earning a certificate, [that makes sense] So she very likely got her teaching certificate through the state of Illinois, maybe not through Illinois State, but she was not in a fair not an official graduate of Illinois State, just a student. So she goes off, and during this time, she's also starting to author books. So she's authoring some children's books that I did not know about. I had known about the file and what she did during the war, but she had also during her time as an educator, was writing these children's books based on Indian proverbs. So she wrote a few books. She is an authored she's an author. So then she gets the call from the American Red Cross. It was the leader of really sort of hygiene and Child Services, if you will. And he says, Can you please with your educational background, and they knew similar people. Could you please come overseas and run these conferences, these, I don't want to say camp necessarily, but that's kind of what they were. People would come in because there wasn't anything left during the war. [Got it.] Could you come into these war torn areas and teach mothers how to care for their children in a war torn area? How do you obtain clean water. How do you take a bath? What's the sanitary because they were just in such dire conditions, you wouldn't think about,
Rachel Kobus 11:28
we don't see that kind of stuff, I think when it comes to any of like the history and the war, of war and whatnot, too. So to have that kind of impact is just amazing. It's amazing, yeah.
April Anderson-Zorn 11:37
And so she does, and she goes over, and by her own estimate, she goes over the very first convention that she holds, the very first class, if you will. By her estimates, had over 170,000 people, my gosh, 170,000 people that came and learned from her and her colleagues. Colleagues, yes, that's a word her colleagues to how do you clean yourself? How do you eat? How do you cook in this environment? How do you live in this war torn world? And she did this several times. And so through this experience, toward the end of the war, which I'll show you a letter here in a minute, toward the end of the war, she started to gather information that eventually would be what she took back to the States. How do we do this in other areas? How do we and so she wrote lots of papers on, how do we care for other impoverished and war torn areas, for people to get the health care and the in the food and the sanitary needs that they that they require? So she wrote a letter, and I'll let you hold this. This is a letter that she wrote to Ange Milner. So this isn't that great, so this isn't it. So what what you're holding? So I can describe your podcast listeners, and hey, there's a video. So go find the video. So you are holding Ellen Babbitt's photo, part of what Ange Milner asked of her, of her students, of folks who were sending things to her. She wanted photos. So this collection also includes a number of photos from folks that she was in contact with, of them in their uniform, which, again, we really don't ever see that unless it's a family collection coming back to an archive repository, an archival repository, so we see her in her American Red Cross outfit in that photo? Yeah, well, so she comes back to the States, and again, she's working in DC and living with her sister, the librarian, which, you know, love in my heart for librarians. So she's living with her sister, and she's doing the work with the American Red Cross, continuing that work with what's called the Children's Bureau. So it's this idea of we need to write reports to educate people on how to train individuals living in these impoverished and war torn areas, of how to be sanitary, how to how to cook a proper meal, how to take a bath when there's no clean water, etc, etc. So she does this for a little while, and then it gets a bit sketchy. Was able to track her going overseas around the 1930s so she does travel back, and I think that she does some work again overseas. She returns to New York City, and she returns to do some social work. So she's working in tenement houses. She's working with again, she's just really trying to help people who need that help. She's absolutely, you know, look for helper, or she's the helper that people were looking for. So she continues that work in New York, but then she just disappears off the map. The last time I find her, she is in Philadelphia. She passed away at the she died on February 23 let me see I have my notes. She died in her 50s, I believe. And she died, essentially in what was then called an invalid home. So she was by herself. Her sister had already passed away. None of her family was left, and she had really worked her whole life to help other people, to the point that when she died, she was completely alone and had nothing to her name, right? I know heartbreaking that'll. Heartbreaking. I know I don't want to break your heart so,
Rachel Kobus 12:20
but at the same time, did gave herself, literally all herself, gave herself.
April Anderson-Zorn 15:06
And so I feel strongly, feel that it's important to take this story and tell her story, because she literally gave her whole life to helping other people. So I think the best, the best we can do, and the most we can do is to continue to tell her story and say, Look at what she got to do during the war, and saved so many people, yes, overseas during her time,
Rachel Kobus 15:25
and that ISNU and Milner got to talk to her and be a part of this and bring it back to ISU, right? We can have this history.
April Anderson-Zorn 15:32
So here's the ISNU connection. She was an educator. Even though she was doing this during the war, she relied on the education skills she learned from her pedagogy teachers, from her all of her teachers here on campus. She used those educational skills she learned to go teach folks in a different language overseas in these war torn areas, how to better care for themselves in these circumstances. Yeah, so it's I absolutely she's definitely a story I always try to tell.
Rachel Kobus 16:02
Yeah, well, thank you for sharing her story. I love it. It was a good kickoff, man, even though, like you said, heartfelt at the end. But yeah, what?
April Anderson-Zorn 16:08
Yes, I always wondered what happened to her. But the sabbatical gave me the opportunity to learn her story a little more and go, Oh no, but oh so much. Yeah, a life well lived, yes, a life, well lived, although alone at the end of life, well lived, yes. So I also have the file of Alice Smith. No, all right, so let me give you. Where is she at? Here she is. So I'm again, I'm you podcast listeners, go find the video. So I have files for Alice Smith. Now, Rachel, you're gonna see in here, there are some original material. And there's also some print material my predecessor, Jo Rayfield, which is also, Oh yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and touch it. Who my predecessor, or what the archives is named for. Joanne Rayfield, she did some research on some of these women when she was here in the 90s and early 2000s and so some of this is a little bit of her research into Alice. So in brief, Alice is the daughter of Colonel DC Smith. Colonel DC Smith was a local war hero. Him and his father, Colonel Smith and his father fought in the Civil War. They had several children, a few of them girls, few of them women. Alice being one of them, Alice and her sister, when World War One broke out, joined to--joined the Army Nurse Corps, okay, which is significant for Alice in particular, because Alice was on the front lines. And so I learned a lot about the placement of evacuation and mobile and base hospitals during World War One, and where you place them on a battlefield. So where Alice was placed, you have your trenches. So think of your your favorite World War One movie, and you see the trench. And so then behind the trench, you're gonna have basically a band aid station. So you know, you get shot in the shoulder, someone's gonna go and slap a band aid on and put you on a stretcher and run you out of there. And then you're gonna go to a mobile hospital, so like a forward basing hospital, that is where Alice was serving. All right, Alice served in several of those and kind of moved around in her time in those base hospitals. So she absolutely within this file, there's news clippings that Ang would clip out, go for it, yes, and would clip these news clippings that where Alice, in this particular one, is describing her time, and one of those many inspect under a shell fire, she is literally addressing wounds and preparing that soldier to go on to the base hospital. Because they're not going to do major surgery there. They're just going to kind of tie the wound and get them going, and then they're going to ship them off to the base hospital. So Alice is serving at a forward facing mobile hospital, and they would dress the wounds, and they would send those soldiers back to the base hospital, where they would then be assessed. Could they just get patched up at the base hospital, or do they get sent further back and maybe to rehabilitation and sent home, depending on the severity of the injury. So, but she is at the very front line. And she is, I mean, literally, mortar shells are firing over her head while she's dressing these wounds well. So she experienced this a few times. There was definitely downtime. She thought when she went to the Samall (Mont-Saint-Michel)--I can't ever pronounce French is not my language, but she goes to, you know, the town in the middle of the lake that you can't get to certain times of the water comes up that place. So they, they go there during one of the the major offensives during the war. And she thought, Oh, this is just going to be, this is supposed to be major offensive. We're going to get lots and lots of wounded coming through. Nope. She hardly saw anybody at her placement. Okay, however, the more mundane of the battles while she was there ended up being the most Yeah, that she had to work the hardest at exactly she her unit earned a commendation from General Pershing. At the end, she's one of only a few women who earned a commendation from General Pershing. Because of that service that she did. So she earned commendations. But again, what happened to her after she got back? Well, I did know that she became, wait for it, a landscape architect, [really?], some faces everybody. She became a landscape architect. She even worked, she even worked. And so this was something that I learned through the research. She became a very famous landscape architect. She did adopt, so not officially, but she did adopt a son while she was alive. The son ended up marrying, I believe it was Robert Frost's daughter. So she had a lot of connections, right? She was doing landscape architecture for Senators, for actors, for authors. So she and in Connecticut, turns out she lived not far from where my husband's great grandparents lived. So there was a really, really small world. So very small world. I went, Oh, I know this place. So she was close to them. But she became this very well known and respected, won awards. She even worked on some of the landscape architecture for the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Who knew? Yeah. So she was very well respected, and she is buried back here in Evergreen Cemetery with the rest of her family. She never married, but she did have a unofficial, official, unofficial adopted son, if you will, who she adopted, and he had a brother, but the brother died during World War Two, wow, yeah, so the brother, so She adopts this brother, and he ends up marrying someone of prominence, yeah, until her death, okay, yeah, yeah.
Rachel Kobus 16:23
So was she when did she start? She's a student at ISNU, correct?
April Anderson-Zorn 20:25
Well, not at isnu Actually, whoops, not at ISNU she was at U high. Oh, okay, yeah, didn't know the connection. Okay, so all of these folks there are there going to be students at ISNU. So now remember, too, this is a time when ISNU is still all on campus, and when I say all, all of the lab schools are still on campus, U high is in, what we know is Moulton Hall now, or Metcalf is there too. So all of our lab schools are in that building. She is going into our Moulton, okay, and taking classes there during U high right? So we still count them.
Rachel Kobus 22:09
Yeah, oh, yes, absolutely. So yeah, I just didn't realize, okay, so she started there, and then her family, too had that prominence. Like, if you've heard of Smith Hall that is at Yes, she's part of the family that Smith Hall is named after, which, again, residence hall that is no longer here--more history that you can look up in the archives too. Love residence hall history. So very cool. Thanks for sharing her story. And again, what a like to be go. It's just crazy to go from the trenches to the garden trench.
April Anderson-Zorn 22:35
I know, I know, I kind of, I as I'm researching it again in my PJs and eating bonbons. I'm just sort of the, believe me, the connection was still very apparent to me too. Here is someone, she goes and gets a couple of very highly regarded degrees in landscape architecture, and yet she's digging a trench. Yeah, you know, she's designing and she's building and she's, you know, but making art out of it at the end, women,
Rachel Kobus 23:03
women like her, have to go through in the trenches and then coming back like maybe that's something I don't want to do anymore, and I need art and clarity,
April Anderson-Zorn 23:09
Oh, absolutely, and clarity and different perspective of my life than because of what I had to go through well. And it's funny, you mentioned that, so then my other questions were, of these women, how many got married when they because they could not be married if you joined, at least for the Army Nurse Corps, and they also discouraged it for the YMCA. But you still had a few like you had Julia Vrooman, who, of course, went over and served with the YMCA for the most part. If you were an Army Nurse Corps member, you had to be unmarried 25 to 35 years old. You had to pass a physical, you had to be Caucasian, and you also had to get a degree from a certified nursing school. So, and we actually had a few around the area. We had them in Chicago, we had them in Peoria, so they were training them as well and sending them to war once the call came. So these women, I thought, well, they're going in the prime of their lives when you normally, socially speaking, they would be getting married, but instead, they're going to World War One. So the average age for them, if they married, when they came back, only around half of them got married, okay, yeah, just over half of them. And then when they came back, the average age was around 36 years old. I had I had one as old as late 50s. Wow. That also married someone. He was widowed, and she'd never married. So they got married. I had one woman who I'll have to go find her name. She married four different times. Wow. No, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, she married five different times to four different men. Okay, right? She tried, you know, she gave a good effort. Good, good for her get into the world and she her niece was the first wife of Charlie Chaplin. I know [wow], I know. So there's all these really crazy connections, just
Rachel Kobus 24:54
the history you get to go through. I'm very envious of too, because all the connections you make, again, from Illinois State University, You're doing this on behalf of university archives, and then seeing all these amazing connections, and I obviously love especially through the women of Illinois State Normal University and ISU. So this is just amazing.
April Anderson-Zorn 25:11
Yeah, well, here I got a couple more statistics, and I'll jump into a few more. So check this out. I also discovered so 10% so of the women that I researched around 10% on census records, once they returned, reported being a housewife. Only 10% 50 of them, 50% of them, I should say, reported having some sort of occupation, and that occupation was either/or they could be largely in nursing, which many of them largely stayed within nursing, but those nursing roles were usually some sort of educational nursing role. So we come back at ISNU, right? So they were Supervisor of nurses, or they were working night shift and right. So a lot of them were still sticking with nursing and teaching within their nursing. But 40% and this is what was crazy to me, 40% of them reported being both a homemaker and having an occupation. Oh, right. Oh, again, that's not something that you typically see. They came back, and they still retained their sense of self, and they said, that's fine. I'm gonna, I'm gonna completely subvert society's opinion, and I'm gonna continue working. And they did, yeah, and they largely stayed within those roles, yeah? Which amazing, absolutely fascinating. Yes, I love it, so let me give you, okay, yes, it's like a little Christmas. So this one's gonna be a little bit of a bummer, because I'm gonna show you this and you're gonna go but April, where is she at? Yeah, all right, wait for it.
Rachel Kobus 26:40
Okay, you're giving me an empty folder. I'm giving you, oh my gosh, you're giving me an empty I'm giving you an empty folder. So thank you. This is gonna be interesting.
April Anderson-Zorn 26:50
Well, there you go. Show everybody. Okay again. Go find the video, folks. So the empty folder represents that we know that she was there who say a name, Olive N Barton. And I'm gonna clarify. Some people are gonna go Olive Barton. This was the Dean of Women. It was not the Dean of Women, okay, so our Dean of Women was Olive Lillian Barton. This was olive n, as in, Nellie Barton, okay, all right, so we had two Olive Bartons. This Olive Barton was a faculty member. Okay, she did teach for a little while. While she was here, I think she did critics teaching, and then she came back and did English, I believe English and languages, but she so she was faculty member here. She goes off to the war Olive Barton. We don't have a record for her. We just know that she exists, mostly because the collection, when we first got our hands on this collection, the files, the folders that these were in, we had folders on some individuals, but there was nothing in it. Okay? So we knew that Ang knew or who, and later, she had students helping her collect this data, that they were in the war, but they just never successfully were able to get any forms back, any sort of correspondence, any little clippings? So we know that she served. So oh my gosh, April, did you go find anything on her? Well, yes, I did, Rachel, because [interview for me.]So
I'm a very persistent person. So let me go through my notes. She left to go serve in the YMCA in France. We know that she returned for a very short time, only to leave in 1919 and you're gonna love what you hear about her. She left in 1919 from Normal to study law at the University of Michigan. In 1922 she earned her law degree, and, for you know, giggles, added an honorary degree, and also passed the Illinois bar. That's fine in 19 in 1922 but by 1925 she is a practicing attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She comes back to Chicago in 1930 again, still practicing law. So she's been practicing law this whole time, [crushing it.] She absolutely is. And then I lost track of her until she is 56 year old. 56 years old, and she died in 1946 she had returned to Michigan, her home state of Michigan, she never again. She never married, she never had children. She returned to Michigan. And the last that I found her, she was working as a librarian and a teacher. So she'd given up law, my suspicion is, from what I was reading, she was not well, so I think she gave up her law practice to go home near family, and probably died due to some circumstance, but she is buried back in her hometown or near her hometown. But we don't have anything on her, but by the power of being able to use our archival materials and then go into our various online resources, I was still able to track her down, and I can still tell you this, this woman's story of how she became a lawyer, practicing lawyer in the 20s and 30s
Rachel Kobus 29:47
and again, crushed it. You're gonna assume she's, oh, absolutely crushed it. So, April, why did you choose these women as something to talk about? And you know, obviously they came to your mind when we asked you to come do this podcast for us. So why?
April Anderson-Zorn 29:58
I mean, there are. All very interesting, aren't they? And I can't tell you. I mean, if we had a few hours, I would go through lots of women for you, [the digital collection and everything else people could go through and learn too.] Anyway, you're hitting the high note. For me, that's exactly right. So the idea is, again, I want to tell their stories. I don't know in what way I'm going to disseminate this information. For a while, I was thinking, I'll just make a website and I'll put the information up, but I think it's beyond a website. I do think it's book material. So writing small biographies and maybe grouping them by YMCA and American--Army Nurse Corps, grouping them together, I don't know what that is yet, but I think it's warranted, because all of their stories are just so heroic and important and encouraging and just lots of really positive adjectives. So I could sit here for hours and just tell you all about every single one of these women and what they were able to accomplish, also too, you know, I wish I could know some of their later generations, these these current generations, from these women, those that have you know, latter generations, daughters, granddaughters, sons, grandsons, nieces, nephews, the Grands, the great grands. Like to say, Isn't this amazing what your relative did? Isn't this fascinating? Because, you know, they don't know. They don't know. And I think they would be really excited to know that they had an Olive Barton, yeah, and Alice Smith, they had, yes, yeah.
Rachel Kobus 31:26
I love it all. So in April, I just again, I appreciate everything you do and and you know, the women's history, I think, for ISU and isn new, is just, I love history, but near and dear to my heart, just giving women empowerment, yeah, especially during wars where men were the ones that went off and fought and, I mean, did amazing things, but to give women that light too, and that they had to support and be the operations and stick up for the home front, basically, too, and also go overseas at the same time and spread themselves thin. So to give them that voice, I think it's truly amazing that very much
April Anderson-Zorn 32:01
Let's amplify those voices.
Rachel Kobus 32:03
I love it. So anything else you'd like to share before we say goodbye to you again?
April Anderson-Zorn 32:08
Library, dot, Illinois state.edu, that's where you can go. Go to collections, and you're going to find not just us, but ISU RED. We put all we finally put the yearbooks in there. Yes. Keyword search again. Thanks, folks. And I know it's so fun to do too, like it really is. It's so helpful. Yeah, so that is, that is the one stop shop. And then, of course, please, we're always happy to answer questions on ISU history. Great.
Rachel Kobus 32:32
Well, thanks April for being with us today.
And that was April Anderson-Zorn, our university archivist, thanks for listening to Redbird buzz and tune in next time for more stories from beyond the quad.
Unknown Speaker 32:47
You
Transcribed by https://otter.ai