Middle Eastern Studies: AHC Resources

Beet vendor in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1960. Lee J and Patsy L Fabricius Papers, Collection 400089, ahcdm_400089_001.

F Paul Baxter Papers, Collection 400080
F. Paul Baxter was a professor of soil sciences and geology who served on the University of Wyoming team at Kabul University, Afghanistan. Collection contains photographic slides and digital copies, correspondence, an autobiographical sketch, newspaper clippings, and publications regarding his travels and experiences in Afghanistan.

Robert D Burman Papers, Collection 400072
Robert D. Burman was a faculty member at the University of Wyoming in the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering. Collection contains slides, motion picture film, correspondence, photographs, postcards, clippings, and a scrapbook regarding Burman's travels and agricultural engineering work at Kabul University in Afghanistan.

Maynard Eyestone Papers, Collection 300057
Maynard Eyestone was a teacher of English as a second language in Afghanistan. Collection contains biographical information and an oral history with transcripts regarding Eyestone’s experience in Afghanistan during the 1950s.

Lee J Fabricius and Patsy L Fabricius Papers, Collection 400089
Jim Fabricius was an agronomist on the University of Wyoming’s Afghanistan USAID team and Patsy Fabricius was the secretary at the team office. Collection contains slides of Afghanistan regarding the Fabricius’ experiences on the University of Wyoming USAID contract team from 1959-1963 and digital copies of the slides.

Reed W Fautin Papers, Collection 400068
Reed W. Fautin was a professor of zoology at the University of Wyoming from 1946-1973. Collection contains research files, correspondence, and photographs regarding his work as a zoologist and University of Wyoming professor, including photographs, slides (and digital copies), reports, correspondence, and home movies from his time in Kabul, Afghanistan as part of the Wyoming Team.

Dale B and Muriel Fritz Papers, Collection 400087
Dale B. Fritz was the Irrigation Specialist for the University of Wyoming ICA contract team in Kabul, Afghanistan from 1953-1964. Collection contains digital copies of two films documenting Fritz’s experiences in Afghanistan, biographical information, and oral histories with transcripts of Muriel Fritz.

Karen Fritz Papers, Collection 12743
Karen Fritz was a nurse with an international non-profit medical team that worked in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s. Collection contains slides, a biographical sketch, and an oral history transcript regarding Karen Fritz's experiences as a nurse in Afghanistan.

Gerald A Nielsen Papers, Collection 400088
Gerald (Jerry) Nielsen was a soil scientist on the University of Wyoming’s Afghanistan Team from 1963-1966. Collection contains slides regarding Nielson’s experiences on the team and in Afghanistan, digital scans of the slides, and oral histories with Gerald and LaVonne Nielsen.

Grace Willard Papers, Collection 11742
Grace (nee Madden) Willard was married to Harold Willard, a University of Wyoming faculty member in Animal Husbandry. The Willards lived in Jordan and Afghanistan in the 1950s-1960s, where Grace taught math in the high school organized for American and other foreign students, as well English as a second language to Afghanis. This collection contains correspondence from Grace Willard relating to life in Jordan and Afghanistan.

Colket Family Papers, Collection 1090
Charles Howard Colket (1859 – 1924) embarked on many trips around the world, including on several to the Middle East. Beginning in Beirut in 1879, Colket traveled to Baghdad and back, passing the ancient cities of Telloh, Corinth, Nineveh, Baalbeck, Tell Billa, and Rayy. He also traveled to Damascus and Palmyra. The collection includes a small amount of correspondence, newspaper clippings regarding the collection, and many artifacts.

F Julius Fohs Papers, Collection 1706
Ferdinand Julius Fohs (1884-1965) was a geologist who conducted oil and mineral resources exploration and development in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East. The collection contains correspondence, subject files, logs, reports, maps, and photographs all related to Fohs's work. There are reports, maps, and well logs on oil and water resources in Palestine and Israel. There are also reports concerning resettlement possibilities in that area.

Parker T Hart Papers, Collection 9026
A Foreign Service officer for 31 years, U.S. Ambassador Parker Thompson Hart was an expert on foreign policy in the Middle East. The collection contains correspondence, reports, speeches, copies of papers presented, and subject files about development of business possibilities in, and the political climate of, the Middle East for his consulting work with the Bechtel Corporation, as well as RCA, U.S. Steel, and IBM. There is a small amount of correspondence related to the Arab boycott of Egypt.

Myles A Walsh Papers, Collection 8258
Myles Alexander Walsh (1912-1984), a mining engineer, spent the bulk of his career in foreign mining operations. The collection contains reports, maps, charts, notes, subject files, and other documents during his work in Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey.

Walter J Levy Papers, Collection 8428
Collection contains materials dealing with Levy's work in the petroleum industry and trade, international finance, economics, world politics, and foreign relations between the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries and in Asia, particularly Iran and Indonesia from 1911-1988.

LF Ivanhoe Papers, Collection 11414
L.F. Ivanhoe was a geophysicist and a petroleum engineer. The papers contain working files (1953-2003), correspondence (1953-1977), photographs (no date), and reports with correspondence, graphs, and maps (1945-2003). There are slides of oil well drilling sites in Canada, Europe, Israel, Pakistan. Philippine Islands, and Russia (1945-1981).

The Quran--The Toppan Rare Book Library holds several Qurans and prayer books dating from the 16th century. The library has several English translations of the original Arabic along with several in Arabic.

Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans regard as sacred – Originally published in 1829, Travels in Arabia, detailed John Lewis Burckhardt’s journeys through the Middle East. Burckhardt was a Swiss writer and traveler who included descriptions of the various cities, including Mecca, he visited and wrote about cultural practices in the 19th century. Burckhardt also wrote Travels in Nubia, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, and Arabic Proverbs, or the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. (Toppan Rare Books Library: Levy Collection,  DS207.B94 1968)

Mahomet and his Successors, Washington Irving, 1849 – This book offers a historical survey of the life of Muhammad and his successors through the 8th century.  The book is interesting in that Irving is writing about Islam from a mid-19th century perspective. (Toppan Rare Books Library: Spec Coll, Coe pre-1850, BP75.I7x 1849)

Outline of History, Herbert G. Wells, 1919 – A series of “magazines” that gave a brief overview of human history, starting from the prehistoric and ending at the First World War. Issues 13 and 14 are devoted to the history of the Middle East. Wells examined the history of the Middle East after the collapse of Rome, focusing primarily on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. Issue 14 examined the life of Muhammad, the spread of Islam, and the intellectual life of the caliphate. [Toppan Rare Books Library, Fitzhugh Collection, D21.W4 1919x]

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyan, illustrated by Edmund Dulac, 1920, English translation first published in 1839 by Edward Fitzgerald – A collection of poetical quatrains purported to be by Omar Khayyan, a medieval Persian polymath and astronomer. Khayyam wrote several mathematics texts, catalogued stars, and wrote poetry. In the 19th century, Edward Fitzgerald translated several of Khayyan’s Persian works including the Rubaiyat. The poems in this volume were loosely translated into English to keep meter and rhyme.  Fitzgerald’s translation of Khayyan’s work contributed to the work becoming very popular during the latter half of the century. (Toppan Rare Books Library: Knight Collection, PK6513.A1 1920z)

The Sacred Journey, Ahmad Kamal, 1961 – An explanatory and guidebook style work on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that is one of the “Five Pillars” of Islam. Also included is information on other pilgrimages including the journey to Jerusalem. The text is written in English and Arabic (Toppan Rare Books Library, Levy Collection, BP181.K3 1961)

LibGuide written by Marcus Holscher.

AHC’s Discover History Blog
University of Wyoming’s Afghanistan Mission, 1953 to 1973 by AHC Simpson Archivist Leslie Waggener

Navigating Botany Led by W.G. Solheim I by William D. Carlson Endowment Intern MaKayla Garnica

It’s About Dam Time! by Project Archivist Kathryn Brooks

Toppan Selection: James Atkinson, Esq., Sketches in Afghaunistan [London: Henry Graves & Co.], 1842 by Rare Books Curator Anne Marie Lane

International Connections at the American Heritage Center by former AHC Director Mark Greene, Rare Book Curator Anne Marie Lane, and Head of Reference Services Ginny Kilander