Index to University records, 1636-1870 and Sibley's private journal, 1846-1882

Bertha Illsley Tolman, who was born on November 29, 1884, she began working in the Harvard University Bursar's Office in 1912, transferring to the University Archives (then in Widener Library) in July 1934. While at the Archives, she created a card index to the major series of University records, and some related historical materials, including the personal diary of Harvard Librarian John Langdon Sibley, and the correspondence of five Harvard presidents. The Tolman Index, informally named for its compiler, is an exhaustive name and subject index covering the records of Harvard University from its earliest days in 1636; the index coverage ends with the first year of President Eliot’s administration, in 1870. The index was digitized in 2012.