Research Acknowledgements

Date Published: July 9, 2021
Date Modified: June 30, 2024

Ida M. Tarbell would be astonished with how easy research is today compared to a century ago: no horseback, no coach rides, no train excursions, and no canal boats—unless a researcher really, really goes out of their way to make it hard. The real problem today is too much data, not too little!

These are just a few of the sites used for this research. Pete tries to remember them as they contribute—either knowingly or unknowingly, paid access or freely accessible sites—to his research on IBM and Thomas J. Watson Sr.

Thank you!

​- Pete

 Research101: There Are Organizations that Want to Help.

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The University of Texas provides excellent resources for its alumni to utilize its college resources almost as if you were a current student. I spend countless hours in the Perry-Castañeda Library and Dolph Briscoe Center for American History researching, writing and scanning critical documents.

​It is an honor to be a Longhorn and Texas Alumnus.

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Tracing Thomas J. Watson Sr.'s history is quite difficult since IBM has never made his personal papers available to the general public. It is like searching for the proverbial needle in thousands of haystacks to find information between close associates. One of those close peers was James Cash Penney—better known today as J. C. Penney.

​The J. C. Penney Papers are stored at the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

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There is information here that I would have never found through any other resource. It is an amazing collection of old newspapers arranged and searchable in an amazing fashion. Since most of these are from the New York State area, they also include many articles about the early IBM, the Watsons and their associates.

Information can be accessed here: [Old Fulton Post Cards]

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HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. This has been an amazing resource for research on many topics.

​Access is provided to University of Texas Alumni as part of your support for the UT Austin Alumni Group.

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Isn't it amazing to have access to a site like Newspapers.com. The largest online newspaper archive consisting of 650 million+ pages of historical newspapers from 20,800+ newspapers from around the United States.

​Ida M. Tarbell would be astonished ... no horseback, no train rides to small towns, and no canal boats.

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Organized in 1852, the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) is the oldest denominational archives in the United States. … PHS exists to collect, preserve, and share the story of the American Presbyterian and Reformed experience with Presbyterians, the scholarly community, and the general public.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. was Christian, but quite active in many multi-denominational activities and recognized for these contributions with religious leadership roles.