Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey  Tags: chicago_history chicago newspapers history  

If you are trying to get a broad view of a topic, or are not sure of the words you should use, browsing the outline is your best bet.  This may bring you to information that you did not expect, and will require some patience.

1.  Examine the outline contained in the next tab, "Organization of CFLPS" and find a roman numeral outline level that you think might be intersting.  This might be  I. A) 1,  which is about attitudes towards education.

2.  Go to the CFLPS files in the Internet Archive by following this link.  You will see a screen that looks like this:

3.  If it is a language that has only one file, such as Chinese, you will open that file and search through the outline position typed in the upper left of each page.  Here is how it looks:

4.  If you are looking at a language that has many files, such as German, you will need to open a few of the files to see whether they contain the outline section you want.

Just as in any set of primary sources, users need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this selection. 

It is best at  telling us about the particular concerns of ethnic communities, what information was important to the U.S. Government, and the priorities of the Chicago school of sociology.  There is an emphasis on communities from Eastern and Southern Europe,  with less information about those from other parts of the world.

Researchers should also understand that the translations in CFLPS were done years or even decades after the publication of the original articles.  Translations, often done by people within the neighborhoods and groups that were described, may have been biased to reflect well on those communities.

Do you want to test out your search strategies?  The way to get to the digital files of the CFPLS is by clicking on this link.

A general introduction to the CFLPS can be found at this link.