“How’s Crops, Dean?” is a 35mm film housed in the Tate Archives & Special Collections at the Ames Library of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. The entire film reel was digitized at Illinois Wesleyan University archivist Meg Miner’s request by Debenham Media Group in July 2007, and then converted into a mp4 file by Illinois Wesleyan University’s archives in September 2015.

Originally, the digital version of “How’s Crops, Dean?” contained four seconds of silence and blank screen before the newsreel and seventy-two seconds after the film ended. We also digitally trimmed the video so that viewers are presented with only the 1:40 of content. We have uploaded the trimmed mp4 video file on the fair-use media archive Critical Commons.

The archival citation for the original at the Tate Archives & Special Collections is:

Paramount Pictures, "How's Crops, Dean? Illinois Wesleyan University News Feature." Record Group 18-3/2/2: A/V Media, Tate Archives & Special Collections, The Ames Library, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois.

We have also gathered supplemental primary sources, including an image of the box that contains the film reel and articles from Illinois Wesleyan student and alumni publications from fall 1932. These images are cropped to show only the articles that pertain directly to the original source, at the request of and with permission from archivist Meg Miner. The full facsimiles are available for viewing in Illinois Wesleyan University's collection, and the information for finding those sources is provided in our bibliography.