New Manuscript Finding Aids: Spring 2024
The William L. Clements Library’s collections continue to grow, helping researchers and students study the rich and diverse American past. The collections described below touch on a wide range of topics, including spiritualism, crime, children and education, business, military and international affairs, and book trades and print culture. Read more to see what catches your interest! Edward C. Randall papers, 1922-1935 (majority within 1904-1935) The Edward C. Randall papers are largely...
Panting After History
By Jonathan Beecher Field In the fall of 2023, I had the privilege of being the Laramy Fellow in American Visual Culture at the Clements Library to pursue my interest in their extensive 19th-century ephemera holdings. My research trip to the Clements was part of a book project titled The Objects of Settler Innocence, which argues that a constellation of physical objects — road signs, historical monuments, cartoons, pinups, sexy Pilgrim costumes, and Thanksgiving-specific salt shakers, work to...
New Manuscript Finding Aids: Winter 2024
The Manuscripts Division of the William L. Clements Library is pleased to announce 27 new or substantially revised finding aids. With topics ranging from spiritualism to women’s service in World War II, these finding aids are a small reflection of the great depth of the holdings at the Clements that can support research and learning.James V. Mansfield Papers, 1844-1928 New addition processed and described by student intern Aleksandra Kole. The papers of spiritualist and writing medium James V....
Clements Library and Ann Arbor Public Schools Organize Workshop for Teachers
By Jamal Dillman-Hasso In mid-June the William L. Clements Library offered a pilot program in conjunction with the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) for middle and high school History teachers from across the district. The workshop was designed to help expand the scope of History curricula at the K-12 level to topics that are traditionally underemphasized. It also aimed to deepen the public-facing offerings and outreach of the Clements Library, showcasing the ways in which the Library’s...
Clements Library announces 2024-2025 Fellowships
The William L. Clements Library is pleased to share the list of fellowship awardees from the 2024-2025 cycle. Thanks to the support of generous donors, the Library was able to provide research funding for 33 projects spanning a diverse range of disciplines, topics, proposed outcomes, and methodologies. Several new opportunities enhanced the slate of fellowship offerings this year. For the first time, the Clements welcomed proposals from artists, poets, public historians, documentarians, and...
The “Quick & Unnatural Interludes” of Organist Benjamin Bowen
In the second week of February 2015, longtime Clements Library donor Dr. Duane Norman Diedrich shared a laugh with the Curator of Manuscripts. They had formally added a manuscript letter to the Diedrich collections, pertinent to a hired organist whose upbeat music transcended the solemnity of the congregation where he played in the 1830s. The late Dr. Diedrich was a patron of individual musicians, a lover of sacred and secular music alike, and a man whose eyes often twinkled with a contrarian...
A Q&A with Graduating Clements Intern, Aleksandra Kole
Aleksandra Kole is graduating from LSA with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science minoring in Moral and Political Philosophy. She has also been actively involved in LSA Student Government serving this past year as Treasurer. How did you find the internship at the Clements Library? The summer of my sophomore year, I searched for a job position to utilize my Political Science and Philosophy knowledge. I stumbled upon a processing archivist position for the William L. Clements Library,...
Celestial Reflections
It’s been said that witnessing an event born of the natural world makes poets of scientists and scientists of poets. Americans will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. Perhaps this will be your first? Maybe you are already an eclipse hunter and travel from place to place to witness these events. People have been tracking and predicting lunar and solar eclipses for thousands of years. While tracking the Sun’s movement in the sky is simple, the moon’s movements can be more...
Clements Library Acquires Rare American Edition of Phillis Wheatley Peters Poems, Pursues Crowdfunding
The University of Michigan William L. Clements Library has acquired one of the most important American books of the late eighteenth century–the first American edition of the earliest book of poetry published by an African American author. Phillis Wheatley Peters’ publication, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is currently on display at the Clements Library as part of the exhibit “The Art of Resistance in Early America.” Paul J. Erickson, the Randolph G. Adams Director of the...
A Q&A with Clements Graphic Curator, Sierra Laddusaw
In January 2024, Sierra Laddusaw joined the University of Michigan community as the Curator for Maps and Graphics at the Clements Library. Sierra comes to Michigan from University of Arkansas - Fort Smith where she was the Scholarly Communication Librarian. Previously she was at Texas A&M University, where she spent 14 years as a Library Specialist, Supervisor, Librarian, then Curator. Before moving to Michigan, Sierra received a Master of Library Science from Texas Woman's University, she...