![[Transcriptions]: A Clerk’s Harrowing Account of the 1880 U.S. Election, Madison County, Florida](https://clements.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/20241030_162448-1080x675.jpg)
[Transcriptions]: A Clerk’s Harrowing Account of the 1880 U.S. Election, Madison County, Florida
Read a letter written by John P. Varnum, a 26-year-old who tried to establish a political and legal career in Florida in the 1870s. During the 1880 U.S. election, Varnum collected and counted ballots in Madison County, Florida. In this harrowing letter to his wife Josephine, Varnum described crowds of African American men protecting him against violence, and coordinated efforts to suppress Black votes through deception, fraudulent voting, and attempted murder. He wrote about calls for recounts and ballots printed on different types of paper to allow blindfolded men to favor one party over the other for discarding.
Meet the 2024 Clements Student Employees!
Did you know that Theresa, one of our reading room supervisors, can say the alphabet forwards and backward in under 6 seconds? We didn’t either! Hailing from multiple colleges at UM and studying a variety of majors, all bring unique talents to the Clements. Read on to learn more about them and the work they do at the Clements.
Rewards of Merit
Remember those attendance awards in elementary school? Recognition of student achievement is nothing new. Graduate student assistant Annika Dekker writes about Rewards of Merit, awards given to students or young people to recognize and congratulate them on an achievement, usually academic. These awards started in the 1600s, and have continued today. Learn more about the Rewards of Merit housed here at the Clements Library!
2025-2026 William L. Clements Library Research Fellowships: Apply By January 15th!
The William L. Clements Library offers funded research fellowships for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, independent researchers, creative artists, and undergraduates who wish to visit the library’s world-class collections of early Americana. Any project that would benefit from in-person access to the Clements Library archives is eligible for consideration, and subjects can include Native American history and culture, the history of science, ephemera, and so much more!
New Manuscript Finding Aids: Summer 2024
Explore these 25 new finding aids published in the summer of 2024. The collection continues to grow in exciting ways, ranging from a visually rich archive of an inventor advertising and selling his wares to the case notes kept by a woman advocating for the care of children in Washington, D.C. Should anything prove relevant to your interests, don’t hesitate to plan a research visit or contact us to learn more.
Commercial Cartography
Buried within a small, leather-bound memorandum book that’s part of the Hudson’s Bay Company materials at the William L. Clements Library lies a two-page map, charted circa 1779 by John Thomas of London, depicting a consequential but nonexistent waterway connecting Lake Superior with Hudson’s Bay. The search for this fictitious waterway led to the aggressive expansion of the HBC. Read on to learn more.
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. This includes the diary of Achsa W. Sprague, Etna Bittenbender’s case statements, and various drawings and penmanship books from the 1800s. Read more to see what catches your interest!
Panting After History
Laramy Fellow Johnathon Beecher Field recounts his visit to the Clements last fall for research for his book, The Objects of Settler Innocence. In this book, he argues that “a constellation of physical objects… work to obscure the realities of settler colonialism for its present-day beneficiaries.” This includes settler kitsch – “the ubiquitous renderings of the Anglo-Indigenous encounter as something that is impossible to take seriously.”
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. This batch includes the papers of spiritualist James V. Mansfield, the Samuel and William Vernon Collection, and the J.B. Cooke Collection.
Clements Library and Ann Arbor Public Schools Organize Workshop for Teachers
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 and to deepen the public-facing offerings and outreach of the Clements Library.