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Picturing Michigan’s Past: Explore History Through Photo Postcards

Picturing Michigan’s Past: Explore History Through Photo Postcards

Post by Claire Danna, University of Michigan School of Information Joyce Bonk Assistant. Claire joins us for a two-year assistantship with the digitization team while completing a master's degree in Information Science at the U-M School of Information. One of Claire's first projects has been to scan the 60,000 postcards from the David V. Tinder collection of Michigan photography and develop materials for the Zooniverse crowdsourcing project.  *           *          * The William L. Clements...

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Minette: “A Mixed-Race Lead Actress on the Baltimore Stage, 1796” Revisited

Minette: “A Mixed-Race Lead Actress on the Baltimore Stage, 1796” Revisited

One of the Clements Library's objectives for its blog is to create additional ways for scholars to take notice of collections relevant to their research. We describe acquisitions, archives, resources, highlights, and out-of-the-ordinary items to draw attention to materials that might not otherwise be found through our finding aids and catalog records. Scholars frequently have a knowledge base that helps us better understand the collections that we care for, and in some cases, we connect with...

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“Notions of Freedom”: Slavery and Escape in the Southeastern Caribbean

“Notions of Freedom”: Slavery and Escape in the Southeastern Caribbean

Guest post by Patrick T. Barker, Clements Library 2019 Price Fellow. An earlier version of this post was published on April 7, 2020; it has been retitled and expanded with additional material.   During the early 1770s fugitives from slavery fled by sea from the then-British Caribbean colony of Carriacou, an island a short sail from Grenada in the southeastern Caribbean. The fugitives, wrote the British Windward Islands’ governor William Leybourne in 1773, “escape from us in boats to some...

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Applications Open for a New Transatlantic Fellowship in 2022-2023

Applications Open for a New Transatlantic Fellowship in 2022-2023

The Clements Library is pleased to announce the launch of a new research funding opportunity for 2022-2023. In partnership with the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL), the William L. Clements Library will offer a Transatlantic Fellowship designed to support at least four weeks of research between both the British Library and the Clements Library, with at least one week of research time at each institution. The award will be $5,000 USD (paid via the ATBL) and is meant to be applied...

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A Q&A with Clements Librarian for Instruction & Engagement, Maggie Vanderford

A Q&A with Clements Librarian for Instruction & Engagement, Maggie Vanderford

In September 2021, Maggie Vanderford joined the University of Michigan community as the Librarian for Instruction & Engagement at the Clements Library. Maggie comes to Michigan from UCLA, where she is finishing her Ph.D. in English and worked at the William Andrews Clark Library in instruction, outreach, engagement, and research services. Before moving to UCLA, Maggie received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Creighton University and her Master of Arts degree in English from the University...

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Clements Library acquires rare hand-drawn map of Detroit from 1761, pursues crowdfunding

Clements Library acquires rare hand-drawn map of Detroit from 1761, pursues crowdfunding

The last time the general public had the opportunity to see the “Plan of the Fort at De Troit” was in 1967 when it was offered for sale at Sotheby’s. Now it will be part of the University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library collection. Not knowing to whom the original was sold back then, former Clements curator Brian Dunnigan studied the photo included in the Sotheby’s auction catalog to write about this hand-drawn map for his book Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit. “This map...

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New Graphics Finding Aids: Fall 2021

New Graphics Finding Aids: Fall 2021

The Clements Library is pleased to announce that the following collections in our Graphics Division are now described online and may be requested for use in the reading room.  The Clements Library is now open for research by appointment. Learn more at clements.umich.edu/coronavirus. All researchers are encouraged to contact Clements Library staff for guidance on how to complete their research with both digital and physical materials. Please contact us with any questions about your research....

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Joseph Cabay, or Kewakezhig: A Home in the Skies

Joseph Cabay, or Kewakezhig: A Home in the Skies

The Clements Library is thrilled to have recently acquired a mid-19th-century calling card for a Saginaw Band Ojibwa man named Joseph Cabay which will be a welcome addition to the Native American History Collection. Born around 1837 in Saganing, Michigan, to Ca-ba-o-sau-dung/Elliot Cabay (a son of Chief O-ta-was) and Pedah-bore-no-qua, Joseph was living at 5 Tremont St., Boston at the time this calling card was produced. Like many Native Americans of his day and age, Joseph had to navigate...

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Clements Library invites applicants for 2022-23 Research Fellowships

Clements Library invites applicants for 2022-23 Research Fellowships

The William L. Clements Library collections exist to be used.Nothing makes the staff of the Clements Library happier than to see the Avenir Room full of researchers using the collections. At any given moment, the tables may host innovative work on topics as varied as gender in 18th-century Yucatan (the topic of Alfred A. Cave Fellow Samantha Davis’ project) to the spatial politics of sheet music (as exemplified by the project of Jacob M. Price Fellow Colin Anderson), just to name only two. We...

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The Digitized William Howe Orderly Book, 1776-1778, with notes on the Howe Papers and the many orderly books of General Howe

The Digitized William Howe Orderly Book, 1776-1778, with notes on the Howe Papers and the many orderly books of General Howe

The William L. Clements Library is pleased to announce the availability of a digitized version of the William Howe Orderly Book, 1776-1778. This volume of orders for the British Army under General Howe, covering around two years of the American Revolution, is a treasure of the Clements Library. The volume contains copies of orders dating from March 9, 1776, to May 1, 1778, reflecting the progress of the British Army under Howe from their embarkation at Portsmouth, England, through New York and...

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